SuperTECH NEWS is the bi-monthly newsletter of the BLE GROUP, which provides small- and medium-size school systems with supplementary technology management to produce high-quality educational results and efficient management.

The purpose of SuperTECH NEWS is to provide education decision makers with concise information that allows them to make informed technology decisions to impact instruction, management and communication. This is information you can use on Monday morning.

Editor, Susan DeMark
Web Design, Charlene Polanosky
Publisher, Eliot Levinson

Our May issue theme is data warehousing and data management solutions. Choose from the following articles.

	Note from Eliot—No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Assessment and Management Service. The BLE Group has launched a new service for small and medium-size school systems. We assess where school districts are currently and exactly what they have to do to implement NCLB. The service also provides school systems the supplementary management support they need to purchase and implement the new technology-delivered programs.
	Theme of the Month—Data Warehousing and Data Management Systems. Data warehousing and management tools are key to the data-based decision making required by No Child Left Behind. We tell you exactly what they are and what they do, and explain how you can differentiate among the products and services out there. Find out how data warehousing systems will help you deal with NCLB's demanding reporting mandates and the other increasing needs of your district for reliable, accessible, and integrated data.
	Products—Data warehousing solutions range in customization from lower cost, prepackaged data models to products that are built for your district from the ground up. We look at a selection of representative data warehouse products and services along this range from some of the well recognized, leading companies. You'll have the information you need to know to explore these systems as well as a set of criteria to consider when making a purchase of a new data warehouse solution.
	Best Practices — Poway Unified School District in California is aggressively using data to manage and direct system-wide change and to make decisions about instruction. A data warehouse PUSD has implemented is key to this strategy. Leaders at PUSD share the lessons of how they are implementing this system and tell exactly how teachers and principals are using the date warehouse to decide about instruction and funding allocations.
	Conferences—Check out the relevant conferences coming in the next several months.

We want to hear from you. What do you agree and disagree with on this issue (we will post comments from readers in the next issue). Please write us at eliot@blegroup.com.

DID YOU MISS AN ISSUE?
You can read past issues of SuperTECH NEWS relating to NCLB online:

• February 2003 - Focus: Web-based Assessment Products for High-Stakes Tests
• December 2002 - Focus: Student Information Systems
• August 2002 - Focus: Purchasing Hardware 2002
• June 2002 - Focus: Web-based Applications for Early Reading
• May 2002 - Focus: Web-based Professional Development
• March 2002 - Focus: Technology of Accountability

THE BLE Group's NCLB Assessment and Management Service

Why are we launched the NCLB Assessment and Management Service?

Technology is necessary to implement the No Child Left Behind Act. Technology is a central component to the solution of every facet of NCLB, whether it is teacher quality, the delivery of standards-based instruction, assessment, the monitoring of student progress, school-parent communication, or reading proficiency.

The BLE Group knows that small- and medium-size school systems—the 86 percent of school districts in the U.S. with fewer than 5,000 students—often lack the extensive resources and knowledge base to implement NCLB. They lack sufficient technologists and technology-savvy educators to plan and manage the Web-based instructional programs and assessment systems that are the solutions for NCLB. We make available reasonably priced services that can provide the expertise school systems need to address NCLB on a time-shared basis.

Excellent technology staff is expensive and hard to find. We've created the NCLB Assessment and Management Service as a means of supplementing the staffs of small school systems with our own team of skilled technologists and technology-savvy educators. We will help you plan and execute an effective NCLB program.

The NCLB Assessment and Management Service supplements the instructional and evaluation capability of small and mid-sized school systems so that they can effectively address No Child Left Behind. There are two tiers to the NCLB Assessment and Management Service. Tier 1—the NCLB assessment and plan—creates an assessment for districts on how effectively they are currently addressing the multiple requirements of NCLB, such as teacher quality, assessment, reading achievement, etc., and devises a specific plan to address NCLB. The plan includes new technology-based solutions, a schedule, and a timeline for addressing NCLB. Tier 2—the management service—supplies ongoing management support to districts. We furnish districts with ongoing service from the BLE Group to purchase products and provide supplementary management as districts implement their NCLB programs.

