Project Overview
Charged with modernizing all of the state’s data systems affecting students, teachers, state initiatives, federal programs and the agency as a whole, EdWise’s founders were the pioneers behind designing a solution with the Ed-Fi ODS/API at its forefront to collect the individual data of 1.2 million students from 667 LEAs across Arizona, as well as consolidate and map 170 separate applications to their corresponding services.
The EdWise founders were the CTO and Architect behind that system, and for their efforts, Arizona Department of Education IT was named one to the “Top 100 Most Innovative IT Organizations” by CIO magazine for using Ed-Fi in a state-of-the-art manner.
Users Based On
Average Requests Per Day
1. API Serves
API serves approximately 2.5 million to 3 million average requests per day with an average response time of 150-200 millisecond per request.
Student Enrollments
2. Validation Engine
Supports
3. Web Portal
Web portal supports 500 users concurrently with average page load times of five seconds.
If you’re looking for an efficient and cost-strategy for your student data needs please contact EdWise today!
Arizona’s Student Data System
EdWise’s founders, Satish Pattisapu and Britto Augustine, first began working together at the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) in 2012. At the time, Satish was the CTO of ADE IT and Britto was the Solution Architect.
The two of them were charged with modernizing all the state’s data systems affecting students, teachers, state initiatives, federal programs and the agency as a whole.
During their career at ADE, they spearheaded the implementation of AzEDS, the state’s new student data system. Understanding the significance of Ed-Fi data standards and its interoperability, they were the pioneers behind designing a solution with the Ed-Fi ODS/API at its forefront to collect the individual data of 1.2 million students from 667 LEAs across Arizona, as well as consolidate and map 170 separate applications to their corresponding services.
The result was near real-time access to LEA student data that is high quality, accurate and auditable. The solution eliminated redundant legacy data collections, dramatically sped up the validation process from one week to a few hours, improved data quality for federal reporting, enabled data sharing with other state agencies and ultimately saved millions in taxpayer dollars due to reduced time of processing.
Pioneering Approach
The duo chose Microsoft Azure cloud platform to implement the solution, leveraging its scalable and flexible services so the system could be built to adapt to meet the current and future data collection and processing demands of the Arizona Department of Education (ADE). Since ADE will always need to adapt to changes in legislation, policy and leadership, it was important that the system be able to adjust to those demands. ADE partnered with 16 student information system (SIS) vendors in transforming their software to integrate with the API, sending their data in near real time from their respective SISs to the state.
ADE developed a customizable validation engine, web portal and several reports to complement the API so the LEA data administrators and ADE staff would have the means to review and verify the data submitted to the state. Not only did this make the validation process more efficient, but it also established trust in the system for the end users.
AzEDS officially launched in July 2016, allowing ADE to become the nation’s first-ever successful Ed-Fi ODS/API implementation at the level of a state education agency that utilized a cloud platform. But being a pioneer had its own set of challenges to gain the support and trust of SIS vendors and LEAs.
To inspire trust, the team conducted numerous vendor technical sessions on how to use the Ed-Fi API to gain the support of their development teams. In addition, ADE organized numerous focus groups with LEAs to obtain their input while developing the Level 2 business rules, verification and validation reports. This enabled LEAs to confidently adopt the new system and processes, leading to a smooth and successful transition.
Since its launch several years ago, the AzEDS system has successfully upgraded several Ed-Fi versions and added enhanced additional data collections, earning the honor of Gold Award Winner in 12th Annual IT Awards by Networks Guide for the Best IT Products & Services for Education.
Arizona P-EBT Cards
Besides designing custom-built solutions for enterprise systems, EdWise can also construct niche financial or reporting solutions and systems. When the pandemic struck and students began remote learning, nearly 600,000 Arizona students receiving free or reduced-price school meals were in danger of losing their access to those meals. However, EdWise’s founders were able to coordinate with the state’s Pandemic-Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program, an extension of EBT benefits, for additional food support.
By extending the state’s purposely flexible API using Ed-Fi’s data standards, Arizona agencies could now identify and locate student families eligible for P-EBT benefits and incorporate their info into the state’s data collection. The enhanced system also allowed the state to receive regular updates on eligibility changes for these families and those unable to pick up free meals.
As experts, data standard pioneers and renowned Ed-Fi speakers, EdWise has created the blueprint for assisting you with your education technology needs.
