Although we ended up building an ODS and creating dashboard designs, that isn’t where we started. One of our early goals was to simply increase our knowledge and understanding of challenges different members of our district were facing when it came to data, and how we could help. We started with the 6,749 foot view (the elevation of the city where our district office resides) of ideas that potentially could be part of this tool.
First, we met with the administration team to discuss the potential of an all encompassing dashboard. We didn’t just meet with people working on curriculum: we talked to our CFO, our director of transportation, etc. We then mapped out all the different systems that were being used by the district. Even though we knew we’d have to narrow our focus later, we recognized the need to involve as many people as we could during the initial research phase. We wanted to give everyone time to dream a little: what if there was a visualization tool that would allow our district staff to see all the pieces of the district puzzle in one place?
Pointers:
1. Meet with as many different types of stakeholders as you can. The person in charge of transportation for your district will have very different ideas than your curriculum director or your CFO.
2. Try to map out all the different systems being used by your district and look for patterns.
3. Don’t be afraid to dream big. You can always scale down later.
We started this project unsure of what we actually wanted to build, and ended up speaking to a lot of different stakeholders: the superintendent, the CFO, curriculum directors, administrators, and even the transportation director. There were a lot of great ideas and opinions shared, but we eventually realized we needed to narrow our focus on the end users of this product: teachers and students.
The teachers in our district really helped us understand what they needed: what data they are collecting, how they are using it, and what would be most useful to visualize. At the conclusion of a focus group meeting, teachers reached consensus on a single needs statement: “I need a dashboard that will help me be efficient when I am communicating evidence of growth to students.” What we really loved about this statement is how focused it was on students. As a district, we want our students to own their learning and to be responsible for understanding and reacting to their own data.
Pointers:
1. Listen to teachers to find out what their needs are. They know what they need better than anyone else.
2. Ask the right questions. How are they using the data? How are they collecting the data? What data are they using?
3. Have teachers share their data and various ways of collecting it with you. Visit a classroom or two to see how data is being used. This way you will not only hear but will also see what they are describing, allowing for a better understanding of their needs.
We built a team that included individuals from the district, building, and classroom levels to help better understand the needs and potential of what this tool could look like. However, despite all of the experiences of this team, there was still a lot of new information and knowledge we needed to acquire. A lot of times, districts will reinvent the wheel – and we didn’t want to do that.
We started by reaching out to Ed-Fi experts, and they helped us develop a better understanding of what data interoperability was, how we could build an ODS, and what the options for creating data dashboards were. We ended up realizing that it would be far more efficient to work with an external technology firm instead of building our ODS in house. During this process, we learned some valuable lessons about involving experts early: we started out going one direction and had to adjust our plans as we learned more about what this work actually would involve.
Pointers:
1. Know what you don’t know, and find someone who does know. There are organizations (like the Ed-Fi Alliance) who focus on this problem full time and have a lot of experience with it.
2. If you don’t have the capacity to build some of these solutions in house, don’t force it. We were able to connect with the company who set up our state’s ODS and saved time and headache by soliciting their help.
3. Be prepared to listen to the experts and adjust your plans as needed. We started going one direction and ended up taking a detour along the way. This was a valuable learning experience.
We knew going in that this would take a lot of time and resources, but there were still a few surprises along the way. Once we made the decision to develop an ODS, we had to determine where it would reside: in our own data center or external cloud computing services. We had to consider not just the annual costs, but also the time costs associated with this deployment and the in-district technical expertise we were able to leverage.
After setting up the ODS within the district, we worked very closely with our student information system (SIS) vendor to start pulling in data. However, one of the things we learned was that not all of the data we wanted could be integrated right away. Our SIS vendor was integration-ready for data like student demographics, attendance, and end of semester data – but not all of the gradebook data. We learned that there were additional fees we didn’t expect as well as customizations we needed to build. Most importantly, we learned that the best way to move forward on this challenge was to build a good relationship with our vendor and collaborate. This collaboration extended beyond just our SIS vendor. We started reaching out to other digital vendors we were using, asking if they were Ed-Fi certified, and sharing resources from Project Unicorn’s Vendor page.
We still have a lot more work to do, but we’re learning that collaboration is key to managing the time and resources we dedicate to this challenge.
Pointers:
1. Dig deeply to search for hidden or unexpected costs for hosting your ODS or integrating new applications.
2. Reach out to your vendors and build positive relationships with them. Chances are, they’re trying to solve these problems as well.
Innovation Portfolios
Measures
