Why was the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF Association) started?
A. 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 an
