Welcome to the Systems Interoperability Framework (SIF) Association UK
There is increasing demand for schools, colleges and local authorities to enable secure, reliable sharing of data within, and between, institutions particularly as 14-19 and parental engagement initiatives gain momentum.
Frequently the applications available for primary and secondary schools, local authorities and colleges are either closed systems, or systems that allow customer access only through proprietary interfaces that need to be developed or purchased as an addition to existing systems.
SIF provides a platform-independent, supplier-neutral data standard which in turn enables true interoperability among data-driven applications within the education sector. Schools and local authorities can maximise their investment by ensuring interoperability throughout their institutions and therefore reducing redundant data entry.
´Write once, use many times´
Over the past four years, the SIF Association UK Community has been working to develop the SIF Implementation Specification UK. This is a continuously developing standard, and end user are encouraged to help identify areas for future development.
SIF UK Product List: To review a list of SIF products currently available in the UK, please click here.
UK Specifications: The SIF Implementation Specification (United Kingdom) 1.2 is now available here: SIF Implementation Specification (UK) 1.2.
The 30-day consultation period for the SIF Implementation Specification (United Kingdom) 1.3 has now closed. It is scheduled that this release will be available from end-August 2010 (a link will be made available here).
Downloads Available: To learn more about SIF, the following downloads are available:
1 - What is SIF? This is an introduction to the SIF Association and interoperability.
2 - How SIF works. This is aimed at a technical audience and includes an overview of horizontal and vertical interoperability, the components required to enable SIF, and a SIF Zone.
3 - Solving data issues with SIF. Examples of SIF in Norfolk, Warwickshire and South West Grid for Learning.
A full list of current members can be found here.
