Building Modular XML Schemas

This is a good article hosted at IBM on building modular schemas. It includes practical tips that will help you avoid the pitfalls of creating schemas that are too "quick and dirty."

Race Code Spreadsheet

A transition is underway that requires schools and states to report data about race and ethnicity to the Federal government differently than they have in the past. For those who may be interested I have placed a copy of the race code spreadsheet that I developed here. The sheet is a very simple lookup tool that enables mapping the name of a specific race to codes defined by the NCES and the Office of Management and Budget. You may also find a link to a handout that contains all 900+ race codes on (2) pages here. Thanks to Barbara Andrepont, Judi Barnett, Laurie Collins and all others who helped with this.

Instructional Services Objects

The SIF Association has been placing a needed emphasis on the technology's use within teaching and learning. As of version 2.2 of the SIF Implementation Specification, there are a total of (8) objects that directly address core needs of teaching and learning processes. The Instructional Services Task Force (ISTF) is the group within SIF that is moving this work forward.

The diagram below of the ISTF objects contains more detail than the general Data Model ERD on which I continue to work. Almost all of the elements and attributes of the Instructional Services objects are present in this diagram, with the exception of a few that I omitted for the sake of clarity. Here is the link to the ISTF objects within the Implementation Specification.

One other item worth noting is that I am hoping to use these objects, specifically the LearningStandardItem object, on a client project to rigorously document their learning standards for use within multiple future projects. This is a good example where the SIF Data Model has significant intrinsic value, even without a specific need to "move" data using the Infrastructure.

Lastly, the SIF Association is holding a developer's camp for teaching and learning in Portland on Thursday, September 25 and Friday, September 26. For more information, see this page on the SIF website.

Using the National Education Data Model

At the NCES STATS-DC 2008 conference I co-presented with Vince Paredes on the National Education Data Model. My portion of the presentation focused on how we have started using the National Education Data Model in our data warehousing work. This is the link to a PDF version of the paper that is the basis for my presentation content. It is hosted on a Google Site because, to my knowledge, Blogger does not support PDF attachments. The unofficial site for the National Education Data Model is hosted at http://nces.sifinfo.org/datamodel.