Read on to find out what these acronyms mean!
The Ed-Fi Technical Advisory Group – or “Ed-Fi TAG” – meets face-to-face twice annually, with the first meetup having occurred earlier this year at the Ed-Fi Technical Congress, and the second having just convened at the Ed-Fi Summit. In case you’re not familiar with it, the Ed-Fi TAG is a group that has monthly discussions around the Ed-Fi Technology Roadmap. Full details on the TAG are available on the TAG space in Ed-Fi TechDocs (requires login).
The in-person TAG meetings are always reenergizing and a great chance to reconnect. At the most recent meeting at the Ed-Fi Summit, the TAG discussed a number of high-priority items, which are outlined in the full agenda that is available on the TAG space in Ed-Fi TechDocs. Principal among the discussion items was the question of how to improve the quality of API errors and reduce the quantity. It’s not the sexiest topic, but as everyone who works in data management knows, data quality is a major struggle. API interactions that allow data to follow in near real-time (as is happening in many states and local agencies today using the Ed-Fi standards) introduce new variables, such as network latency and availability, new authorization and security concerns, and several other complexities.
At the meeting, TAG members developed a number of recommendations to address this problem, including introducing more specific error codes into the API design, as well as creating API endpoints where events from secondary data validations (sometimes called “Level 2” validations) can be registered.
Given the importance of these issues, the TAG decided to form an Ed-Fi Special Interest Group (SIG) on “API Reliability and Data Quality.” The SIG will meet online to look at field evidence, and discuss and develop new ideas. If you’re interesting in joining this SIG, please contact me at eric.jansson@ed-fi.org.
Lastly, please note that applications to serve on the Ed-Fi Technical Advisory Group are not too far away. We’ll share more details on the process early in 2018 here and in the Ed-Fi Connect newsletter.
