In our quest to help networks better understand and improve their K12 school system's capabilities, we created the School Network Pledge. This pledge symbolizes secure access to student data, educates practitioners and families about student privacy, promotes equity, and ensures fiscal responsibility for edtech purchases. By signing this pledge, schools are signaling to other school networks, edtech vendors, and their community that they’re committed to helping students grow with interoperability.
To support edtech vendors in enhancing the use of educational data and improving teaching and learning practices for stronger student outcomes, we created the Edtech Vendor Interoperability Pledge. This pledge symbolizes the commitment to maximizing equitable access and availability through data interoperability. By signing the pledge, edtech vendors are signaling they are committed to enhancing their products' security, access, privacy, and interoperability. This enables educators, and families to be more involved in their student’s education, enhancing the effectiveness of their educational data. It also informs teaching and learning practices for stronger student outcomes.
A successful and modernized Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) should function as a dynamic tool empowering educators, principals, and decision-makers to directly impact student outcomes. Beyond the mere collection of data, the system must seamlessly transform information into actionable insights through intuitive dashboards. This evolution from data to information to knowledge to wisdom is crucial for informed decision-making at various educational levels.
Ready to uncover recommendations, resources, and success stories to enhance your journey to harness the full potential of SLDS (Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems)? Dive into Project Unicorns’s latest resource and learn how to use the strategy of federal funding braiding to secure federal funding sources and improve your implementation.
Stories from the Field, curated by Project Unicorn, provide a glimpse into the collaborative efforts between school systems and edtech solution providers, offering valuable insights into what's possible within an interoperable data ecosystem in education. These stories supplement the findings from the 2023 State of the Sector (SOTS) Report, offering a detailed analysis of K-12 school system capabilities related to education data, with input from 208 unique LEAs, Regional Education Service Agencies, and school systems. Explore Stories from the Field and the SOTS report to better understand the evolving landscape of education data.
The potential of cooperatives to build capacity for implementing Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) is vast. With the ability to foster interagency cooperation and strengthen the data ecosystem, this strategy presents an innovative approach. This resource provides suggestions and examples of incorporating cooperatives into your SLDS initiative. Learn about the key benefits, anticipate challenges, and explore recommendations for state leaders.
Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) can be crucial in education data management and data-driven decision-making. Some states have increasingly looked to make these connections to workforce development, such as California’s Cradle to Career system. These systems are designed to collect, store, analyze, and manage a wide range of data related to student performance, school information, demographics, and other relevant indicators in the education data curriculum. To ensure effective use and meaningful data analysis, interoperability is a key consideration in SLDS implementation.
As we work to provide physical infrastructure for our schools that is safe, healthy, and supportive for all students, the time has come to align resources towards creating a digital infrastructure that is equally safe, accessible, resilient, sustainable, and future-proof.
Protecting student data privacy is critical to implementing interoperable technology systems. Read this jump-start guide to learn about key education data privacy organizations and resources that support best practices in student data privacy during your interoperability journey.
To provide more insight and guidance into how edtech purchasing happens and consider how educators and leaders can work together to make more informed purchasing decisions, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and Project Unicorn have released Better Edtech Buying: A Practical Guide - Revised Edition.
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Why One Supports the Other: Data interoperability is a helpful component to building and maintaining quality software. Interoperability isn't a panacea, but making intentional and informed choices about implementing an interoperability standard contribute to better development practice, better privacy practice, and better security practice. Here are 5 ways interoperability, privacy, and security enhance each other.
Read MoreThis infographic illustrates that, when all the important people in their lives have appropriate access to information, individuals get the support they need to succeed.
Read MoreLearn about the benefits of signing the Project Unicorn pledge which includes joining a community of districts and vendors, access to other resources, scholarships, and technical support.
Read MoreLearn about the different organizations in K-12 that provide data standards to make Data Interoperability possible.
Read MoreLearn more about why Data Interoperability matters to schools.
Read MoreLearn more about why Data Interoperability matters for Vendors.
Read MoreSchool District Administrators: If you are just getting started with interoperability, use these first practical steps to begin.
Read MoreYour customers are demanding interoperability. As more and more school districts commit to procuring interoperable EdTech products and platforms, it's important for vendors to stay ahead of the curve.
Read MoreLearn more about the Project Unicorn initiative.
Read MoreParents: Heard the term “data interoperability” but don’t know what it means or how it relates to your child’s education? Check out this resource for more information!
Read MoreIn this resource, we show four tiers of interoperability illustrating how you can gradually save time and glean important insights from interoperable systems in your classroom.
Read MoreCheck out this resource from our partners at DQC to see how critical information is to supporting a student's unique path to graduation.
Read MoreOn behalf of the Data Quality Campaign, Harris Poll surveyed 914 US parents with children ages 5–17 about their attitudes toward data collection and data use in schools. This infographic displays key findings from the 2018 poll, demonstrating that parents value, trust, and rely upon publicly reported education data and individual data about their child to make important decisions to support their child’s educational success.
Read MoreThis infographic from the Data Quality Campaign shows how critical data is to personalizing education.
Read MorePrize data in the service of learning through measuring what matters, making data use possible, being transparent and earning trust, and protecting privacy.
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