Data Standards Overview

----Please Review Slide Notes---

Frank Walshfwalsh@amplify.comSolutions ArchitectConsulting Group

• About Me

• Overview of Expanding Marketplace

• Four-Layer Framework for Data Standards

• Academic Standards

• Data Standards

• Technical Standards

• Supporting Organizations

• How you can contribute...

Overview

29 - 21st Century Skills9 - Arts37 - Engineering87 - Language Arts41 - Language Learning135 - Math43 - Science27 - Social Studies

49 - Assessment22 - Classroom Efficiency24 - Classroom Management16 - Classroom Response System30 - Collaboration Tools34 - Curriculum Platforms12 - Grading and Attendance36 - Lesson Planning32 - Professional Learning21 - Presentation Tools21 - Special Education

28 - Communications Tools38 - Data Systems17 - Education Service Providers8 - Finances and Fees12 - Fundraising8 - Help Desk39 - Learning Management Systems8 - Networks and Hardware43 - Professional Development16 - Student Information Systems7 - Human Resources13 - Other

19 - Adult Basic Education29 - College Prep3 - Community College12 - Collaboration Tools11 - ePortfolios9 - Career Planning12 - Job Search40 - MOOCs and Courses5 - Online Proctoring6 - Student Coaching8 - Paying for College9 - Persistence and Retention30 - Test Prep11 - Textbook and Content Services17 - Other

10 - App Discovery25 - Apps for Children5 - Apps for Parents21 - Authoring Tools28 - Resource Discovery and Curation19 - Content Marketplace20 - Professional Skills17 - Digital Textbooks9 - Digital Storytelling58 - Games19 - Hardware for Education10 - Maker and DIY Tools46 - Sites and Resources10 - Social Learning36 - Student Study Tools24 - Tutoring16 - Video Instruction

1500 Complex Products!

K-12 BYOD?

Different Device Types & Hundreds of Manufacturers.

A data dictionary is a collection of descriptions of the data objects or items in a data model for the benefit of those who need to refer to them. A data dictionary is an agreed-upon set of clearly and consistently defined elements, definitions, and attributes. For example: Title: Birth Date; Definition: Day the individual was born; Format: day-month-year

Data Dictionary

A logical data model takes elements of a data dictionary and groups them to create entities. Where by the elements become properties assigned to an entity. It also provides definition of inter-entity relationships. For example: A student entity might include the properties name, birth date, gender, address, etc. A student could also have a many to many relationship with an entity of type Class, since a student could be part of multiple classes and each Class could have multiple students in it.

Logical Data Model

This is a concrete technical format by which entities may be stored and/or exchanged. The conversion of a Logical Data model to a specific serialization is NOT automatic. In many cases, data models are serialized to many formats to support data exchange with systems of different needs (e.g. speed of delivery, age and capability of system, security of data). For example: Two examples might be XML or JSON but there are custom serialization types which are also common.

Serialization

The infrastructure over which the serialized representations of Data Model Entities are accessed and exchanged. When it is standardized for a particular domain, the entire communication between applications is defined and out-of-the-box interoperability between conforming applications becomes possible. Protocol really contains many layers, hence the term “protocol stack.” For example: Typical layers include Messaging Framework (e.g. Publish/Subscribe, Request/Response, Create/Read/Update/Delete, REST, SOAP, Enterprise Service Bus), Transport (e.g. HTTP(S) or FTP) and Network (e.g. TCP/IP).

Protocol

● Hard to Export and Move Data● Can’t Mix and Match Vendor Products● Complications Picking Best Tools● Product Limitations Prevent Automation● Can’t Use Current Innovations● Changes Are Expensive

Signs That You Need A Standard

● Efficiency

● Expediency

● Integrity

● Scalability

● Reliability

● Availability

● Security

● Cost Effectiveness

Goals Of A Standard

There are many others which vary in content, purpose and design from state to state, most standard systems in the United States share a few common elements:

● Subject area● Learning progressions (grade level, grade span,

sequence)● Educational goals● Content

Goals of increasing/improving:

● Educational Consistency● Quality Control● Accountability● Prioritization● Pacing● Expectations● Coherence● Teaching● Equity● Resources

What is QTI?

QTI is the most widely used standard for marking up assessments, tests, and individual questions in XML short for Question and Test Interoperability (QTI).

QTI XML not only describes the static parts of questions, assessments, and tests (text, layout,order, and so on) but also their dynamic behavior—how, for instance, to behave when the user gives a wrong answer, when to provide certain feedback, and how to calculate the score. You can make this process as complicated as you like: QTI provides you with programming facilities to make it all happen.

What is APIP?

