The documentation for Ed-Fi Data Standard 6.0 is now live! Check out What's New in Data Standard 6.0 for full details.

Key Breaking Changes in 6.0​

This release introduces breaking changes, aligned with the Ed-Fi Alliance’s release cadence. Here are the highlights:

The Ed-Fi Alliance continues to advance its mission of enabling interoperability and scalable data solutions for education agencies. At the recent Ed-Fi Alliance Summit 2025, we shared updates from the Ed-Fi Technology Roadmap, highlighted recent releases, and previewed what’s coming in the next few years.

Welcome to the July 2025 Ed-Fi release update! This post highlights the latest features, improvements, and fixes delivered in the Ed-Fi Admin App v3.3.4 and API Publisher v1.3.0. Whether you’re an implementer, developer, or community member, these updates are designed to make your Ed-Fi experience smoother and more secure.

We’re thrilled to announce the Release Candidate 1 / v0.6.0 release milestone for the Ed-Fi Data Management Service (DMS). This release introduces Swagger UI, template databases, and completes critical end-to-end and compatibility testing. It also lays the groundwork for smoother integration and a better developer experience.

We’re excited to announce the 0.5 release milestone for the Ed-Fi Data Management Service (DMS), marking another step forward on our path toward the upcoming Release Candidate 1. This release delivers key features to support authorization, extensibility, and interoperability.

The Ed-Fi Alliance has adopted a cadence of releasing breaking changes to the Ed-Fi Data Standard on alternating years. 2025 is such a year and the next release of the Ed-Fi Data Standard - and consequently the Ed-Fi Resources API - will be labeled version 6.0. With a release date months away in Q4, we are inviting early commentary on the changes made to date, in two domains:

1. Merge the Educator Preparation Data Model (EPDM, fka TPDM) into the core Ed-Fi Data Standard, and expand it to include a new use case around apprenticeships.
2. Enhance the data model to better support student record transfer, particularly for IEP data as a student moves from one school to another.

For more details, including a snapshot of the Open API specification (aka Swagger file), please see RFC 27 - Data Standard 6.0 (Preview 1)

With the recommendation to use the ODS for single year data collection and the announcement of end of support for the Migration Utility, we committed to delivering lightweight SQL migration scripts for non-breaking changes — and today, we’re delivering on that promise.

We are excited to announce the release of ODS-API Upgrade Scripts v1.0. Specifically, these scripts contain instructions and scripts for upgrading from Ed-Fi ODS/API version 7.1 to 7.2 and Ed-Fi ODS/API version 7.2 to 7.3, designed to streamline the upgrade process for your Ed-Fi ODS/API installations.

Tech Congress 2025 is just over a month away and Project Tanager Milestone 0.4.0 has been reached. Can you help us show off what it is (or might be) capable of?

Think of this as a call for posters. If you're not familiar with academic conferences and posters... then maybe you can imagine a science fair board. Do something cool, show it off in a few words and some pictures, and you get a few minutes to narrate for your audience. Complete your "poster" before April 17 so that I have time to incorporate it into a slide deck for an April 23 Tech Congress session showing off the Data Management Service in Action.

What's Changed​

The fourth milestone on our journey to a production-ready release of the Data Management Service (DMS) introduces Configuration Management Service backed by configuration data store, namespace-based authorization, and Keycloak integration as the identity provider.

Discover about the Ed-Fi Alliance's work in 2024 for seeking opportunities to strengthen the use of Unifying Data Model and reducing implementation and operation costs for vendors.