Online and 247 Learning

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Fairfax County Public Schools Education Decision
Support Library
Maribeth Luftglass Assistant Superintendent and
CIO, FCPS March 6, 2006
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Fairfax County Public Schools Highlights

• FCPS is a large, excellent school system
• 234 schools and centers
• 165,000 students, highly diverse
• 30,888 eligible, free and reduced lunch
• 46 minority
• 21,859 full time positions
• 89 of graduating seniors go on
• to post-secondary education
• 84 of HS seniors take the SAT
• average scores far exceed Virginia and U.S.
  averages
• All High Schools named on Newsweeks list of The
  Best High Schools in America

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FCPS Highlights - Technology

• 92,269 computers
• 10 Apple, 90 Windows PCs
• 1100 servers
• High Speed ATM/TLS Wide Area Network to all
  locations
• All schools have at least 10MB
• All schools w/Internet Access since 1996
• All schools have a web site
• Internet is integral to our curriculum
• 189,000 Blackboard.com users
• Best Student/Computer Ratio in Washington Area
  The Washington Post
• Wireless infrastructure Enterprise-wide

FCPS selected by CIO Magazine as a Top 100 IT
organization
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Identifying the Problem
Collecting Information...
The hard way

• Before the promise of data warehousing and
  decision support systems, data was collected from
  a myriad of data sources and instructional
  decisions were made based on assumptions and
  hunches.
• As the demands for more information grew, more
  and more resources were required to gather and
  disseminate the information.

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Objectives

• Deliver a One-Stop-Shop easy access to
  institution-wide data to support decision-making
  at the strategic level and school level.
• Support operational accountability and
  educational strategy using data as a foundation
  for assessment effectiveness.
• Optimize available resources to provide
  information to educators and planners.
• Provide the public easy access to timely,
  accurate data

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What is EDSL?

• The Educational Decision Support Library (EDSL)
• Is an enterprise-wide Decision Support System
  (DSS) that provides a central location (data
  warehouse) for informed decision making.
• EDSL allows users to mine and summarize various
  volumes of data by creating customized views of
  data (Reports and Worksheets).
• EDSL has three primary components
• One centralized data repository (database)
  containing Fundamental Student Demographic,
  Assessment, and other Information
• Graphical User Interface (GUI) for data
  cleansing, data mining and analysis
• Reports and Worksheets customized based on user's
  data criteria

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Education Decision Support LibraryVideo Clip
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EDSL Framework
Instructional Management System
EDSL provides school leadership with the ability
to leverage large quantities of data to make
informed decisions. Its a one-stop-shop
approach.
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Impact on Education

• Provides leaders and educators with
  enterprise-level data at their fingertips in a
  user friendly environment.
• Supports student education by providing
  school-level metrics to all levels of leadership.
• Helps principals
• Identify student groups that need additional
  resources to be successful
• Develop School Improvement Plans
• Provides a tool for leaders to help manage the
  efficient use of funds and resources.

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EDSL Data Warehouse Architecture
Data Loading Process
Data Storage
Data Delivery Consumption
Source Database Operational Systems Student Info
Systems, etc.
Report Deployment Production DB Servers
EDSL Database Data Mart Meta Data Staging
Tables Star Schema Adhoc Table
Desktop Interfaces, Web Client Interfaces,
On-Demand Reports, Static Reports, Analytical
Reports Adhoc Reporting
The ETL Process is Iterative, Rule and Table
Driven to Process Data Record
Anomalies Transform Data Correct Data Integrate
Data Summarize Data Approve Data
Data Stewards
Application Servers
Customers
Cube Builder (Pivot Tables) Servers
Other Data Sources (internal or external files)
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Defining the modules
Completed
Under Construction
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EDSL Public School Profiles
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How did we get there?
In implementing the software development life
cycle at FCPS for Operational Data Quality and
our Data Warehouse - EDSL, the following measures
were taken

• Creating the application user group
• Managing risk through understanding
• Creating the data steward role
• Creating subject specific focus groups
• Implementing data administration and development
  standards
• Creating data quality assurance standards
• Implementing training programs
• Creating the help desk
• Creating the change management group
• Project oversight

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EDSL Implementation Models

• On-Site Implementation Model
• Purchase Hardware, Third Party Software
• Purchase EDSL per student charge
• Solicit Technology Partners help in deploying
  on-site
• Administer, Maintain System
• ASP Hosted Model
• Entire system hosted by Technology Partner
• Access the system through Internet
• Pay for Service Software per student charge

Patent Awarded July 2005
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Public Private PartnershipsChange in Paradigm

• FCPS developed the Education Decision Support
  Library (EDSL), a data driven decision making
  solution.
• EDSL was developed initially for FCPS to support
  NCLB, and has since been sold to other school
  districts, in conjunction with partners.
• Fairfax County Public Schools Subject Matter
  Experts
• Insystech Integrator/Web Developer
• FCPS is now a VAR (Value Added Reseller) for
• Oracle
• Crystal Decisions
• Infromatica
• Funds from sales put back into product
  development
• Win-Win strategy for all partners

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EDSL Partners
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For More InformationVisit our public web site
atwww.fcps.edu

• FCPS Technology Plans
• http//www.fcps.edu/DIT/techplan/
• FCPS Education Decision Support Library
• http//www.fcps.edu/dit/edsl/