Built on existing standards that service providers can readily adopt, the APIP standard provides the technical framework required to modify or develop item authoring, item banking and test delivery systems so they can create and deliver items and tests that are—for the first time in our field —portable and highly accessible. APIP cover three critical areas:

● Content: The accessible content, which has supporting information for different kinds of accessibility needs

● PNP: The user Personal Needs and Preferences profile, which tells the delivery system what the needs are for specific users

● Delivery: The delivery system, which combines the user needs with the content to ensure the item is accessible for the student

APIP and QTI

Anatomy of a QTI Item

APIP and QTI

A <responseDeclaration> contains information about the answer (the response) to a question: When is it correct, and (optionally) how is it scored? A <responseDeclaration> is required for every separate question in the <itemBody>.

An <outcomeDeclaration> defines an internal variable—for instance, for returning the score to the environment or for controlling the feedback to the user.

The single <itemBody> element contains the text, markup, and questions for this item. Themarkup has a remarkable similarity with XHTML, but beware: Although you see familiarelements like <p> and <ul>, everything is in the QTI namespace (http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsqti_v2p1) and not in the XHTML namespace. The standard does not prescribe that you have to render it with a browser, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. So,consistent rendering is a major problem when exchanging content between different QTI processing engines

The <responseProcessing> section describes the actions to perform when the student is finished with the item. Its content is a simple programming language in which you can perform computations, set <outcomeDeclaration> variables, and more.

Finally, <modalFeedback> defines the item's feedback to the student (for instance, display "Welldone" when the answer is correct).

What standards is APIP based on?

APIP is based on three existing interoperability standards:

● QTI: The IMS Question & Test Interoperability Specification provides standard XML language for describing questions and tests. The specification has been produced to

allow the interoperability of content within assessment systems. QTI is well-established and has been used internationally for over a decade. APIP uses the newer 2.1

version of QTI.

● Access for All: The Access for All Personal Needs and Preferences (PNP) standard defines a common way for describing a student’s needs and preferences in a digital

environment. PNP allows an inclusive user experience by enabling the matching of the characteristics of learning resources to the needs and preferences of individual

students.

● Content Packaging: IMS Content Packaging (CP) is used to collate all of the QTI and accessibility information and to structure it in a convenient exchange format (once

collated, the package is exchanged as a zip file).

APIP and QTI

QTI and APIP

The CEDS team leveraged existing standards work done by the IMS Global Consortium (IMS) and SIF Association (SIF) communities and worked with both organizations to create the new assessment entities and elements. CEDS contains the domains, entities and elements for the data model only.AIF illustrates the relationship between the SIF and IMS APIP/QTI standards. How assessment data would move among the components of an assessment platform. The green arrows represent IMS, yellow arrows SIF and purple arrows a combination of SIF and IMS.

Assessment Interoperability Framework (AIF)

The National Education Data Model is a valuable P-20 data resource that provides a common framework and language for collecting, comparing, and using data to improve schools and answer important research and policy requirements.

Shared vocabulary for education data—that is, we need common education data standards. The Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) project is a national collaborative effort to develop voluntary, common data standards for a key set of education data elements to streamline the exchange, comparison, and understanding of data within and across P-20W institutions and sectors.

The CEDS "standards" are comprised of several pieces of information that provide context for and describe data items within CEDS:

● Domain● Entity● Categories● Element● Option Set● Related Topics● Alternative names and other notes● Technical Name● XML Schema

SIF is a data sharing open specification for academic institutions from kindergarten through workforce. SIF is a standard that lets high school applications securely share student data.

achievement calendar contactPerson contactRelationship crisisIncident facility Incident k12Course k12School k12Section k12Staff k12Student lea program sea

Student Information Framework (SIF)

Provide a Standard &Functional Code Base to storeand move data using that standard.

School Courses for the Exchange of Data (SCED) is a voluntary, common classification system for prior-to-secondary and secondary school courses. It includes elements and attributes that identify basic course information. This work includes the codes themselves as well as additional elements that provide context for the courses and a best practice guide for using the codes.

School Courses for the Exchange of Data (SCED)

The State Exchange of Education Data (SEED), formerly Southeastern Education Data Exchange, project will enable participating states to track, monitor, and share information for transfer students who cross state lines.This is a functional piece of software that allows participating states to:

● Provide basic student information for a newly registered student transferring from a participating state.● Identify students who transfer between participating states but may be reflected as drop-outs by their “home”

state. Participating states can more accurately reflect drop-out and graduation rates.Operated by Georgia DOE.