The NCLB Assessment and Management Service evaluates how well are you currently addressing NCLB and delivering on its mandates, and it centers on exactly what you should do over the next year to implement NCLB effectively so that your district's performance improves.

What are the specific areas of the BLE Group's NCLB assessment and plan?

The BLE Group provides an assessment and solution for the following NCLB requirements:

• Reading—Includes benchmarks, diagnostic testing
• Teacher Quality—Certification, paraprofessional certification, online training
• Testing—State standards, diagnostic testing
• Staff development—What is needed to meet certification, improve standards-based teaching, address technology skills linked to teaching
• Paraprofessionals—Tracking certification
• Management of NCLB—Planning for low-performing schools
• Information Analysis—The know-how to aggregate and disaggregate scores
• Grant proposals—What information is needed for the annual district proposal to include all students
• State accountability—What does the state have to do to improve accountability
  

The NCLB assessment and plan focuses on instruction, assessment, management systems, and technology. It includes:

• An annual implementation plan. Quarter by quarter, the plan lays out what has to be done in each of the 4 areas described above.
• A budget.
• An assessment of the current state of NCLB linked with specific recommendations on the items listed above.
  

NCLB Supplementary Management Service

Following are the supplementary management services that districts can make use of after the BLE Group assessment and plan. BLE Group CIOs and curriculum directors will supplement the district's staff with the following services:

• RFPs. For strategic systems purchases such as instructional management and on line assessment systems.
• Review of contracts. BLE will review district technology contracts and write effective contracts for the district.
• Monthly phone consultations and quarterly visits to address NCLB management.
• Vendor Management. BLE Group will oversee your NCLB vendors.
• Access to databases on instructional and administrative systems. BLE Group maintains confidential databases on management and instructional software for its' clients.
• Discounts from collaborative buying of hardware and instructional, assessment, and management software.
• SuperTECH NEWS newsletter. The newsletter delivers information to administrators on NCLB-related technology issues such as assessment, data warehousing, and instructional management.
  

If you are interested in the NCLB Assessment and Management Service, please contact us to discuss the matter further. The cost is reasonable.

Eliot Levinson <eliot@blegroup.com>, CEO,
THE BLE GROUP
202.281.1763

ConfluentEDU is a software data warehousing and data mining solution that is built to work with K-12 school districts' software. It is first a data warehouse that pulls together data from a schools' student information system, test scores, cafeteria management database, accounting systems, special education records, etc. It is paired with a data mining tool that interacts with schools' current data to process, analyze, and "visualize" the data, meaning it lets users create customized pie charts, bar graphs and other visual renderings of data. Those who use the software can also "push out" data automatically to an Excel spreadsheet or a Power Point presentation, for example, to create customized reports based on any number of variables.

Confluent intended the software to be used by a school's non-technical personnel, meaning superintendents, principals, teachers, and administrative staffers. It automates the process of getting a district's data into the data warehouse. EDU is a stand-alone application, and it launches off a user's desktop. The launch or home page of the application is customized for each school district depending on the needs of that school district. A user can sort, re-sort, or filter on data across a school district. For instance, a user can access the data for five schools together, filter that data to determine how many special education students there are, and then sort it to find out how many of those special education students qualify for free lunch and how many qualify for reduced lunch.

End users of ConfluentEDU use the application to access and filter the data by clicking and dragging, rather than having to type in instructions. If examining the transportation data collated with demographic data, a support person or administrator may click and use pull-down menus to decide exactly which data he or she wants to examine and make into a report. Users can create ad hoc queries, by using the application's clicking-and-dragging interface, limited only by the categories that all of the data logically contains.

