Certica (Now a part of Instructure)
Product Details
Overview
What is Certify?
Certify™ is Certica's hosted data validation service, which provides districts with an easy, cost-effective method for automatically validating and monitoring data on a daily basis. Certify ensures that student, school and district data are complete, accurate and up-to-date, by providing an easy and streamlined process.
Using Certify, district and school staff – such as registrars, attendance clerks and administrative staff – are alerted each day of specific data "rules" which are in error, so staff can take action to research, reconcile or correct data in their student information system. District staff can monitor data across groups of schools – whether for a specific program (such as English Language Learning), for a particular compliance area (such as Discipline), or across the entire district.
Certify can help your district:
- Ensure that district administrators make informed decisions and have a greater degree of confidence in data;
- Automate and streamline the process of data monitoring, validation and correction, which saves time and minimizes the resources necessary to achieve and maintain high quality data;
- Enable school and district staff to take a more pro-active role in managing data, reducing the impact on information technology resources;
- Maximize state and federal funding – and reduce the chance of penalties and audits – by reporting accurate and complete data in a timely manner; and
- Institutionalize a proactive process that helps maintain data quality on a continuous basis.
Features
Daily Validation
Certify runs a collection of pre-defined data validation rules each night against the district's student information system and alerts designated staff each day if errors are found. This daily, pro-active process of data validation has been proven to raise overall levels of data quality, shorten the time spent validating and correcting data, and reduce the cost and stress of compliance reporting.
Certify Rule Library
The Certify Rule Library™ is Certica's collection of data validation rules which have been gathered from district implementations of Certify nationwide. The rules represent the most widely used, high impact data validations applied to data in district information systems – to help ensure accurate calculation of FTE, demonstrate accountability and maximize funding. The rules are organized into a range of subject areas, are hosted and maintained by Certica, and are mapped to the nation's most widely used student information systems.
Email Notifications
Designated school and district staff are automatically alerted each day when data errors are identified. Email Notifications are personalized, so they include just the data validation rules for which that recipient has responsibility, e.g., student attendance rules for an attendance clerk in a middle school. Email Notifications provide a summary of errors with a link to a secure Data Certification Scorecard, so no private student data is ever sent in email or in spreadsheets.
Personalized Scorecards
Each Certify user has a personalized, online Scorecard which displays the data errors in that user's area of responsibility, such as a school or a program. Certify runs a battery of rules against the district's student information system on a daily basis, and generates the Data Certification Scorecard automatically – eliminating the need for staff to run separate error reports. The Data Certification Scorecard allows users to drill down with hyperlinks to see details for each record in error – expediting the process of error review and correction.
Data Certification Score
The Data Certification Score is a dynamic metric which summarizes the overall condition of the data being validated, and reflects the general work effort required to bring the Score to 100, which equates to no errors found in the data. The Data Certification Score allows school and district users to gauge their progress on a daily basis.
Prescriptions
Rule Prescriptions provide explanatory information about each rule and data requirement, and can guide school and district staff on how to correct errors and enter data correctly. Districts can author individualized Prescriptions for their district or collaborate with other districts to author Prescriptions that are common to a student information system.
Trend Reports
Trend Reports support staff accountability initiatives by allowing district staff, such as department heads and program coordinators, to view the change in quality of data over time, and identify the schools which have the most or least improvement.
Security
The Certify hosted environment is completely secure, and unlike other error reporting mechanisms where sensitive data is often emailed in spreadsheets between district and school personnel, Certify's Email Notifications do not include sensitive student data, but only a link to a secure login screen. Users need a password to view actual data records.
Ease of Provisioning
Getting started with Certify is a simple process. Because the Certify Rule Library contains all the necessary database mappings for your district's system, it's easy to get started with Certify, and your district does not need to create data extraction programs.
Certify runs a collection of pre-defined data validation rules each night against the district's student information system and alerts designated staff each day if errors are found. This daily, pro-active process of data validation has been proven to raise overall levels of data quality, shorten the time spent validating and correcting data, and reduce the cost and stress of compliance reporting.
Certify Rule Library
The Certify Rule Library™ is Certica's collection of data validation rules which have been gathered from district implementations of Certify nationwide. The rules represent the most widely used, high impact data validations applied to data in district information systems – to help ensure accurate calculation of FTE, demonstrate accountability and maximize funding. The rules are organized into a range of subject areas, are hosted and maintained by Certica, and are mapped to the nation's most widely used student information systems.
Email Notifications
Designated school and district staff are automatically alerted each day when data errors are identified. Email Notifications are personalized, so they include just the data validation rules for which that recipient has responsibility, e.g., student attendance rules for an attendance clerk in a middle school. Email Notifications provide a summary of errors with a link to a secure Data Certification Scorecard, so no private student data is ever sent in email or in spreadsheets.
Personalized Scorecards
Each Certify user has a personalized, online Scorecard which displays the data errors in that user's area of responsibility, such as a school or a program. Certify runs a battery of rules against the district's student information system on a daily basis, and generates the Data Certification Scorecard automatically – eliminating the need for staff to run separate error reports. The Data Certification Scorecard allows users to drill down with hyperlinks to see details for each record in error – expediting the process of error review and correction.
Data Certification Score
The Data Certification Score is a dynamic metric which summarizes the overall condition of the data being validated, and reflects the general work effort required to bring the Score to 100, which equates to no errors found in the data. The Data Certification Score allows school and district users to gauge their progress on a daily basis.
Prescriptions
Rule Prescriptions provide explanatory information about each rule and data requirement, and can guide school and district staff on how to correct errors and enter data correctly. Districts can author individualized Prescriptions for their district or collaborate with other districts to author Prescriptions that are common to a student information system.
Trend Reports
Trend Reports support staff accountability initiatives by allowing district staff, such as department heads and program coordinators, to view the change in quality of data over time, and identify the schools which have the most or least improvement.
Security
The Certify hosted environment is completely secure, and unlike other error reporting mechanisms where sensitive data is often emailed in spreadsheets between district and school personnel, Certify's Email Notifications do not include sensitive student data, but only a link to a secure login screen. Users need a password to view actual data records.
Ease of Provisioning
Getting started with Certify is a simple process. Because the Certify Rule Library contains all the necessary database mappings for your district's system, it's easy to get started with Certify, and your district does not need to create data extraction programs.
Support Options
Districts
This list is compiled annually through our web surveys, internet research, and phone interviews with California school districts.
School Districts in California that use Certica*
