Speakers:

• Heidi Leming, PhD | Vice Chancellor for Student Success and Strategic Partnerships,
  Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR)
• Dave Wengel | Founder & CEO, iDatafy
• Kimberly Wilson Linson | Product Leader of Talent, Level Data

Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) began the development of a Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) in 2018. Now with funding from the State of Tennessee, the System will deliver a Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) and Digital Credential Wallet for TBR, their 37 member colleges, and their 100,000 students beginning with the fall 2025 graduating class. The TBR college system is able to push CLRs to their own digital credential wallet, TBR Cred, and selectively share their digital credentials, micro credentials, badges, and proof of learning with educational entities and employers. This project also takes advantage of a partnership with SmartResume to enable issuing the learners credentials in a human readable digitally linked resume to tell their story. This is a story of a complete learner credential ecosystem from system awarding achievements to learners using them for employment and educational opportunities!

Speaker:

• Anne Valentine | Founder & CEO, DegreeData

This session offers a practical look at how new AI technology is being deployed to improve student outcomes and manage costs in higher education.

Drawing on insights from DegreeData’s experience using AI to parse and maintain comprehensive course and program data across U.S. institutions, CEO Anne Valentine will share candid lessons learned. Attendees will explore real-world success factors, common pitfalls, and specific strategies to avoid cost increases as the EdTech market continues to consolidate. Learn what truly works and what obstacles remain in leveraging AI for data development.

Speakers:

• Ben Harper | Solutions Architect, Ontario College Application Service (OCAS) (via pre-recorded video)
• Doug Holmes | Manager – eTranscripts, Ontario Universities’ Application Centre (OUAC) | Chair, CanPESC

Many institutions struggle with the complexities and manual effort required to manage and exchange academic documents. This session is designed to answer the fundamental question: What is the Common Digital Layout (CDL), and why is it essential for the efficient processing of education data exchange?

The CDL is a comprehensive, non-proprietary framework developed to standardize the presentation layer and digital structure of academic credentials (such as the high school and college transcript). It ensures that while the source data remains unique, the way it is structured and rendered for human recipients is uniform, consistent, and digitally accessible.

Speakers:

• Alex Jackl | CEO & Founder, Bardic Systems | Chair, Data Standards United (DSU) | Board Member, PESC
• Marten Roorda | Senior Advisor & Liaison, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | Chief Strategy Officer, Education Data Unlimited (EDU)

The landscape of data standards can be confusing, with no clear path to the “right” solution. To help navigate this challenge, Data Standards United (DSU), in partnership with its members and several foundations, is launching a new Standards Library in 2026. Join Alex Jackl of DSU and Marten Roorda of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for this interactive working session to help build a standards discovery interface. They will be discussing the best approaches for finding and accessing standards, and will gather your input on what features are most critical to include in the Library. This is your chance to contribute to a project that will simplify standards discovery across the entire PK20W+ spectrum.

The Standards Library continued – A working session.

Speakers:

• Matt Bemis | Sr. Associate Registrar, University of Southern CA | Co-Chair, GEO Code User Group
• Doug Holmes | Manager – eTranscripts, Ontario Universities’ Application Centre (OUAC) | Chair, CanPESC User Group
• John Lovell | Technology Director, A4L Community

In this streamlined, rapid-fire session, leaders from the CanPESC (Canadian PESC User Group), GEO Code (Global Education Organization Code), and JSON-LD Transcript (JSON for Linked Data Transcript) initiatives will deliver concise presentations covering the strategic context, current development status, and actionable opportunities for implementation.

This high-energy format ensures attendees quickly grasp the value proposition of each project, understand how PESC supports its advancement, and learn how to get involved and leverage these vital data standards immediately.

Speaker:

• Duane Brown | Senior Business Analyst, AEM Corp | Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) Representative

The Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) community continues to advance the power of interoperability, transparency, and alignment across the education landscape. With the release of CEDS v13 and its expanded ontology, we are entering an exciting new phase that strengthens connections across P–20W, enhances reporting capacity, and builds a foundation for the future of education data.

This session will provide the PESC community with an update on the v13 ontology release, highlight its growing role in linking CEDS to federal reporting requirements, and explore how these developments help institutions and states streamline data collection, ensure consistency, and reduce reporting burdens. We will also look ahead to the future evolution of CEDS and the ontology, including opportunities to extend their use across federal and state initiatives.

Finally, we will discuss how these advances enable CEDS and the Open Source Community to support preparation for the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS), demonstrating how CEDS provides a ready framework for institutions as they respond to new transparency and reporting expectations.

Speakers:

• Alex Jackl | CEO & Founder, Bardic Systems | Chair, Data Standards United (DSU) | Board Member, PESC
• Marten Roorda | Senior Advisor & Liaison, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | Chief Strategy Officer, Education Data Unlimited (EDU)
• Greg Nadeau | BD Manager | Public Consulting Group (PCG)

In this session, we will explore how standards bodies and implementers can navigate the varied forces of change sweeping through the learning and workforce ecosystems. We will examine what PESC and its partners are doing to make these vectors as standardized as possible, while also making solutions and standards in these areas discoverable and usable in reality.

The speakers will share the strategic approaches being taken in 2026. They will then lead an open conversation to gather ideas and directions from Data Summit participants to see how organizations would be most interested in impacting the direction of these initiatives.

Speaker:

• Steve Smith | Executive Director, Access 4 Learning Community

The growth of the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) has been exponential over the past few years. The SDPC now has 34 state Alliances representing over 7,000 participating school districts. The A4L/SDPC community is a very active community with ongoing projects including the development of a new Resource Registry, vendor and school on line privacy training, Global Education Security Standard implementation and ongoing National Data Privacy Agreement refinement. This session will provide an update on all these activities as well as opportunities for institutions in the postsecondary space to get involved.

Speaker:

• Melanie Gottlieb| Executive Director, American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO)

Student Information Systems (SISs), once primarily transactional, must now evolve into strategic enablers that prioritize the learner experience, advance interoperability, and drive institutional innovation. This joint breakout session, held in conjunction with AACRAO’s Enabling Learning Mobility virtual convening, brings together education and technology leaders to explore how SIS and learning and employment record (LER) ecosystems can align to support seamless data exchange, credential verification, and learner mobility. The session will highlight collaborative initiatives, emerging frameworks, and practical strategies to advance scalable, connected, and learner-centered systems.  .