The SIF Association is a non-profit membership organization whose members include over 1400 software vendors, school districts, state departments of education and other organizations active in primary and secondary (pK-12) markets. These organizations have come together to create a set of rules and definitions which enable software programs from different companies to share information. This set of platform-independent, vendor-neutral rules and definitions is called the SIF Implementation Specification.  The SIF Specification makes it possible for programs within a school or district to share data without any additional programming and without requiring each vendor to learn and support the intricacies of other vendors’ applications.  

The goal of the SIF Association is to make it possible for school administrators, teachers and other school personnel to have access to the most current and accurate data available. 

Education Faces a Critical Challenge
Education is facing a critical challenge in deploying technology due to the challenges raised by a lack of interoperability. Frequently the applications available for primary and secondary (K-12) schools and their districts are either closed systems or systems that allow customer access only through proprietary interfaces and data formats. To a user, the lack of interoperability means: 
 ·         Applications and their data are isolated from one another 
 ·         Redundant data entry is common     
 ·         Disconnected applications increase support costs   
 ·         Data reporting is costly and inefficient   
 ·         Data is inaccessible to decision makers and can be inaccurate   

 The lack of interoperability also creates difficult purchasing decisions for school, district and state technology coordinators who procure administrative and management applications. Many coordinators are experiencing an increase in technical support problems from maintaining numerous proprietary systems. Do they invest more money in their aging, installed-base systems? Or invest in newer, more efficient systems? The Schools Interoperability Framework Association addresses these issues.  

 Meeting the Interoperability Challenge
Since 1997, education software companies, school district technology coordinators, and administrators have met to discuss ways to answer the interoperability challenge. Their solution: the Schools Interoperability Framework, a specification to:    

• Define standard formats for shared data e.g., student demographics information  
• Define standard naming conventions for this shared data    
• Define the rules of interaction among software applications  
  

How will SIF benefit your institution?
By using a standard set of specifications, education software companies would:  

• Ensure that data is entered only once in one application—and automatically propagates to other applications.  
• Allow applications to exchange data more effectively. 
• Allow educators to deliver reports securely to various organizations via the Internet.   
• Ensure accurate data on which to base teaching and learning decisions.   
   
   
   
   
   

 For more information on the benefits associated with the SIF Association, please visit the appropriate section.

Vendors – please click here
Schools – please click here
Government Agencies – please click here
Partners – please click here