Using Confluent's "decision support tree," which is a visual organization of data that is branched, you can point your mouse to an object on the screen and see the data associated with that object (Midtown Elementary School, for example) appears on the left-hand side. An end user can choose any of the variables through which he or she will want to sort, filter, and see data. Once the end user makes these choices, graphic representations of the data can be made, such as a pie chart or bar graph. A user can then print it or can capture it to import into a Word document, Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation. Each stakeholder in a district gets a particular sign-in, with a user ID and password which means that different levels of access to data are created, whether it is for a teacher or administrator, etc. Data in the data warehouse application can be refreshed daily or weekly, though most districts have chosen so far to have it refreshed daily.

In working with districts to build the data warehouse for use in mining, Confluent has handled all types of data sources ranging from legacy equipment such as old IBM equipment to modern Student Information Systems, a company official said. Confluent, which has created applications for multi-chain convenience store and restaurant management industries, launched its education data warehousing/mining application at the beginning of calendar year 2002. Its software is being used in 400 school buildings located in six states, and the company is moving into other states. The company has worked with districts ranging from ones with small enrollment up to 86,000-student districts.

Client schools and districts can choose for Confluent to host the data and provide technical services relating to the ConfluentEDU data warehouse and tool. Or, they can choose to host the application locally and have local technical personnel be responsible for the application. About half choose the ASP model, while the other half of client schools goes the other route, said a company official.

Confluent provides one day of training that comes as part of the set-up fee. This training is provided according to how the district would like to do it, whether it is in training IT staffers, who will then teach the use of the application to end users, or by training a particular population of non-technical end users themselves. Districts can obtain additional training depending to meet their schools' needs, for instance if they later want to add on additional end users.

ConfluentEDU is priced per student. The cost ranges from $2.50 to $3.50 per student, for the first-year set-up of the application. There is also a 50-cents per student per year charge for maintenance. For schools that choose to have Confluent Technologies host the application, the cost ranges from $300 to $750 per month.

Focused primarily on assessment analysis and use, the Edusoft platform is an integrated suite of tools for use by teachers, principals, and district administrators for all of their assessments. This includes: (1) the importing and analysis of state and district exams; (2) the creation, paper-based administration, scanning and scoring of district benchmark exams through Edusoft's patent-pending scanning technology; and (3) tools to help teachers create in-classroom paper exams, grade them and use the results to drive instructional tools, determine curricular pacing, etc.

Data warehouse: Edusoft's data warehouse takes a district's assessment data and integrates with the student information system for roster and demographic data. The district obtains a Web-based analysis tool, with reports accessible to district administrators, principals, teachers, and parents.

The highlighted features of Edusoft's product include:

• Intervention groups: Schools can specify performance and demographic criteria.
  
• Printable reports: Schools can generate aggregated or individual student reports for results of statewide exams.
  
• Longitudinal analysis: End users can compare by student, teacher, grade, and school year over year. Cross sectional and cohort matched analysis is available.
  
• Comparison Tools: Performance can be compared against state standards. End users can break down results by content areas, strands, and sub strands.

The date warehouse supports the following: state tests, district tests, SAT, AP tests, any additional test scores, GPA, attendance, citizenship, discipline, any additional performance metrics. All data can be aggregated or disaggregated by school, grade, teacher, gender, ethnicity, federal and state programs, and customizable, user-defined groups. The system supports all score types: NPR, NCE, scaled scores, gender, stanine, percentage correct, and performance bands.

Edusoft's patent-pending scanning/scoring technology aims for maximum flexibility, performance, and speed. Along with every test, Edusoft generates answer sheets as PDF documents that can be printed out on regular 8.5-by-11 inch copy paper and photocopied. Answer sheets can automatically be configured so that students need not bubble-in a student ID, but rather just select the single bubble next to their preprinted name.

These answer sheets are scanned in and scored using an inexpensive off-the-shelf multi-functioning scanner/printer device. Edusoft-compatible scanning devices can be purchased at most office supply stores for approximately $500. Tests are scanned and graded automatically (districts can have one or more scanners in each local school site), and the results automatically uploaded back to the Web-based service. Once graded, reports and online tools are immediately available for teachers, principals, and administrators.

