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Section Redux

V5 Draft: An exploration of a possible data model change

Alternative or expanded definitions of Ed-Fi Section:

https://tracker.ed-fi.org/browse/DATASTD-1596

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Issues due to new models of instruction

  • Section may be associated with multiple Course Offerings and students (and staff) be associated only with a subset
  • Need to capture responsible teacher for students in a multi-course section
  • Students (and staff) may leave and come back into a course without having to create a new association and may change sections
  • Students may take a course (online, remote facility) without having a Section assigned for it
  • Online instruction may occur in combination with a classroom portion
  • Programs are being defined to a myriad of non-instructional requirements for graduation
  • Section may be associated with multiple Programs and students may not participate in all Programs

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Concepts for a Possible Change

  • In the current Ed-Fi model, a student’s attempt at a course is via a tightly bound Section – CourseOffering
  • A different model would separate these into two, as follows
    1. The student’s attempt at a CourseOffering during a session
    2. Section now becomes the vehicle to schedule the student and staff for that attempt
  • BeginDate would be removed from the Section key, and replaced with the Period collection to allow a student to leave and come back

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Outline of Possible Changes to Meet the Need

  1. Change key of section to address multiple CourseOfferings in a Section
  2. With changes to Section key which added Session into the key, remove Session from the key of CourseOffering
  3. Change student assignment in a Section
    • To allow a student to come back to the same section, record time as a Period, removing BeginDate from the key
  4. StudentSectionAssociation would be deprecated and replaced with a new StudentCourseAttempt entity
    • Reflects the specific CourseOffering(s) and Program(s) the student is participating in the Section

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Cascading effects of Section Key change

Impacts due to changing references

  • StudentSectionAssociation
  • StaffSectionAssociation
  • StudentSectionAttendanceEvent
  • SectionAttendanceTakenEvent
  • GradebookEntry
  • SurveySectionAssociation

SIS impacts

  • SectionIdentifier must be unique within a Session and School
    • Verified in prior survey of SIS vendors
  • New Section key has the same components
    • SectionIdentifier, SessionName, SchoolYear, and SchoolUniqueId
    • CourseOffering(s) written into a required collection

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