KIDS Phase II Summary Report - Oregon Department of Education
Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 16 Integrated
Data System (KIDS) Project
Phase II Project Summary Report
July 30, 2007
Prepared by: / Shooting Star Solutions, LLC4676 Commercial Street SE, #164
Salem, OR 97302
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 1
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Report Scope 1
1.2 Report Purpose 1
1.3 Report Methodology 1
1.4 Executive Presentation 1
1.5 Report Organization 1
2 Project Background 1
2.1 KIDS Phase II Description and Charter 1
2.2 KIDS Phase II Scope 1
2.3 KIDS Phase II Goals and Objectives 1
3 Project Initiation and Progression 1
3.1 Project Organization 1
3.2 Plan and Methodology 1
3.3 Project Schedule 1
3.4 Milestones & Deliverables Summary 1
3.5 Quality Assurance 1
3.6 Legislative Reports 1
4 Project Successes & Lessons Learned 1
5 Phase III Performance Metrics 1
5.1 Project management metrics 1
5.2 Technical metrics 1
5.3 Production/ Operation metrics 1
5.4 User metrics 1
6 Next Steps 1
7 Appendix A: Acknowledgements 1
8 Appendix B: Executive Presentation 1
9 Appendix C: Terms and Acronyms 1
KIDS Phase II Summary Report - Oregon Department of Education
Executive Summary
"Every student, every day—a success"
Susan Castillo, State Superintendent of Public Instruction
The citizens of Oregon have long held lofty goals for the highest quality education for all Oregonians. And Oregon has also demonstrated a willingness to match ambitious goals with bold actions to achieve its goals.
Beginning in 1997, the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) built the first statewide Database for Education in its Database Initiative (DBI) Project in response to House Bill 3636 that mandated ODE to update its K-12 school budget and accounting system to produce comparable spending information for schools and districts. The DBI successfully pioneered the secure collection and validation of data from all school districts statewide using the Public Internet in support of data analysis, reporting, and education decision-making.
In order to address the new and existing challenges facing education today, ODE initiated the Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 16 Integrated Data System (KIDS) Project KIDS Project to accomplish the following Mission:
“To enable a timely and accurate exchange of comparable information about the enterprise of education in Oregon.” KIDS Mission Statement, February 2006
The KIDS pilot project has created impressive results.
The KIDS Project continues Oregon’s proactive commitment to education excellence by responding to today’s challenges as documented in KIDS Phase I Final Report:
· NCLB and Federal Accountability: The reporting and performance requirements of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation require a fundamental change in the statewide data collection and reporting model in order to meet new accountability requirements.
· Statewide Accountability and Efficiency: New accountability requirements at the state level must also be addressed, including the ability to evaluate the relative effectiveness/ineffectiveness of education programs and decision-making.
· Student and Community Service: In addition to accountability and effectiveness, the Internet has contributed to the growing stakeholder demand to significantly improve the quality of educational and
supporting services provided to students, parents, and the community through: 1) improved collection and sharing of automated student information between districts, and between districts and the State; 2) improved analysis of this information to find ways in the classroom to improve individual student performance; and 3) provision of an environment that integrates parents into collaborative decision-making regarding their own children’s education.
· Cost Efficiency Gains: Evidence of economies of scale in management of administrative systems to enable (1) larger school districts to realize a lower per student cost; and (2) the ESD structure to drive down the per-pupil cost for their customer base.
To this end, ODE articulated the following eight key deliverables for the KIDS Phase II:
· Standardized data elements and codes
· Standard business rules and processes
· Granular, integrated, accurate, standardized, and timely data regarding student performance and achievement both for individual and specific student subgroups
· Data exchange between districts
· Data and tool standardization between districts and ODE in tracking students as they moved through the educational system, including a two-day turnaround in transcript exchange between districts for transferring students
· On-line access to students’ information for all stakeholders through enterprise portal, with relevant access rights and security profiles.
· Overall improved data quality
· Secure funding for statewide implementation
A solid foundation for subsequent Phases.