Instructional tools and item bank: Edusoft's instructional tools enable teachers and administrators to create tests and plain-paper answer sheets in five minutes, all aligned to state and/or district standards. Educators can either choose to use Edusoft's item bank and their own questions to create tests in the system, or can simply use their existing tests and just use Edusoft for the answer sheets. Once tests are scanned and scored, teachers can use Edusoft's instructional tools to automatically generate customized review sheets for each period of students, driven by their performance on past assessments. Edusoft's 2003 question bank contains 15,000 questions, with an additional 8,000 available by year's end. Questions are available in ELA, math, science and social science.

Edusoft hosts the Edusoft platform for all of its 115 districts currently. According to Edusoft, with the ASP model, the product is able to evolve constantly and support the developing needs of the school district customers.

The Edusoft platform is priced as an annual per-student license.

eScholar is a standards-based product set that creates a data warehouse giving school systems access to data through a three-stage process of collecting, standardizing, and distributing. The core of the eScholar product is a standardized data model and the company's data management and Web-based reporting tools, which are intended for districts that have complex data needs.

The data model captures more than 29 separate domains of data including over 300 individual fields. The data domains include student demographics, course attributes, daily student attendance, course-level student attendance, student assessment results, course grades, quarter grades, final grades, assessment item-level detail, discipline referrals, discipline responses, transportation information, extracurricular involvement by student, special education data, classroom locations, staff demographics, staff attendance, among other domains. With the product's ETL framework, data is transformed from many differing source systems into a standardized format.

Because eScholar's design is based on an open data model, any contemporary query, reporting, or data mining tool will work with it. eScholar provides the ability to analyze data combined from various sources. School districts that use eScholar can use both packaged functionality and their own custom applications.

In the building of the warehouse, eScholar can pull data from any electronic form, from student information systems to a cafeteria program or an Excel spreadsheet. The data warehouse permits the storing of unlimited longitudinal data. Districts setting up the eScholar product can also have an unlimited "data-refresh" schedule. Because the company is aware that no one reporting and analysis tool is good for everyone, eScholar goes from the user interface backward, determining how a district's data works and how it is described from the inside out. The company works with the district to structure and clean the data so that the school system will have accurate, reliable data. It is then paired with a flexible, Web-based reporting tool. The secure management system allows different levels of access for different users, e.g. administrators, teachers, support staff, etc.

The company has had enhancements of the product, and released version 4.1 of eScholar on March 1. As of summer of 2002, more than 700 school districts in nine states have implemented this data-warehouse product.

The Readiness Workshop is considered a crucial part of the implementation process of a data warehouse. The Readiness Workshop is designed to clearly identify the costs involved, resource requirements, skills needed, funding, staff participation, data required, technology infrastructure, and all other considerations to create a successful data warehousel. From this workshop, The Blueprint for Action is produced that outlines everything necessary to better use information to improve education.

eScholar is available as both a stand-alone application and a hosted ASP solution. With the ASP model, eScholar hosts the districts data at our secure data center. Costs for hardware and software acquisition, system maintenance and support can be reduced with this option. eScholar provides all hardware and network connectivity, as well as reliability monitoring, configuration maintenance, software updates, and upgrades on a continuous basis.

eScholar training is comprised of two days of end-user training in using standard query tools to explore eScholar data and one day of training in more complex query design. The company offers technical staff a three-day class in using the eScholar ETL tool.

There is a fixed-cost or a variable-cost option for districts purchasing eScholar. With the fixed cost, the eScholar license and any hosting are priced per student (full-time enrolled student). This makes the eScholar pricing definable and scalable. Under the variable-cost option, the eScholar license is a one-time charge and includes all of eScholar's currently covered data domains; maintenance, billed yearly also by full-time enrolled student, provides updates and standard reports.
Schools can choose from these options to fit their needs. Districts that decide to have eScholar host the data eliminate costs for hardware and free up their own IT staff for other needs. Hosting has a one-time set-up charge and annual charges for the hosting service and supervision of a district's data by an eScholar database administrator.

