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Program Description
 

EDU Program Description

1. Sources of student academic information (tests) used by this solution.

EDU pulls data from a variety of student information systems, as well as having the capability of pulling data from third party solutions such as General Ledger, Human Resources, Test scores, Transportation etc. EDU is data source agnostic for the most part. As long as a data layout of some kind is provided the information can be pulled into the system. EDU can accept test data in any format such as comma delimited, xls, ascii etc as long as a satisfactory test layout is provided. Among the school districts utilizing EDU, a variety of high stake tests and assessments are used. Once a given layout has been provided, additional installs based upon the same solution become almost cookie cutter in deployment.

2. List of the sources of relevant background information (demographics) used by this solution and the process for transferring data from Student Information System (SIS) to the assessment resource.

EDU is a business analytics solution and therefore, essentially pulls all data from the student information system. The following is a SAMPLE of the types of dimensions provided: School year, School name, grade, gender, ethnicity, Date of Birth, Gifted, Special Education, Lunch Program, Transportation, ESL, LEP, Migrant Status, Lives With, Withdrawn, Student Address, Student Number, School Number, Student Group, State Number, Infractions Name, Codes and date records, Attendance Name, Code and Date records, Course names, types, codes, scores and other details. (There are a number of additional dimensions provided. Essentially any information found in the student system can and may be included in the look up menu for the user). EDU as a solution creates SQL jobs that execute stored procedures that automatically pull data from the student information system. The frequency of these jobs is based on customer need.

3. The solution reports statewide pupil assessment results in aggregate and disaggregate forms to assist administrators and teachers in planning for improved pupil achievement.

This can be achieved through the solution in 3 ways:
     •  The user, at any time at any position within the tree view of the data, can right click with the mouse and export the information filtered and chosen to a variety of reporting formats to include pdf, excel, xml etc. It is important to note that EDU aggregates data across multiple data sources simultaneously. Therefore data aggregated from a variety of external systems can be filtered/sorted and displayed and then exported to excel.
     •  The EDU solution provides a favorites module that will allow the users to create favorites of their specific views. Either private or public views can be created and then distributed. These favorites are dynamic so data is always up to date.
     •  EDU provides for dynamic graphical analysis of all data fields available through a variety of graph formats. These graphs can be filtered/sorted and pivoted on the fly. In addition, multiple graphs can be displayed simultaneously next to each other for comparative purposes.

4. This solution provides information that can inform instructional planning at the
 1. district; 2. school; 3. grade; and/or 4. classroom levels.

EDU pulls data simultaneously from any disparate source. It is data source agnostic. Therefore, aggregation at the high level is able to be viewed and through the simple click on a mouse drill down capability exists. All data levels can be sorted and reordered on the fly, through point and click technology allowing the user to reorder a tree to district, school, grade and/or classroom level.

Sub sets of student data can be viewed on line, even if these students originated from different classes.

Through the "freeze rollup window" feature, all levels can be displayed side by side. Reported into excel, or filtered and viewed through graphic views.

EDU's data tree is dynamic, allowing users to simply hover over dimensions to gain an answer.

Security levels provide controlled access to key information for key departments.

Once data is displayed to the users requirements, data can be used as a factor in the instructional planning process.

5. This solution aligns assessment results to a given state’s adopted content standards and curriculum frameworks.

The EDU system will provide the capability of comparing a student’s curriculum grades with their content standards scores. This will allow school staff to adjust their curriculum to better align their classroom instructions to the content standards. School Data Management has allowed school districts using EDU the capability of evaluating assessment test scores for each student and adjusting the students instruction based on the areas of concern, pointed out by their assessment scores. Student content standard scores have been greatly improved due to this proactive approach. In addition, EDU provides the user the ability to take a teacher’s curriculum grading and compare a sub set of their students test score grades to determine if a balance assessment is being adjudicated upon a given student. Teacher to teacher comparisons of total or filtered subjects can also be made on the fly.

6. This solution has the potential to reduce overhead and additional cost of assisting teachers and school administrators to plan and align instruction to address academic deficiencies identified by both standardized and criterion-referenced academic assessments.

