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Introducing Fiona: A Helpful AI Assistant in the Ed-Fi Community Slack

· 2 min read
Robert Hunter, Jr
Robert Hunter, Jr
Software Engineer
Stephen A. Fuqua
Stephen A. Fuqua
Director, Software Engineering

We’re excited to announce the initial launch of Fiona, a helpful AI assistant available in the Ed-Fi Alliance community Slack workspace.

Fiona is designed to help educators, technologists, and administrators get quick answers about Ed-Fi technology, education data standards, APIs, implementation guidance, and related tools.

How to use Fiona​

You can interact with Fiona in two ways:

  • Direct message: Send a DM to the Fiona Slack app.
  • In-channel: Tag @Fiona in any channel to ask a question where others can benefit from the answer.

Examples of Answers Fiona Can Provide​

  • Clarifies Ed-Fi Data Standard concepts and terminology.
  • Explains how to get started with Ed-Fi technology or join the community.
  • Provides guidance on using Ed-Fi tools like ODS/API, Admin App, MetaEd, and Data Exchange Standards.
  • Answers questions about certified partners, badges, and community support.
  • Directs users to relevant documentation, tutorials, and best practices.

Tips​

warning

Fiona is an AI tool built on the Ed-Fi documentation. As with any AI tool, it can and will make mistakes.

Please validate guidance before acting on it—especially for production deployments, data governance, or security-related decisions.

  1. Fiona’s sources of truth are limited to content published on https://www.ed-fi.org and https://docs.ed-fi.org.
  2. If something feels off, ask a follow-up question or request a more detailed explanation (for example, “What assumptions are you making?” or “What doc page is that based on?”).
  3. Use the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons to provide feedback. When you do, Fiona will automatically save your prompt and the response, which helps us improve quality over time.

Coming Soon​

  1. Citations
  2. Slash commands
  3. Escalation to a human

Known Issues​

  1. In the initial release, Fiona may provide footnote-like citations (for example, [1]) but does not yet include the actual source links. We’ll get that fixed soon.
  2. The community will have many great questions that simply are not yet addressed in the written documentation. We look forward to gathering those questions and finding the best ways to address them.

Thank you​

Thanks for trying Fiona and helping us improve it. If you’re not already part of the community, visit the Ed-Fi Community Hub to learn more and get involved.

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Disclosure: this blog post was written with the help of an AI tool.