SPEAKER:

• David K. Moldoff, CEO & Founder, AcademyOne Inc.

What if a learner could ask an AI assistant, “What programs could help me reach my goal?” and get information drawn from multiple trusted systems without having to navigate each one separately?

Today, learners often have to move across institutional websites, academic catalogs, transfer databases, credential registries, workforce platforms, and application portals to find the information they need. This session explores how that experience may be changing as AI assistants become a new way for learners to discover, compare, and access information and services.

Participants will see a demonstration from the learner’s point of view, moving from an initial question to program discovery, comparison, career alignment, prior learning and transfer exploration, and an informed next step. The demonstration will also reveal what is happening behind the conversation, including structured and linked data, independently governed services, and open interoperability standards.

The session will introduce the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and MCP Apps as an emerging approach for AI assistants to discover and use external data, tools, and services. CourseShelf, KSAWorks GoldSeam, EDUcore, and other emerging MCP services will be used as working examples.

The session will also consider questions around provenance, consent, privacy, security, trust, governance, sustainability, and institutional authority, including how AI can connect authoritative services without obscuring who owns the information, who made a decision, or where responsibility resides.idering now as the sector moves from interoperability to intelligence.

SPEAKERS:

• Jim Kelly, Principal, Jim Kelly Technologies
• John Lovell, Technology Director, A4L Community
• Rick Skeel, Chair, PESC JSON-LD Transcript Workgroup; Retired Registrar, University of Oklahoma

PESC’s JSON-LD Transcript Workgroup is reaching an important milestone. Join us for a first look at the PESC College Transcript JSON-LD Working Draft, where we will explore how the familiar transcript model is being reimagined for modern, web-native data exchange using JSON Schema, linked data, and shared education vocabularies. This will kick-off the PESC community’s first opportunity to see the work in its final form, examine the design choices, and help identify necessary changes before the draft moves forward.

Matt Pittinsky, Ph.D., a warm and familiar presence in the PESC community, joins us at the October 2026 Data Summit as Keynote Speaker.  As Co-Founder of Blackboard and Incoming CEO, Dr. Pittinsky has a unique perspective on technology, standards, and how systems have morphed in the never-ending attempt for improvement.

Based on his most recent essay, Mark Hopkins’ Log AI, Higher Education, and the Extraordinary Potential of an Ordinary Technology, he ties together a series of ideas about how AI technologies are likely to reshape the LMS in ways that are more aligned with the core values and goals of higher education than is popularly assumed.

In considering the 3 L’s of the LMS – organizing itself around the Learner, actively supporting the activities of Learning, and holding a verifiable record of what was Learned – Dr. Pittinsky will discuss in detail the pros and cons of our collective approach to systems and how to strive for that perfect system.

SPEAKERS:

• ALEX JACKL Chair, Data Standards United (DSU); Founder & CEO, Bardic Systems
• JASON A. TYSZKO, Senior Vice President, U.S. Chamber Foundation

The New Data Paradigm, launched by the U.S. Chamber Foundation’s T3 Innovation Network, reimagines education and workforce data. Through a vision for a national network of single and multistate public-private data utilities, this effort seeks to empower learners and workers with secure access to their records while improving system connections for compliance reporting, analytics and program integrity.

The U.S. Chamber Foundation, working with partners across education, government, and business, will advance this project through pilots, prototypes, and consensus-building — laying the groundwork for a new era of data-driven opportunity.

SPEAKER:

• DOUG HOLMES, Manager – eTranscripts, Ontario Universities’ Application Centre (OUAC)

PESC data standards are quietly powering a huge part of the higher education journey north of the 49th parallel: from applications to admissions to transfers.

Across Canada, colleges & universities, secondary schools & boards, provincial data hubs & governments, sector organizations, and our national pan-Canadian document exchange system have been using PESC standards to move data securely and efficiently for years. Some have been at it since the early days of the standards, way back in the last century!

But moving data is only the beginning. What about the end-result? What efficiency gains have emerged? Which downstream systems and processes are becoming smarter because data can move electronically, securely, and in a standardized format? And what happens on the other side of the exchange – for the people processing applications, managing records, making decisions, and, ultimately, for learners themselves?

Once data travels securely down the internet highway from sender to recipient, the real story is only beginning. Join us in exploring Canadian higher education’s journey from interoperability to intelligence.

SPEAKERS:

• TBA

As education and workforce systems become increasingly connected, what do we need from standards to support what comes next? This interactive session will bring the community into the conversation about emerging needs across postsecondary education and the broader education and workforce ecosystem. Through discussion and small-group dialogue, attendees will explore new priorities, connections to workforce data, opportunities for standards, and where PESC can have the greatest impact.

SPEAKER:

• Marc Booker, Vice Provost of Strategy, University of Phoenix

In the higher education credentialing space, we have no shortage of acronyms, just as we have no shortage of ideas or solutions what needs to be done.  However, in a world being disrupted daily by changes that are actively altering the way we think about education we need to take a step back and consider our purpose and why.  In this candid conversation on the current state of credentialing we will explore what has and has not worked so far, and challenge expectations on where we should go next as a community to create value that generates real progress.

SPEAKERS:

• BASMA LAAMLAOUI, Customer Success Manager – Canada, Instructure
• JODI TAVARES, MA LSGB CPCL, Executive Director, ARUCC MyCreds | MesCertif

For years, education data interoperability has focused on an essential objective: enabling trusted information to move accurately, securely and consistently between institutions, systems and organizations. As artificial intelligence, automation and increasingly machine-actionable credentials reshape the education ecosystem, interoperability is no longer the destination. It is the foundation for what comes next.

But is interoperable data automatically ready for intelligence?

Drawing on the experience of MyCreds/MesCertif, Canada’s national digital credential network, and its technology partner, Instructure, this session will explore the shared responsibilities that emerge as trusted education data moves from exchange toward automated and AI-enabled use.

The presenters will examine the different but interconnected roles of institutions, sector-governed networks and technology providers in maintaining authoritative data, preserving standards and semantics, enabling interoperability, supporting responsible automation, and establishing the governance needed for emerging uses of education data.

The session will also consider a critical element that can easily disappear in increasingly technical conversations: every education record represents a person. A credential may become machine-readable, machine-verifiable and eventually machine-actionable, but its ultimate purpose remains human — enabling a learner to demonstrate what they know, what they have achieved and what they are qualified to do.

Using the partnership between MyCreds/MesCertif and Instructure as a practical lens, the session will explore where responsibility resides, where it overlaps, and what institutions and technology providers should be considering now as the sector moves from interoperability to intelligence.

SPEAKER:

• TBA

How do we make standards easier to discover, understand, and actually use? This session will explore how modern tools and infrastructure can transform the way we interact with education data standards—from navigating technical information and visualizing data models to connecting standards across the broader education ecosystem. Whether you build standards, implement them, or simply rely on the data they help move, see what becomes possible when standards are designed not just to be documented, but to be put to work.

SPEAKERS:

• ALEX JACKL Chair, Data Standards United (DSU); Founder & CEO, Bardic Systems
• GREG NADEAU, Convener, Ed3

Session details coming soon.

SPEAKERS:

• HILLARY HALPERN, PESC Program Committee Chair; Senior Director of Program Deployment, University of Phoenix
• ALEX JACKL PESC Board Member; Chair, Data Standards United (DSU); Founder & CEO, Bardic Systems
• DAVID K. MOLDOFF, PESC Board Chair; Founder & CEO, AcademyOne Inc.