Ed-Fi Alliance Partner Program

Certification

Ed-Fi certifications allow product developers to demonstrate a product's fidelity to Ed-Fi standards and guidelines, and for purchasers or users to be confident that a product conforms to those same Ed-Fi standards and guidelines.

The Ed-Fi certification program was developed from the experience of many education agencies in certifying Ed-Fi-compliant data exchanges for their enterprise systems. The Ed-Fi Alliance has built on that foundation to provide a certification that can be used across different agencies and organizations, alleviating the need for vendors to undergo multiple, overlapping local certifications.

Badging

Ed-Fi Badges allow product developers to demonstrate support for Ed-Fi standards and technology, particularly in areas that are not yet covered by an Ed-Fi Certification.

Many products that use Ed-Fi standardized APIs or integrate natively with Ed-Fi technology tools (such as the Ed-Fi Operational Data Store and API) are forging new ground in terms of defining data integration use cases valuable to schools. Badges allow these efforts to be validated and recognized by the community.

Badges are not intended nor should they be used as a "lightweight" certification, either by technology providers or the education agencies they support. Over time, some badges may act as precursors to new certifications.

Unlike certification, badges also focus on both Ed-Fi standards as well as Ed-Fi technology tools; by contrast, Ed-Fi certifications only focus on Ed-Fi standards.