• What is the Schools Interoperability Framework Association (SIF Association)?
  
  
• Why was the Schools Interoperability Framework Association (SIF Association) started?
  
  
• How does a government agency get involved?
  
  
• How does SIF work?
  
  
• What are the SIF Association work groups?
  
  
• Will this become a product that gets sold in the future?
  
  
• What is the "SIF Specification?"
  
  
• What technology is the specification based on?
  
  
• Will SIF be a worldwide specification?
  
  
• What is SIF Certification?
  
  
• Why does SIF Certification matter?
  
  
• How can I tell if a company is involved in the SIF Association?
  
  

The Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) Association is a non-profit organization that brings together vendors, school districts, government agencies, state departments of education, and other industry leaders to develop a specification that ensures that pK-12 instructional and administrative software applications can share information seamlessly. The SIF Association is not a product but rather an industry-supported technical blueprint for educational software that enables diverse applications to interact and share data.

When building a software program, each company develops its own way of organizing and distributing information. This works well within each software program, but it can make it difficult for software programs from different companies to work together and to share data. This lack of data sharing--and lack of interoperability—often means that different parts of the same school or district have to re-enter the same data many times. This repetition not only takes a great deal of staff time, but it also makes maintaining consistent data across different programs difficult. Since, in the past, there was no automatic way to update data, a new phone number that was updated in the office might not be updated in the cafeteria for days or weeks—if at all. 

By bringing together over 150 leading software developers--along with interested school districts, regional education agencies and other concerned organizations--the SIF Association has developed a set of common definitions for school data and a set of rules for how this data can be shared. This combination of common definitions and messaging rules--documented in the SIF Specification-- makes it possible for software applications from different vendors to share data and helps eliminate both redundant data entry and data inconsistency.

There are numerous ways to be involved in the SIF Association:

• Join the SIF Association and participate in your chosen project teams and work groups. Then, influence and vote on specifications.
• Require SIF Certified products in your RFPs and buying process.
• Stay abreast of which companies are developing products to be SIF Certified.  

There are four elements that make SIF work:

• Software Application:
  software program implemented within a school or district.
• SIF Data Object:
  Sets of information shared by software applications using the rules of the SIF Specification
• SIF Agent:
  A software program (written by a vendor) that serves as the intermediary between the software application and the SIF Zone
• ZIS (Zone Integration Server):
  A software program that serves as the central communications point in a SIF Zone

When a software application with a SIF Agent sends out a message to the ZIS the ZIS forwards that information onto the applications that are listening for this information.  The information is routed through the application’s agent. SIF Certified software applications and agents do not talk to each other directly; each application talks to its agent and it talks to the ZIS, which handles all further communication. The ZIS’s role as a “third party message handler´” means that the SIF framework is easily expandable, very reliable, and relatively straightforward for software companies to write agents for.

The SIF Specification is a set of documents developed by the SIF Association work groups, committees and task forces comprised primarily of software engineers from educational software companies. These documents articulate a set of common definitions for school data and a set of rules for how this data can be shared. The common data definitions are called data objects.  Data objects cover many items that are involved in schools. For example, a student’s name, address and phone number are part of the “StudentPersonal” data object. Having different software programs understand this common definition of a student makes it possible for them to share this information properly. There are 89 data objects currently defined. Additional data objects will be defined as the Specification matures.

In addition to the data objects themselves, the SIF Specification also defines the rules for how software programs can send these data objects to each other. This set of rules is called the “infrastructure” and uses ways of sending messages that are built on the types of technology utilized by the internet. By using open and commonly available means to transport these data objects, SIF ensures that all vendors will be able to use the SIF framework and that all school systems will be able to implement it regardless of what kinds of computers or networks they have. Ensuring that the SIF Association is vendor-neutral and software-platform independent is an important guiding principal of the SIF Association and a foundation for the long-term viability of the SIF Specification.

The SIF specification is based on the W3C endorsed standard Extensible Markup Language (XML). It defines common data formats and high-level rules of interaction and architecture, and is not linked to a particular operating system or platform. 

Yes. We are currently working on a number of international projects in locations such as Australia, UK, Canada and Europe.  While the focus of the initiative is supporting and empowering pK-12 schools in the United States, bringing other countries to the table during specification development can benefit data modeling, enhance vendor opportunities internationally and extend the usage of SIF.

The SIF Certification Program is a formal program undertaken by SIFA to confirm that software programs adhere to the rules and definitions of the SIF Implementation Specification. SIFA has contracted a well-respected international certification organization to serve as the SIF Certification Authority. The SIF Certification Program involves a series of formal tests which validate that software applications properly implement the SIF specification. A software program which successfully completes the program will be able to display the “SIF Certified” logo on its package, website and in promotional literature. The SIF Certified logo is your indication that this particular version of the software program has been tested and certified to properly communicate and share information with other SIF Certified software programs.

It is important to note that software programs will be Certified only to a particular release of the SIF Specification. The particular release of the specification will be indicated on the logo, for example, the words: "SIF Certified, Version 1.1", indicate that this version of the software program is Certified with SIF Specification Version 1.1. In completing the Certification Program, each company must complete a Conformance Statement Questionnaire that indicates which SIF data and messages the company’s application supports. The application will then be tested against this questionnaire to confirm the company’s statements. The completed questionnaire will be available on the certification authority’s website for you to review. In order to continue to use the SIF Certified logo, each company must support a “conformance guarantee” which states that they will continue to keep their application in conformance with the specification throughout the duration of their certification period. For more information, please visit SIF Association Certification FAQ

Certification is important for both educators and software companies.  For educators it gives them the confidence that the SIF Certified software applications they purchase will work together with other SIF Certified programs without having to do any special programming or make any significant modifications to the software. It also allows educators to choose “best of breed” software applications that meet their computing needs and it allows them to confidently increase the number of programs sharing data. For software companies, it verifies that their software program will be able to properly share information with software programs from other companies. This can be an important differentiator when school districts are making substantial software investments. Knowing that a new program will work with one already installed saves time and money for the school as well as for the company.

SIFA has prepared SIF RFP language for schools and districts to use when purchasing software to ensure that they receive SIF Certified applications and are working with SIFA Vendor Members.

There are more than 300 leading education software vendors and customers involved in the SIF Association.  They can be involved in two different ways: 
 

1.       SIF Association Member. This means that the company/organization has paid their SIF Association dues and is involved in the working groups writing the specifications.  Please note, any company may be a member of the SIF Association, but that does not necessarily mean that any of their products are SIF Certified.  

2.       SIF Certified. This means that company’s product have met SIF criteria and passed certification testing. All products may be tested for certification. For the up-to-date list of certified applications, visit Certification Register.

For a complete listing of SIF Association Vendor Members visit our online directory.