This six-month long pilot project is a collaboration with four of the State’s approximately 200 school districts, comprised of roughly twenty five percent of the student population in the state, has already produced impressive results. The project has demonstrated that the latest data warehouse technology can be used successfully to collect and display comparative data to support educational decision–making. The pilot data warehouse provides detailed student-level data for the four Oregon school districts that are participating in the project. It includes most of the Student Information System (SIS) information, including student demographics, enrollment and attendance. A variety of reports were produced and demonstrated on the business intelligence portal, including a dashboard view of key performance indicators (KPI) including, school and student profiles, graduation success, and student achievement.
The goal for Phase III of the KIDS Project is to integrate student data from school districts statewide to support student transcript transfer between districts and schools as well as automating data collection to meet State and Federal reporting requirements.
What will it mean for Oregonians? Better educational data to support continuous improvement in student performance, greater public access to education–related data, and a model that other government organizations can follow.
The following pages summarize the results of the Phase II effort and outline the lessons learned and next steps to guide subsequent KIDS phases. For more information and a detailed technical information, visit the KIDS website:
(URL:http://www.ode.state.or.us/go/KIDS), or contact the Oregon Department of Education.
1 Introduction
The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) initiated the Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 16 Integrated Data System (KIDS) Project on February 2006 following the successful completion of KIDS Phase I, as summarized by IBM Business Consulting Services in the KIDS Phase I Final Report, October 20, 2005. The KIDS Phase II project was chartered to implement the recommendations outlined in the KIDS Phase I Final Report.
To memorialize the successful completion of KIDS Phase II, ODE commissioned Shooting Star Solutions, LLC through a competitive procurement to summarize the Phase II milestones completed, success factors, and lessons learned, resulting in this KIDS Phase II Project Summary Report (Report) to document the successful completion of KIDS Phase II.
The following figure depicts the five topics contained in this section.
Sources of information for this section include prior studies of the Oregon education environment, documents published and made available by ODE, and the findings from interviews of project participants conducted as part of this Summary Report effort.
1.1 Report Scope
The scope of this Report is to document the background, scope, objectives, project plan, methodology, results, and deliverables for the KIDS Phase II Project. In addition, lessons learned and performance metrics are also addressed to provide input into the subsequent KIDS Phases.
1.2 Report Purpose
The purpose of this Report is to provide ODE a documented summary of the KIDS Phase II Project. This Report serves the following purposes:
· Document the Phase II project scope, objective, methodology, and results.
· Provide the foundation for the on-going communication and visibility of the project to key stakeholders, legislators, and the public.
· Provide lessons learned and performance metrics as input into Phase III planning and execution.
The intended audience for this Report includes:
· KIDS Project Team and stakeholders, including school district Chief Information Officers, and their respective school Registrars.
· State policy makers
1.3 Report Methodology
Shooting Star Solutions has performed the following data gathering, review, analysis, and interactions with key project participants and stakeholders during the course of developing this Report:
· Reviewing and documenting Project Charter, Scope, and Objectives.
· Reviewing and documenting Plan and Methodology.
· Reviewing and documenting Quality Assurance and Legislative Reports.
· Reviewing and documenting Project Results and Deliverables.
· Reviewing and documenting Traceability of Project Objectives to Project Results.
· Reviewing and documenting Project Successes & Lessons Learned.
· Reviewing and documenting Phase III Performance Metrics.
· Development of Draft and Final Reports.
1.4 Executive Presentation
An executive presentation of this Summary Report is contained in Appendix B.
1.5 Report Organization
The remainder of this Report is presented in the following major sections:
2. Project Background
3. Project Initiation and Progression
4. Project Successes and Lessons Learned
5. Phase III Performance Metrics
6. Next Steps
7. Appendices
2 Project Background
The Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 16 (PK-16) Integrated Data System (KIDS) Project will develop a comprehensive data warehouse and reporting, and student transcript transfer solution encompassing the entire State of Oregon education system, which includes approximately two-hundred school districts, approximately twenty Education Services Districts (ESD), and about 550,000 students.