IBM Insight at School, which was launched in 2001, is the IBM data-warehouse solution through which schools can access and analyze different sources of information stored on multiple computing platforms. Through Insight at School, schools bring together integrated data from multiple operational sources, such as student information systems, demographics, attendance data, instructional courses and grades, and normed or criterion test scores. A packaged offering includes both products and services: project management; data warehouse strategy; a complete project plan and the data warehouse deliverables such as data model, database design, deployment plan, etc.; and hardware and software.

The IBM solution is for districts that have a wide variety of data, e.g. financial, facilities, curriculum, assessment, staffing, that they wish to combine, and complex data management and analysis needs.

Many school districts have a variety of software programs and extract-transform-load tools. IBM decided to create an open solution that can be used with any industry-standard operating tool. The underlying data model has been culled from building data warehouses in various industries for some eight years. The predefined education data model in use by IBM has been implemented in school districts, educational agencies, state and provincial departments of education, charter school management companies, and private school organizations. The data warehouse integrates data across subject areas, and affords analysis through some 2,000 attributes. Both ad hoc queries and online analysis can be done through the IBM enterprise data warehouse. The system allows predefined as well as customizable reports available for use. Reports are available that address No Child Left Behind requirements. Schools can monitor student achievement and assess the quality of learning in order to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) requirements.

Using IBM Insight at School, a school administrator, for example, can create reports showing the financial expenditures at the school level for specific educational programs and then compare the assessment results with particular financial expenditures. Or, an administrator can correlate professional development data with student achievement. The data-warehouse package uses graphical representation in order to help administrators and other end users identify trends and correlations.

There are a variety of ways for districts to distribute the reports. IBM promotes what is called a "push strategy" in which an end user can create a report and e-mail it out to the e-mail list of the user's determination. The Web-enabled data can be viewed at home or school through any Web browser. Typically, however, schools keep it within district firewalls because they do not want to have student information beyond that firewall.

IBM offers districts and other entities the option to host the data or to have IBM host it, in which case it is backed by data centers that operate 24 hours/7 days.

IBM charges a set-up cost for the building of a data warehouse. Typically, costs start at $50,000 and go up, depending on the specifications established by the district. There is a separate FTE price (full-time equivalency) cost for any hosting, which is done under an annual contract.

SAS Data Warehousing is part of a suite of data quality applications. The SAS data-warehousing component allows a client district or department to leverage existing hardware, software, data, and human resources in order to integrate legacy and non-legacy data into one flexible information management platform.

SAS Data Warehousing is a customizable solution, not an off-the-shelf product, company officials note. It is intended for schools with a wide variety of data they wish to combine and analyze to support instruction and student achievement. The SAS solution is mainly targeted to larger school districts, although the company will work with small and mid-sized districts as well.

With the SAS structure, the company's ETL process - data extraction, transformation, and loading - is combined with enhanced value-adding data-quality technologies (in essence, desktop data-cleansing tools) that cleanse and eliminate duplicate data from multiple sources and ensure accuracy. The ETL process consists of all the steps necessary to extract data from different locations, transform the raw operational data into consistent data, and load the data into a data warehouse.

The SAS product allows a district to build and manage a data warehouse from a single point of control, but in flexible ways according to user needs. With the SAS product's extractive technologies, for example, a district can take data from a Microsoft Excel sheet, import it through a data-warehouse structure into the district's Student Information System, do some analysis of the data, and then send it back out to the Excel sheet.

SAS works with the client - say a school district - in a whiteboard session and conceptualizes an end-to-end solution that is custom-built for the district. The SAS product can run across every platform. With more than 100 native access engines - covering all databases, operational systems, external data sources, e-sources, etc. -- SAS provides access to data regardless of source. It also reads relevant metadata and associated information.

