Joining Forces to Drive Innovation in Educational Data Interoperability
Washington, D.C. – October 23, 2024 – At the PESC October Data Summit on October 16, 2024, the Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community and the Postsecondary Education Standards Council (PESC) announced the creation of a joint venture to facilitate their work together. This is a major step forward for the education standards communities, with two standards bodies taking the first step towards formalizing their collaboration through the creation of an agreement in the form of a joint venture.
This agreement will enable the standards bodies to collaborate in a safe space on common projects. It will allow the organizations to share resources and work more efficiently together without requiring additional legal or contractual agreements. The structure provided by the joint venture will enable the collaborative work to flourish and enhance the traditional efforts of the organizations. This initiative is anticipated to serve as a model for additional standards bodies to join and further streamline the PK20W standards landscape.
“The creation and adoption of data standards and protocols are central to orchestrating how the P20W ecosystem can scale to serve the objectives of our key constituents. We look forward to a long-term relationship that stimulates insights, infrastructure, and innovations to increase collaboration, reduce costs, streamline data access, enhance privacy and security, and improve interoperability.”
– David Moldoff, Board Chair, PESC
“A4L has a long track record of standing up the SIF architecture and expanding technologies to support privacy and security commitments. The EdTech community is composed of thousands of members. A4L is well-positioned to broaden the platform to reinforce the benefits of implementing data standards through our collaboration.”
– Steve Smith, Executive Director, A4L Community
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ABOUT A4L COMMUNITY:
Started in 1997 by vendors and schools collaborating, the SIF Association – now the Access 4 Learning Community – is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of more than 3,000 schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants who collectively address all aspects of information management and access to support learning. The A4L Community supports these educational stakeholders in establishing common expectations in the “connecting and securing effective learning ecosystems” regardless of the platform hosting those applications to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For more information, please visit www.a4l.org.
ABOUT PESC:
Since 1997, PESC Members have come together to identify, research, develop and promote the adoption of interoperable data standards and methods across the postsecondary education P20W ecosystem. Our work includes the development and reuse of common data schemas leveraging XML, EDI, JSON and JSON-LD. PESC advocates for the widespread adoption of automated connections that enhance data efficiency. These connections ensure secure and repeatable interchange across specialized administrative, financial, and academic domains. PESC is annually sponsored by AcademyOne, National Student Clearinghouse, Parchment, EducationPlannerBC, AACRAO, and ECE. For more information, please visit www.PESC.org.
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