The State Exchange of Education Data (SEED),

● Metadata is data that describes other data. Meta is a prefix that in most information technology usages means

"an underlying definition or description."

a. Schema.org is a collaboration among the largest search engines to curate a collection of vocabularies

that can be used to add structured data to web pages and enhance web search results. Schema.org uses

microdata as the format to embed data using these vocabularies, but in theory other formats could be

used.

b. LRMI (Learning Resource Metadata Initiative) aims to establish a common metadata schema to identify

learning resources that will complement learning standards, for example those encoded in the

Achievement Standards Network, including Common Core State Standards for K12 (US), as well as all

other online learning vehicles.

c. RDFa is an extension to HTML5 that helps you markup things like People, Places, Events, Recipes and

Reviews. Search Engines and Web Services use this markup to generate better search listings and give

you better visibility on the Web, so that people can find your website more easily.

d. XMP facilitates embedding metadata in files using a subset of RDF. Most notably, XMP supports

embedding metadata in PDF and many image formats, though it is designed to support nearly any file

type.

Standards for Content Search and Description- LRMI/DCMI/Schema.org/RDFa/XMP

LRMI Example:

● The Learning Registry is an open source community project supported by US Depts of Education, Defense and States, nonprofits and corporations.

● The Learning Registry is a cloud-based Card Catalog.● The Learning Registry is not a destination or a website, it’s a shared resource.● LR is the 3x5 index card, LRMI is the format used for writing on the cards.● Designed to give you access to external resources that can populate or supplement your

product.● Designed to allow you to distribute your products to others via their consumption of the LR.

AICC HACP

AICC stands for Aviation Industry CBT Committee and primarily uses the HTTP AICC Communication Protocol (HACP) to facilitate communication between the course content and the learning management system (LMS). The HACP method uses an HTML form to send information to the LMS and the LMS sends information back to the course as a simple text string.

The method used to communicate between the course content and the LMS is referred as JavaScript Application Programming Interface (JS API). JS API is a set of functions defined on the LMS that a developer can call, using JavaScript, to pass information to and retrieve information from the LMS.

SCORM - Sharable Content Object Reference Model

Common Cartridge

The Common Cartridge defines a new package interchange format for learning content, able to run on any compliant LMS platform. Version 1.0 supports the following features:

● Rich content

○ html, xml

○ web links

○ media files (e.g., mpg, jpg, mp3)

○ application files (e.g., Microsoft Office)

● Integrated assessments

○ Multiple choice (single or multiple response)

○ True/false

○ Essay

○ Simple fill in the blank

○ Pattern match

● Discussion forums

● Metadata – both descriptive metadata for

cartridges and roles-based for resources

● Authorization for protected content

RESTful Web Service that allows for statements of experience (typically learning experiences) to be delivered to and stored securely in a Learning Record Store.

● SOAP, originally an acronym for Simple Object Access protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of web services in computer networks. It uses XML Information Set for its message format, and relies on other application layer protocols, most notably Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), for message negotiation and transmission.

● Representational State Transfer (REST) is a software architecture style consisting of guidelines and best practices for

creating scalable web services.[1][2] REST is a coordinated set of constraints applied to the design of components in a

distributed hypermedia system that can lead to a more performant and maintainable architecture.[3] REST has gained

widespread acceptance across the Web[citation needed] as a simpler alternative to SOAP and WSDL-based Web services.

RESTful systems typically, but not always, communicate over the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with the same HTTP verbs

(GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.) used by web browsers to retrieve web pages and send data to remote servers.[3]

SOAP/REST/JSON/XML

● JSON (/ˈdʒeɪsən/ JAY-sən),[1] or JavaScript Object Notation, is an open standard format that uses human-readable text to

transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web

application, as an alternative to XML. Although originally derived from the JavaScript scripting language, JSON is a

language-independent data format. Code for parsing and generating JSON data is readily available in many

programming languages.

● Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format

which is both human-readable and machine-readable. It is defined by the W3C's XML 1.0 Specification[2] and by several

other related specifications,[3] all of which are free open standards.[4]

SOAP/REST/JSON/XML

An enterprise service bus (ESB) is a software architecture model used for designing and

implementing communication between mutually interacting software applications in a

service-oriented architecture (SOA). As a software architectural model for distributed

computing it is a specialty variant of the more general client server model and promotes agility

and flexibility with regard to communication between applications.

The prime duties of an ESB are:

● Monitor and control routing of message exchange between services

● Resolve contention between communicating service components

● Control deployment and versioning of services

● Marshal use of redundant services

● Cater for commodity services like event handling, data transformation and

mapping, message and event queuing and sequencing, security or

exception handling, protocol conversion and enforcing proper quality of

communication service

SOAP/REST/JSON/ESB

● IMS Global - QTI, APIP, LTI, CC● Ed-Fi Alliance● SIF Association - SIF, AIF● LR Workgroup● LRMI Workgroup● The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA)● National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) - NEDM,

Organizations Supporting Standards - You Can Participate!

Thank You!!