SAS supports multiple models of client/server computing, providing control over how platforms address each other in a mixed hardware and network protocol environment. The examples of client/server architecture and computing services available include remote computing services, which allow applications to work where the data resides instead of bringing the data to the application. Another example is data transfer services -- enable the transfer of SAS data sets, catalogs, graphics catalogs, entire data libraries and external files between local and remote systems. The SAS storage options are flexible so that districts can leverage existing hardware but also avenues for growth as the storage needs of a district expand.

Through SAS Public Sector, the company offers a pilot program, for a cost, in which school systems can try out the data warehousing solution by getting a "slice" of their data into a model depository. The SAS implementation team works to develop a thorough understanding of your existing technology environment and investments, which we then incorporate into the SAS solution. At that point, we recommend a plan. There is a 100-percent money-back guarantee for participation in the pilot.

SAS data warehousing is a software solution designed for local hosting. Currently, SAS in Schools is working on an Application Service Provider model.

The price of SAS data warehousing is customized for each district or other client of its services. Company officials declined to give exact figures.

Account™ enables districts to focus on student performance data in order to increase academic achievement. Account™ is a Web-based data analysis and querying tool powered by a data warehouse. District clients have the option of deploying Account™ with their existing data warehouse (Account™ can run off of the eScholar data warehouse) or SchoolNet will work with districts to build a data warehouse.

Account™ focuses on student performance data and the relative indicators that provide districts with the data to inform the decision-making process. Account reports are constructed specifically with goal of enabling schools and districts to answer critical questions including: Adequate Yearly Progress analysis and predictions, flagging curricular gaps, identifying students in need of special services or interventions, recognizing outstanding teachers, etc.

This product is student performance-focused, with an AYP analysis package. It is targeted to medium to large districts and consortia of districts. It is modular with other online applications such as Instructional Management Systems.

Flexibility is provided in the type and expanse of reports that can be generated from the system through the Account ad-hoc query tool, which enables users to build report across multiple dimensions suited to the user's specific analysis.

• Longitudinal (Trend) Analysis
  
• Relational Analysis
  
• Cohort Analysis
  
• NCLB Analysis
  
• Growth Analysis

In addition to the ad hoc reporting tool, Account™ has a battery of pre-formatted reports, providing users with an easy means to access the most common report types generated within the system. In addition, Account™ has a comprehensive analysis spreadsheet, data export tools, and a report publishing facility. Reports generated in Account™ can easily be saved, emailed, or published.

SchoolNet has closely followed the NCLB legislation since its passage and has been following the states' adoption and regulations in order to ensure that Account™ will assist principals and superintendents in understanding their assessment data in light of the Adequate Yearly Progress requirements. SchoolNet has developed a proprietary analysis package and statistical tool to measure how close or far away a school or cohort of students is from meeting its AYP objectives. By using this analysis throughout the school year, building principals will be able to understand if they are on track to satisfying AYP and to take corrective action well in advance of high stakes test administration, if needed.

Types of data integrated for analysis:

• Student information system data (e.g., student information, demographics, attendance, enrollment history, special program, course information, etc…)
  
• Student performance data (e.g., state tests, national tests (e.g., SAT-9), local benchmark tests, online testing, etc…)
  
• Teacher data (courses, tenure, etc…)

Integration routines between the native district data sources (e.g., SIS) and SchoolNet's data warehouse are built to extract the data and load into the SchoolNet system. These routines can be set to run on a quarterly, monthly, or even daily basis depending on the needs of the district.

Account™ is a modular application that integrates with SchoolNet's other Web-based applications - Align™, the instructional management system that integrates student performance data with district standards and curriculum, and Outreach™, the Web portal and content management system for K-12 school districts that publishes reports generated in Account™. This modularity affords districts the flexibility to expand their data-driven decision-making platform into instruction, communication, and collaboration.

SchoolNet's products are Web-based and can either be hosted locally by districts or hosted by SchoolNet using an ASP model.

SchoolNet has also worked with Intermediate Units and Education Service Agencies to provide its products to consortia of districts enabling smaller districts to utilize a data warehouse and the analysis tools.

