Empowering Organizations
to Move Forward With Data

The North American Division Office of Education, in cooperation with the nine union offices of education, has developed and implemented a data rollup protocol to help consolidate data and to assist schools and conferences to store and utilize data. The data collected is the official/legal data for schools and students within the NAD.

The vision for Data Rollup was born out of a desire to continue to empower schools, conferences, and the division to choose SIS systems that meet their unique needs while complying with state and government reporting requirements. While state requirements vary, a selection of reports have become standard requirements for private, denominational or parochial schools. Additionally, Data Rollup optimizes the delivery and storage of reports, removing the physical Bluebook/Register, including the mandate for perpetual fireproof storage. Also, this solution empowers schools, conferences, and unions with the ability to access reports immediately in PDF format and store them digitally.

While the initial desire was focused on compliance with state requirements, the benefits of access to standardized reports for teachers, principals, conference superintendents, and union directors was obvious—immediate access to appropriately authorized data to assist in health and safety, student assessment and human resources. The application is built to honor pre-established rules of access to data in a digital world.

In the development phase, the NADOE requested of schools, conferences and unions what data they needed to fill out the forms they are required to file. The NAD then consolidated the data fields needed and built the data structure around these requirements. There is an annual review of the fields that need to be added or if not being used, deleted. The goal is to provide all of the needed data, in a digital format, to each organization. Most of this data is collected through the schools SIS software. This is the most effective, efficient, and accurate method to collect data. It is a primary source, rather than relying on entities to re enter data from an analog source.

The reports include:

• Opening Report
• Closing Report
• Record of Attendance (available for inspection upon request)
• Cumulative Student Record
• Report Cards
• Academy Transcripts (not official until the school/union adds the seal and watermark)

Additionally, Data Rollup optimizes the delivery and storage of reports, removing the physical Bluebook and empowering schools, conferences, and divisions the ability to access reports immediately in PDF format and store them digitally.

Key Points:

• Schools may print report cards directly from their Student Information System (SIS) for parents.
• As the data in the Data Rollup database is the actual legal/official data, it is imperative that Data Rollup Report Cards are verified to be accurate.
• The NAD is only concerned about the information being archived and ensuring that ALL of the information needed for an archive is imported into the system.

The Data Rollup SIS Data Transfer Specification document is available for SIS vendors. (Username/Password is required.)

DATA ROLLUP IS BUILT ON TWO PILLARS

1. The data imported will never be modified without proper documentation and digital tracking.
   • Data Rollup is a reporting tool, period. There is no way to alter imported data for the current school year. Reports are generated from imported data only (now with the exception of optional data entry for opening and closing reports). The Adventist Education Dashboard database will create a digital footprint any time a student record is changed in the database from previous years.
   • Imported data is not used for ANY other purpose than to run the reports built in Data Rollup. 
   • Only PDF reports can be saved from Data Rollup. Data cannot be exported in any other format, preventing import and manipulation of data in a third party application.
2. Ensure that access to data is authorized based on student, teacher, school relationships
   • Imported data controls access based on a simple, effective dependency schema. In other words, if I am a teacher I am only able to see data from students associated to my classrooms. If I am a principal, I am only able to see data from students, whose teachers belong to my school. And, if I am a superintendent, I can only see data from students, who’s teacher belongs to a school that is in my conference.

• • Authorization to run reports is determined by Union Directors. Authorization to run a particular report, while governed by Union Directors, is managed by the User Manager, which is a separate NAD application. Users are assigned roles, typically based on employment. These roles provide access to specific set of reports.
  • Access to Data Rollup tool (authentication) is controlled by Conference Superintendents
  • Entrance to the Data Rollup tool is only gained by logging into the NAD Toolbox. This access is controlled by Conference Superintendents, who actively manage those users who are employed by the conference represented. At any time, a superintendent can remove access to reports by disabling a users account, ensuring data is secure in the instance a teacher may be terminated.

While the initial desire was focused on compliance with state requirements, the benefits of access to standardized reports for teachers, principals, conference superintendents, and union directors was obvious—immediate access to appropriately authorized data to assist in health and safety, student assessment and human resources. The application is built to honor pre-established rules of access to data in a digital world.