March 2008 — Features
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Mix Master
Within SIFA, there's also a subcommunity called EdSTART (Educational Software and Technology Application Registry Tool). The EdSTART community focuses on, as the SIFA website puts it, "providing end users and vendors with accurate and up-to-date information on data initiatives, preK-12 software tools, and procurement opportunities for true 'solution sharing.'" The EdSTART community includes SIFA members and non-members. It offers listings of requests for proposals, school software vendors, and vendors' products.
Another sign that SIF has come of age: The association is accelerating its version-release timeline. "We've actually changed our processes because of the end users' demands," Fruth says. "They want a spec every six months, so we're shifting from our old schedule of releasing updates every year and a half to two years. Now we're turning out new versions every six months. That doesn't mean that someone has to build to that new version, but we want to be more receptive to what the end users need."
The SIF data model is large and expanding, Fruth says. The recent addition of organizational profiles to that model allows the set of data elements to be virtually as large as a school needs.
How widely implemented among American K-12 school districts is SIF today? Getting accurate statistics about the proliferation of the spec is almost as challenging as the data integration itself, Fruth quips, because vendors are notoriously closedmouthed when it comes to sharing their own data. "If it gives them a competitive advantage, they don't want to talk about it," he says.
However, according to SIFA's 2006-2007 activities report, district-level implementations of SIF-based solutions now number in the thousands. As of the publication of that report, five states are implementing the spec statewide. "We can say with confidence that we now have more than 9 million students and teachers utilizing some information coming from a SIF-enabled application," Fruth adds.
In fact, notes Dave Moravec, business development manager at Integrity Technology Solutions, SIF-based solutions have become what he calls "me-too" products.
"School districts need a certain comfort level," Moravec says. "They don't want to be a beta deployment of anything. Early adopters of SIF were really on the cutting edge. But now, because the SIF spec has grown into the SIF 2.0 standard, because more school districts are adopting it, and because it's becoming a standard across states, it has increased awareness. The more school districts that implement it, the more that say, 'If they can do it, then I guess we can too.'"
Bloomington, IL-based Integrity was selected by Champaign's Unit 4 to develop its new database management system. The company is a well-known provider of custom application development and integration solutions for schools. It's also a long-time member of SIFA (Moravec is the chairman of the membership and marketing committee) and offers a range of commercial, SIF-based products and support services. It is, in fact, a nationally recognized developer of SIF agents for K-12 software vendors.
