STEVENS POINT, WIS (May 28, 2015) – Skyward, an industry-leading K-12 school administrative software provider, has broadened the use of the Ed-Fi Data Standard in a move that dramatically improves data interoperability between districts and state agencies.
Unifying, standardizing and organizing data is a major challenge for many education agencies. Because each state agency typically creates its own regulations, SIS vendors are required to develop one-off approaches to meet the customization of local data-reporting requirements. Due to the complexity associated with making these adjustments and supporting ongoing changes in data needs by the agencies, school districts generally also have to commit additional resources to maintain compliance.
Technology from the Ed-Fi Alliance is designed to facilitate secure data exchange among multiple K-12 data systems in use at the school, district and state education levels. By playing an active role in the Ed-Fi community that is growing rapidly across the United States, Skyward is broadening support for the Ed-Fi Data Standard to its customers. As a result, districts will save time and money while providing improved data submission to state agencies.
“Our customers continually praise Skyward’s expertise in supporting state compliance requirements and we see technology from the Ed-Fi Alliance as an approach that improves data accuracy and reduces the time needed to meet state compliance requirements,” said Ray Ackerlund, vice president of sales and marketing at Skyward. “The data interoperability and re-purposing of data allows our customers to capitalize on efforts from other states that have already aligned with the Ed-Fi Data Standard.”
Along with reducing time and costs to meet state requirements, the utilization of the Ed-Fi Data Standard by Skyward addresses data integration and reporting challenges many school districts currently face. Skyward customers using Ed-Fi technology experienced improved data accuracy, increased interoperability between systems, timely reporting submissions and more control at the local level, among other benefits.
“Ed-Fi technology unlocks the potential of data being used by states and school districts,” said Troy Wheeler, president of the Ed-Fi Alliance. Skyward’s acclaimed software is built from industry-proven technology and empowers its customers by helping districts organize and analyze their data in a more efficient and cost- effective manner, benefiting administrators, educators and ultimately students.”
The widely adopted CEDS-aligned Ed-Fi Data Standard serves as the foundation for enabling interoperability among secure education data systems designed to improve student achievement and teacher satisfaction. Technology components of the Ed-Fi implementation Suite build from the Data Standard and incorporate community input and field-tested solutions to provide technology that is already developed and freely available to the ed tech sector. This enables education agencies to connect and maintain secure data systems more easily and cost effectively.
This approach empowers educators with relevant, timely, student-centric information and enables better data collection and reporting to improve decision making, facilitate targeted action plans and drive higher student outcomes. Twenty-four states, including Tennessee, covering 10,000 districts have now adopted the CEDS- aligned Ed-Fi Data Standard, and various technical components of the Ed-Fi Implementation Suite.
For more information visit www.skyward.com/edficommunity.
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