Re: [school-discuss] [Open Admin] SIF/XML tools for Data Transfer.

[Les Richardson <les@celery.richtech.ca>]

Hi,

Good ideas. However, I'm not really a Java guy. I'd just like something
simple to allow OSS developers to "do their own thing" in terms of writing
school applications (admin and other) but still be able to exchange data
in some fashion. I think the SIF model is fairly good using a subscribe
and publish model and exchanging data in a fairly standard XML "data
object" manner.

So I would suggest that we look at a very simple method that uses only a
couple of "data objects"... Student, Attendance, Discipline, Subject,
Enrollment (subject), Schedule(?),Date(?).

Something that most folks can agree on and then start writing supporting
code. 

I'm writing, over the course of the next 6-8 months, some code to support
"SIF-like" exchanges in any case for Saskatchewan Learning transactions
with OA, so it would make sense to add this kind of data exchange to it at
the same time. I would assume that we would use general SIF structures (if
they exist) to do this.

Feedback?

Les Richardson
Open Admin for Schools
H. Hardcastle School
Edam, SK Canada


On Sat, 4 Oct 2003, David Frankson wrote:

> Sun gave their ZIS to edustructures.com, with the stipulation that
> edustructures hosted it in open source.  Edustructures branched the code and
> created a commerical product, then dumped the open source version.  see
> http://www.opensif.org  An open source project completely controlled by a
> competing commerical vendor doesn't attract open source devs, and yet they
> blamed the developer community.
> 
> You could try asking them for the project, put it in sourceforge, then it
> will probably take off.
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Les Richardson" <les@celery.richtech.ca>
> To: <schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net>
> Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 6:38 AM
> Subject: [school-discuss] [Open Admin] SIF/XML tools for Data Transfer.
> 
> 
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Here is Saskatchewan, Canada the province just outlined the new SDS
> > (Student Data System) and school admin software (like my Open Admin)
> > will have to "talk" to the provincial system via an XML dialect
> > subsetted from SIF (School Interoperabilty Framework).
> >
> > Open Admin is written in perl and there are lots of XML modules and the
> > LibWWW tools for the transport layer.
> >
> > However,I was just wondering if anyone has constructed a more "specific"
> > solution to the SIF types of "transactions" etc. I don't really want to
> > re-invent things if it already exists.
> >
> > The docs for this, if you're interested (and have the requisite MS tools
> > to read), are at:
> >
> > http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/sds/xml
> >
> > They're putting them up in PDF as well; just not there yet.
> >
> >
> > Les Richardson
> > H. Hardcastle School
> >
> >
> >
>