Oklahoma Receives First-Ever SIF Excellence Award

CPSI is pleased to congratulate the Oklahoma State Department of Education (The Wave) as the Outstanding SEA/Vertical Implementation SIF Excellence Award. This award is a culmination of the recognition deserved for the hard work, dedication and perseverance that the Oklahoma education community placed in a project that made a success of the SIF specification. It is also reflected in the creation and growth of a support network that encompasses CPSI as the contracting vendor, 13 participating student information system vendors and 540 state districts. The resulting effort is the largest SIF deployment in the country.

Michelle Elia, President of CPSI, adds that “Oklahoma is currently the only full state-wide SIF deployment. Other states maintain a mixture of file uploads and SIF communication. Oklahoma is unique in its commitment to SIF.”

The project started as a Legislative mandate with no funding provided to the local districts for implementation. Districts were expected to upgrade or acquire compliant student information systems. The initial phase of the Wave project included gathering specific data elements necessary to assign a unique identifier to each student and managing data change events including entry and exit requests. It required the support of five SIF specification data objects: LEAInfo, SchoolInfo, StudentPersonal, StudentContact, and StudentSchoolEnrollment. The five objects must be error free to obtain a Student Testing Number.

Out of the 25 student information systems currently SIF 2.x certified; 13 are used in Oklahoma. As part of a pilot project for organizational profiles, these student information system vendors have gone the extra mile by passing the Oklahoma profile test harness.

The state data system is based on CPSI’s solution, xDStudio State Enterprise Edition, a SIF-certified system that allows for a real time or nearly real time collection of data. Data collection rules and collections are centrally managed without any burden on the districts. In addition, data is validated and cleansed using the CPSI xDValidator toolset for Data Validation.

The Wave currently collects data in the form of 12 SIF data objects and is stored in an Operational Data Store (ODS). The ODS is based on the SIF data model and, by design, contains real time data from the districts. Data Validation is continuously run against the data in the ODS and the districts are notified of the validation errors. The Wave ODS has the capability of dynamically expanding the Data Object Model to include all the SIF specification data objects. The ODS also has the ability to expand and utilize the PESC XSD model to support Higher Education Data. This will allow the ODS to feed data to an LDS that spans K-20. The Wave UID system ensures that every student is assigned their proper STN and passes the STN back to the student information system via the SIF data model.

The Oklahoma Wave has realized some amazing gains in its short history, including:

• Availability of Real-Time Data. The new Longitudinal Data System (LDS) will provide web-based data reporting tools and business intelligence for each district. The Wave’s estimated ROI is $11,520,000 per year.
• A Student Transfer System. The new system to transfer students and statewide student testing numbers (STNs) saved the districts $12,250 in paper and postage. About 25,000 yearly on-line transfers have saved state staff 416 hours/10 weeks of yearly data entry – also increasing data quality, timeliness and accuracy.
• Accurate Data Turnaround for High Stakes Testing. Pre-coded student information (test labels) was previously provided by each district to the testing company several months before the test date – the Wave can now process the file from certified information received from each district.
• Better Data Quality. The Wave’s real-time data validation processes, require correction in the source data, has dramatically improved the quality of data statewide.

“We are pleased to be working with The Oklahoma Wave team. We have come a long way since the beginning,” says Aziz Elia, Chief Software Architect and CEO of CPSI. “Oklahoma has the first real time LDS based on an open standard, which allows the state and districts to flag students that are falling behind faster, and can even be used to predict outcomes and problems before they happen.”

About the Wave, Oklahoma Statewide Student Information System
The Wave is a state-of-the-art customized and secure electronic statewide student information system that can be utilized for eliminating duplication of reporting and accountability efforts, streamlining research and decision-making capabilities, and providing dynamic accurate and reliable information. The Wave was developed utilizing Schools Interoperability Framework technology for providing the State Department of Education a utility to accept data from diverse applications – allowing school districts to select software that best fit their business needs – while implementing quality data collection standards. The Wave operates in real-time, receiving and responding to electronic messages/data instantaneously. Implementation of the Wave will position Oklahoma in the forefront of the movement to bring education accountability in obtaining information regarding student enrollment, graduation, dropout, mobility, and a variety of student demographics. The Wave is for everyone. The Wave is the system of the future, implemented today. For more information, please visit http://www.sde.state.ok.us/theWave/default.html.