SchoolNet's applications are modular so that a district can purchase one or all (or any combination thereof); a district can structure exactly the products and the rollout strategy that suits it best. Each module is moderately priced on a per student per year basis for ASP licenses. Discounts begin as districts add more than one module. The per-student costs also decrease with increasing district sizes. In the first year, there is a one-time set-up cost that is dependent on the district's data sources and extraction abilities.

The EASE-e Data Analyzer is a combo data warehouse, mining, analysis, and reporting system designed for use at any level of education. This data product allows schools to build a data warehouse and to have built-in tools to generate graphs and reports.

TetraData is custom-built; the company works with districts to design and build the data warehouse based on what sorts of information the district believes should make up the data warehouse.

TetraData developed the EASE-e suite of data solutions, in conjunction with a number of school districts, as a specially customized warehouse and analysis tool for educators to be able to have instant access to accurate, up-to-date data and to make decisions based on that data. It contains a data manager, data analyzer, and a reporting tool, all of which are available from a single point of entry and a portal from which all data can be accessed.

A school district can use its own unified login, which means that a separate log-in does not have to be created to have access to the data warehouse. According to TetraData Chairman and CEO Martin Brutosky, some of the partners in the original project are married to teachers, and the development of the EASE-e program was driven by firsthand knowledge of the needs in education for better data warehousing.

The query engine that TetraData built, for example, is unique to K-12 and incorporates educational measurements such as correlation coefficients and standard deviation, etc. A user can query the data in real-time. The program is made up of a number of products and services:

" EASE-e Data Services is a complete data collection and warehousing solution in which TetraData takes all of a district's student demographic, teacher, school and test information from varied sources (Excel spreadsheets, ASCII files, in-house databases, SASI, or OSIRIS) and places that raw data into a customized EASE-e date warehouse. EASE-e Data Services works with school districts to figure out what sorts of information should make up the data warehouse and which types of data sets are most useful. Typically, the company goes on site to a school with a project manager and a designer in order to analyze district goals and to devise a road map for extraction of the data into a warehouse. The process then for data transferring the data, cleansing it, loading it, and running it through QA. A new warehouse is usually delivered within 66 business days, according to the company.
" EASE-e Data Matrix Is the behind-the-scene tool that establishes and structure of a data warehouse and it creates the data's shell, the structure the users see when they view the data warehouse.
" The EASE-e Data Analyzer is the core product that allows districts to drill down into the data and analyze it. It comes in a Client PC version, which has the familiar Windows look and feel, or the Web version, in which users can access data from any computer with a browser and Internet access. It has a tab interface that walks users through the process of creating a query.

Brotosky said that the EASE-e data suite was developed to help districts be in complete compliance with the requirements of No Child Left Behind. It is has the capability to track Adequate Yearly Progress. There are other components of the suite specifically intended for classroom-level analysis by teachers and for importing the data analyzer and classroom analyzer into customizable report layouts.

TetraData's EASE-e data products and services can be purchased in four ways: (1) A pure ASP model, in which a district or other entity can subscribe for the use of the software and let TetraData manage the network, data, and computer operations; (2) Districts can purchase the suite and get the right to run it on their own LAN; (3) Utilize TetraData as an ASP solution the first year, and train and establish the district to bring all hosting and network services in-house in subsequent years; and (4) Use a third-partry entity to house all of the technology.

There is a six-tier pricing structure for EASE-e based on the size of school district. Typically, there are three major blocks of fees - license fees in order to obtain the suite of software programs; maintenance fees to secure support; and services fees for professional development costs and to be able to "turnkey" the data warehouse. While tiered to size of district, the costs are figured on a per student per year basis. Professional development is charged on a per classroom basis.

Virtual EDucation is a standards- and Web-based learning management system designed to accelerate learning and track student performance as measured against standards. The product functions as an academic data warehouse and serves as the centralized storage location for student/teacher/course data, the state and/or district curriculum standards, and student performance data for high-stakes testing, norm- and criteria-referenced assessments frequently used for district testing, and classroom performance data. Virtual EDucation seeks to help educators meet the reporting requirements mandated by NCLB.

