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A4L Community announces North American Leadership for 2023

– The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community in North America is proud to announce the North American Management and Technical Boards for 2023. The Management Board brings a wealth of experience and knowledge in education, data management, technology and business acumen. The Board will oversee management of the SIF Specification and guide development of the A4L Community in North America as well as contribute to the development of strategies for the global Community.

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The SDPC publish the first ever international education sector specific data security standard – the Global Education Security Standard (GESS)

During the second annual Privacy & Interoperability Symposium, the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) announced version 1.0 of the first ever international education sector specific data security standard. The Global Education Security Standard (GESS) reflects the combined work and outputs of a multi-national team dedicated to improving the cyber safety of the education sector. The Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), a Special Interest Group of the non-profit Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, has been successful in bringing the educational technology (EdTech) marketplace players and school districts/states/countries together in addressing student data privacy obligations.

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Australian A4L Community publish SIF Data Model Specification enabling transfer of student information across state boundaries

The National Schools Interoperability Program (NSIP) on behalf of the Australian A4L Community is proud to publish the SIF Data Model Specification (Australia) 3.5 to the marketplace. This represents the first major release of the Australian SIF Data Model Specification since October 2016.

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The A4L North American Community releases Unity Specification supporting grading, CEDS implementation and state EDFacts reporting

The Access 4 Learning® (A4L) Community is proud to announce the latest release of the Unity Specification which has enhanced and optimized many features including Grade Passback, standards-based grading, and EDFacts reporting.

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A4L Community releases the global SIF Infrastructure Specification supporting Lightweight Providers of Data

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community is proud to announce the release of the collaboratively developed global SIF Infrastructure Specification 3.5 which is unique in the technical standards world in that it supports data movement via greater interoperability by standardizing ‘data and privacy on the wire’. 

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A Worldwide Community of Vendors and Schools Reducing EdTech Breaches

The recent data breach from Illuminate Education impacting millions of students has accelerated the conversation around information security for our most vulnerable citizens. While there are many mechanisms for marketplace providers to prove their adherence to general “best practices”, security adherence has been more complicated than ever for companies and for the limited resources of school personnel who serve as student data stewards. 

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Student Data Privacy Consortium Resource Registry Awarded 1st Place for “Operational Privacy” in PESC 23rd Best Practices

The Board of Directors of the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC) is pleased to announce the Student Data Privacy Consortium as 1st Place Winner for Operational Privacy role in PESC’s 23rd Annual Best Practices Competition.

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A4L Community release ‘performance tested’ SIF Infrastructure Specification to standardize data and privacy on the wire

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community is proud to announce the release of the SIF Infrastructure Specification (global) 3.4 which is unique in the technical standards world in that it supports data movement via greater interoperability by standardizing ‘data and privacy on the wire’…

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