SLDS Grant Project

1. SLDS Grant Project State longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS)

2. SLDS Grant Award • US Department of Education • Federal Grant, $13.8 Million, three year grant - July 1, 2010 – June 30, 2013 • Grant funding provided by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), through the US Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences • Project Goal • Enhance Wisconsin’s ability to exchange student level data between K-12 public and post-secondary educational institutions.

3. Participants in SLDS Grant • Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is the administrator of the SLDS grant and provides reporting to the federal government for each sub-grant in the overall SLDS project • Grant is sub-granted among the three, post secondary participants • UW System – University of Wisconsin Schools • WAICU - Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities • WTCS – Wisconsin Technical College System • Each participant wrote a grant application to participate

4. Goals of SLDS Project • Accelerate data sharing and interoperability among state education agencies utilizing Wisconsin Student Number (WSN) • Create mapping of common data definitions between the participants in the SLDS project • Support AdHoc research requests from K-12 through post secondary without exposing student demographics and maintain compliance with Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) • Develop documentation , policies and procedures to inform and coordinate the data exchange between educational partners to ensure secure transfer

5. WTCS SLDS Project • WTCS applied for SDLS grant to: • Allow for the inclusion of WSN into WTCS data systems. • Modernize data architecture and reporting systems used at WTCS • Improve reporting capabilities • WTCS grant application was approved • Funding approved for WTCS project = $2.2 Million • Duration of Project- July 1, 2010 – June 30, 2013

6. Goals of WTCS SLDS Project • Consolidate redundant systems and data • Eliminate antiquated architecture and report generation systems • Develop data systems that support a single authoritative source for WTCS reporting data • Improve security • Enable granular control of data access through the use of security groups • Require access approval from designated Data Access Coordinators appointed by each District • Enhance reporting capabilities • Enable use of WSN and matching techniques to identify clients between systems

7. Goals of WTCS SLDS Project • Consolidate Redundant systems • Eliminate Multiple data storage methods • SQL server databases (about 40 databases) • SAS datasets (about 1100 data sets since 1994) • Consolidate data to single set of three databases • Ease development of new reports • Provide for archival of historic data • Use a high performance database engine instead of SAS datasets • Consolidate data processing • Consolidate preprocessing edits (over 300 edits currently identified) • Consolidate data feeds from multiple sources (DWD, National Clearinghouse, DPI) into a staging database for processing into data warehouse. • Multiple reporting systems and data storage methods currently employed • Text based reports – generated with SAS Business Analytics • XLS based reports – SQL server, Visual Basic Scripting, and Excel • Scorecard/QRPDS – Cognos Business Intelligence System

8. Goals of WTCS SLDS Project • Improve Security of systems and data • Use active directory groups and login accounts to manage access to systems and to data presented in reports • Move to granular permissions rather than all or none • Streamline process for gaining access and create policy for revoking access • Encrypt WSN and SSN fields within existing data as it is loaded to the warehouse • Eliminate presentation of any unique student identifying information from any report or view of the data • Conform to FERPA rules on sharing data between partners • Move detailed system documentation within non-public web site.

9. Goals of WTCS SLDS Project • Enhance Reporting Capabilities • Enable exchange of client data or report data based on WSN number • Transition to web based reports that can be downloaded in a variety of different formats • Consolidate the number of reports generated • Document report and user requirements • Identify and eliminated unused reports • Identify reports that no longer provide coverage across all districts(not all districts delivering data to report against) • Determine move forward strategy for reporting structure • Implement retention policies for both data and any specific reports generated for historical snapshots.

10. What can you expect as users? • Existing reporting systems will remain in place throughout project • Will be used as reference once new data warehouse and report generation systems are in place • New web based reports with options for downloading to PDF, TXT or XLS formats • Reports with “Drill Down” capabilities • Change in logon process • Change in what is displayed to authenticated users • A new data upload web page • Online data loading and editing client data for CBO’s • More flexible data and reporting structure

11. Current Activity and Accomplishments • Implemented new CBO’s data entry process • Currently developing new upload process • Restructuring and movement data into the data warehouse • Grants database – complete • Client data – in progress (Est. May 31st) • Course and Curriculum (Est. June 31st) • Other system through end of year • Currently working with Course and Curriculum data and applications

12. Proposed Timeline for Project

13. Questions?

14. Links to DPI LDS project information • DPI SLDS Grant Web Site • http://dpi.wi.gov/lds/wildsgrant3.html • Includes detailed information about all the efforts under way for the SLDS project across all educational institutions within Wisconsin. • DPI SLDS Grant Application III (109 pages) • http://dpi.wi.gov/lds/pdf/lds-2009ARRA-grant-app.pdf • DPI LDS Project Website • http://dpi.wi.gov/lds/projects.html