Virtual Education is an integrated instructional management system and data warehouse. It focuses on performance management by providing an integrated suite of communication, collaboration, and continuous improvement tools for teachers, principals, and state and district administrators to use for timely interventions to help improve student learning and track student achievement. A large part of the system involves data warehousing and management tools.

The system enables users to see student progress across the state or district by specific grade level, site, classroom, or individual student. Virtual EDucation provides real-time access to current student progress as measured by classroom observation and learning activities, high-stakes or required state testing, and multiple measures of required district assessments. Virtual EDucation is currently being used in schools in 22 states, and it covers nearly 1 million students.

EDmin's academic data warehouse takes a district's assessment and classroom performance data and provides tools to align the data to curriculum standards. Virtual EDucation acts as middleware; it uses an automated extraction process to pull pertinent student data from the district's student information system for roster and demographic data. It provides the capability to disaggregate subgroups. This integration enables school districts to have access to Web-based analysis tools accessible at any time and from anywhere, allowing educators to track real-time student achievement reports. Student performance information is available and accessible to any authorized district administrator, principal, teacher, student, or parent.

Virtual EDucation features include: longitudinal analysis; comparison tools; timely intervention; aggregated and disaggregated reports; and online portfolios permitting the storage of authentic student work.

All data can be aggregated or disaggregated by district, school, grade, teacher, gender, ethnicity, federal and state programs, and customizable, user-defined groups. The system supports all score types: NPR, NCE, scaled scores, gender, stanine, quartile, quintile, rubric, percentage correct, and performance bands.

In addition to the student demographic data, Virtual EDucation includes other data elements, such as teacher data associated with courses, periods, and grade levels; courses aligned to each student and teacher; academic curriculum standards for the state and/or the district; and student progress monitoring using multiple measurement indicators of achievement. It also features lesson plans developed using standards-based instruction and Individual Education Plans.

Virtual EDucation comprises a suite of integrated applications that contain tools to improve communication and collaboration, and to support continuous student progress.

Virtual EDucation is also integrated with Microsoft Class Server and Scantron Testing and Assessment's Assessment Connection to create an integrated on line testing and data management solution. Microsoft and HP recognize Virtual EDucation as the academic data warehouse management application for the enterprise education solution. Additionally, the system is compatible with all electronic or Web-based student information systems, as well as varied assessment content.

Virtual EDucation is available as an ASP model, or districts may elect to host their own data locally. Turnkey solutions are also available by which EDmin initially serves as the ASP, but turns the service over to the district on a predetermined date.

The Virtual EDucation System requires implementation planning prior to beginning training. Districts typically purchase "implementation planning" days, based on the size of the district. Training days are determined by the size of the district and the implementation plan (i.e., is the system being deployed at elementary, middle, or high schools at different times; are all schools involved or is the implementation to occur incrementally, etc.).

The Virtual EDucation System employs several professional development models (i.e., "Train-the-Trainer," onsite, tutorials, and help desk). The system's professional- development focus is on increasing assessment literacy, so training extends beyond the typical technical or navigational training.

Training has been designed to effectively target all end users (i.e., system administrator, district/site administrator, teacher, student, parent). Typically, school districts purchase several training days for the system administrator, and plan for on-site training of the district's trainers, or schedule EDmin's trainers to conduct the onsite training.

The Virtual EDucation solution is based on an annual student subscription pricing model. One-time installation costs include the district and site installations at $1,500 per site. Additional costs include data import services, data format review, implementation planning, professional development, and help desk (depending on the size of the school district and the extent of internal resources the school district has to support its own help-desk function).

The Virtual EDucation system's pricing is between $5-10/student. The price is determined by the size of the district and whether a district purchases all 12 applications, or only some of the applications. Virtual EDucation's applications may be unbundled for incremental implementation within the school district.