With EDU, aggregating data from multiple sources across the spectrum of the school district, the user has the ability to do comparative analysis in this application, that a single source application can not deliver. Reduction in overhead and improved deficiencies can come about through a number of means:
- Longitudinal data may be used to assess program effectiveness.
- Data may be isolated for federally funded programs such as the "lunch program". EDU provides users with the ability to rapidly determine all students not allocated to a lunch program.
- EDU enables the user to gain an understanding of infraction trends across a district and monitor the progress of a program implemented to resolve these issues.
- EDU can provide a comparative graphical view of teacher grades to determine if grades given in a normal semester school work correlate to grades achieved at the state testing level.
- EDU can provide a year over year comparative of a subset of students to determine if their given skills in a certain facet of a subject (i.e. problem solving in Math) is improving or declining. This allows administrators to reassign deficient students to a teacher skilled in a given subject sub-task.
- EDU can provide a answer to financial departments budget overages or shortfalls. Funds not utilized in a given year can be lost. EDU can provide an ongoing favorite view to highlight all GL line items not spent to a given percentage.
- EDU can highlight if a students grade levels are affected by poor attendance. Administrators can drop data into excel and or graphical views to determine the general effect of poor attendance in given subject grades.

With EDU's ability to cross disparate data sources, users can make comparative assessments without endless manual input.

7. Limitations of using data from High Stakes Tests and specific State Graduation Exams or any other academic assessments as data sources to guide or inform instructional strategies or lessons.

No known limitations in general.  it is important to note that EDU is not challenged in particular by a given states high stakes test type. As long as an adequate layout and or format of the test is provided a view can be formulated.

However, it is important to note that while EDU as a solution delivers analysis on a variety of high stake and state testing, in all cases much of the limitation discussion centers upon the availability and the state of cleanliness of the data.

For simplified discussion however, School Data Management has schools that provide testing data in multiple forms, from .csv files, to more sophisticated formats. As part of our services to our customers we provide IT services to assist our schools to achieve their goals by augmenting their IT work.

It is important to note that EDU is a data analytics solution and NOT an assessment tool, and therefore assumptions from the data displayed need to be drawn and assimilated into an assessment tool if this is a requirement.

8. Publisher provides support materials and resources to enable educators to effectively use the solution.

School Data Management provides a variety of resources to assist users in the system. EDU is a point and click system and is to a degree very much self taught. EDU takes the technology out of business analytics and places an analytic tool into the hands of the most basic computer user. Having said this there are a number of means by which users are provided support:

On line training is made available through the menu interface of EDU. New users can access training materials through this feature.
Best Practices Learning examples can be created and placed on the menu interface, allowing a user to actually go through real life examples to achieve and answer and in so doing be trained through a self test.

Through the "Support Downloads" feature a variety of support materials and resources are stored allowing a user to download these resources at will.

School Data Management, as part of their services, provides additional training classes, and "after sale" enhanced training sessions through the use on online demos and/or on site training.

9. The types of information and reports and how your school district can use them.

EDU's primary benefits are its ability to pull data from a variety of disparate sources. Many systems utilized in the education space provide a series of reporting mechanism that will only provide feedback on the data residing in the given source. EDU is agnostic to data source. Therefore, any information, in any database form, provided by any vendor can be accessed as long as sufficient connectivity is provided. Student Demographics, Attendance, Infractions, Teacher Demographics, Course scores, test scores, assessment data, transportation, cafeteria data, financial data, human resource information, library are among the many data sources accessed by the EDU system. EDU's reporting capability is unique in that wherever the user is positioned on the data tree, through the right click of a mouse the data can be dropped and formatted into an Excel spreadsheet, graphic view, pdf and or xml stream. Data can be reorganized, reformatted, filtered by dimension or item level detail, and then dropped "on the fly" into an excel sheet. In addition views that are created can then be stored as favorites for later use, dashboards can filter to given trends, and specific views can be created to standardized reporting activities.

10. A brief description of the company including background, history, size, years in business, location, etc.

Q3 Solutions, the parent company of School Data Management, is a Louisville, KY based organization that provides Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management Solutions to many school districts across the United States, both small and large. Districts such as Mobile AL, Alamagordo NM, Butler County AL, Hobart School District IN and the North East Regional Information Center in NY to name a few. Q3 also targets the market through strategic business partnerships with student information systems groups such as CrossPointe Schools Online and Century Systems, as well as Financial General Ledger organizations like PSST in Kentucky.

Q3 and its associated companies have been in business for approximately 12 years and specifically focus on providing business intelligence solutions through the EDU deployment for the past 8 years. Currently operating in 15 different states in the US, Q3 is a privately held company, lead by a partnership team that has been involved in the industry for many years.

11. Approximately how many districts are currently using this solution?
51 School Districts in 15 States.

EDU’s Benefits
• Support funding requests/grant writing
• Local, State and Federal Reporting
• Low cost solution
• Decrease time related to analysis, increase time related to solutions!
• Extend value of existing IT solutions
• Dramatically increase awareness of school/district for community accountability
• Empowers stakeholders throughout the district to use relevant data
• Strengthens data culture throughout the district