There are a number of business drivers[1] at the federal, state, and district levels that require a centralized, robust, and consolidated data warehouse and reporting system. The signing of the Federal “No Child Left Behind” Act of 2002 and the increase in state education spending and reporting guidelines requires that ODE have access to specific and diverse education program data (e.g., average student scores, percent drop-out rates, teacher credentials, etc). However, the nature of the state and district information system environment presents significant challenges to implementing a solution. Throughout the State of Oregon there are numerous and varied systems serving School Districts and Education Service Districts (i.e., single custom packages serving one district to data centers supporting multiple districts). These systems are not well connected or on the same platform, making meaningful district to district, district to state, and state to federal reporting difficult and costly.
Considering these challenges, ODE examined the overall approach for education program management, specifically student information management, human resources information systems, and financial information systems, based on requirements supporting the district to state reporting, state legislative reporting, and state to federal reporting. The KIDS Project was established to support this analysis and implement the approved solution.
The following figure depicts the three topics contained in this section.
Sources of information for this section include prior studies of the Oregon education environment, documents published and made available by ODE, and the findings from interviews of project participants conducted as part of this Summary Report effort.
The business case is documented in the KIDS Phase I Final Report, October 20, 2005.
2.1 KIDS Phase II Description and Charter
The KIDS Project Charter was approved February 2006 as a multi-phase project (See Figure 2.1) scoped to identify and implement a solution to receive and store education business and student data in support of student transcript transfer and reporting and analysis.
Figure 2.1: KIDS Project Phases
Phased Approach designed to mitigate project risk.
Phase I identified the business drivers and business case for implementing a statewide system to receive and store education business and student data. Upon completion of Phase I, funding was approved by the legislature, allowing ODE to initiate Phase II.
Phase II selected a solution, and implemented a pilot program to develop a statewide integrated Data Warehouse (DW)[2] System with a specific focus on Student Information System (SIS) data. The Oregon Student Transcript Exchange (OSTX). The DW is currently implemented and receiving data from the following Phase II Pilot participants:
· Beaverton
· Eugene
· Hillsboro
· Portland
Phase III will fully implement the DW solution to receive student data from all School Districts and ESD’s statewide. The DW will enable districts and other education stakeholders to access, retrieve, and share accurate and timely student information.
Future KIDS project phases will integrate new data types, including financial and human resources data.
2.2 KIDS Phase II Scope
The scope of KIDS Phase II Project includes the following:
· Coordinate business rules and data standardization across districts for integrating data warehouse projects.
· Perform data analysis and reporting, including data cleansing, and automated data feeds with relevant student data to the warehouse.
· Purchase, configure, and deploy hardware for pilot sites.
· Deploy data analysis and reporting tools for report development.
· Perform assessment and documentation of lessons learned.
· Secure funding approval for subsequent KIDS Phases
2.3 KIDS Phase II Goals and Objectives
The KIDS Project Charter, approved in February 2006, identified four primary areas to address in an effort to substantially upgrade its technologies, systems, and processes for collecting, reporting, and managing student data for the public PK-12 education environment:
· Goal 1 - Secure the release of appropriated fund for the Phase II project
· Goal 2 - Establish Governance & Project team Membership
· Goal 3 – Develop Enterprise Data Architecture
ü Define technology components and infrastructure.
ü Procure, configure, and deploy hardware for pilot districts
ü Implement a comprehensive project management process and quality assurance oversight procedure.
ü Validate all levels of stakeholder and end-user requirements.
ü Define Data exchange process between districts.
· Goal 4 - Develop and Implement Communication Plan
A further summary of how the KIDS Phase II Project implemented these Goals & Objectives is contained in Sections 3.2 Plan and Methodology.
3 Project Initiation and Progression
The KIDS Phase II Project received funding approval on February 2006 and was formally initiated April 2006. The KIDS Phase II Project resulted in a contract award to Verisift, Inc. to provide the data warehouse capability. Agilis, Inc. was also engaged to provide Quality Assurance. The project managed an aggressive schedule, including contract award, requirements definition, and system implementation. The project was successfully completed on May 2007.