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Education Service Agency (ESA) Playbook

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Welcome to the Playbook​

Welcome to the Ed-Fi playbook for Educational Service Agencies in the K–12 ecosystem! Educational Service Agencies may go by a variety of names depending on where you are in the country like Education Service Centers (ESC), collaboratives, Counties of Education (COEs), Regional Information Centers (RIC), etc. These organizations also have slightly varying charters and missions. This information is intended to help you understand the major aspects of building data system integrations using the Ed-Fi Data Standard that is universal to Educational Service Agencies (ESA).

There are three intended audiences for this playbook:

  • Agency executive champions can learn about Ed-Fi and understand the why/how of streamlining data collection and how Ed-Fi data standards can help with that

  • Agency IT leaders can learn how to partner with Managed Service Provider(s) (MSP) as a means to expanding their work into providing data and analytics services to their LEAs

  • Agency instructional technologists who may be assisting LEAs with the implementation of edTech platforms and want to expand their coaching abilities.

What Is an Ed-Fi Data Hub?​

An Ed-Fi Data Hub is a shared data system, usually run by an ESA or a state, that collects data from many districts' products using the Ed-Fi Data Standard. District student information, assessment, HR, learning, and other systems send data to the hub's Ed-Fi API. The hub then supports analytics, data warehousing, and other data services for member districts, and can forward reporting data to the state's Ed-Fi API for state and federal reporting.

A data hub is not the Ed-Fi Data Standard or the Ed-Fi API. The Ed-Fi Alliance publishes those; a data hub is a service that an ESA, a state, or a managed service provider builds on them. A hub does not replace districts' own tools. It helps districts use their data across those tools.

The ESA's Role​

ESAs already provide shared contracts and services to member districts, and most districts do not have the staff to run data infrastructure themselves. That puts ESAs in a good position to run a data hub, offer data services on top of it, and work with the state on vendor expectations. Palmetto Data Collaborative (South Carolina), Texas Education Exchange, and Michigan DataHub are examples operating today.

For the architecture, see Reporting and data hub architecture. For an example member portal, see the SDCOE Data Hub Prototype.

Download the Playbook​

Educational Service Agency (ESA) Playbook

Knowledge Base Articles​

Knowledge base (KB) articles in this online guide present more detailed information that goes deeper into the topics in the playbook.

Ed-Fi Academy Content​

If you haven’t already completed:

We recommend these resources for those very new to Ed-Fi - they will assist in digesting the information presented in the playbook.