Ed-Fi Data Standard v5

Version-specific reference

This page is technical reference for Data Standard v5. For what the Ed-Fi Data Standard is, independent of version, see About the Ed-Fi Data Standard. For which Data Standard versions are supported, and through which school year, see Ed-Fi Technology Suite Supported Versions.

About Data Standard v5

Data Standard v5 is a major version of the Ed-Fi Data Standard and the successor to Data Standard v4. Version 5.0, released in 2023, introduced breaking changes to the Ed-Fi Unifying Data Model (UDM) for domains commonly used by student information systems and assessment systems. Versions 5.1 and 5.2, released in 2024, added non-breaking changes. The current release of v5 is v5.2 (full version number v5.2.0).

Data Standard v5 has been succeeded by Data Standard v6.

For details on changes introduced in v5, refer to the What's New page. See the Ed-Fi Technology Suite Roadmap for information on past and upcoming Data Standard releases.

Data Model

The Ed-Fi Unifying Data Model (UDM) is the widely adopted, CEDS-aligned, open-source data standard developed by the Ed-Fi community for the improvement of the community, and for the broader purpose of helping the K–12 education community in using data as a strategic asset to improve educational outcomes of students. The UDM captures the meaning and inherent structure of the most important information in the K–12 education enterprise.

The Ed-Fi UDM, along with the normative and non-normative guidance in the Ed-Fi Standards, serve as the foundation for enabling interoperability among secure data systems.

Data Model Documentation

The data model is referred to as the Ed-Fi Unifying Data Model, or UDM. The UDM is documented via 2 primary artifacts: the Ed-Fi Data Handbook and a set of Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams.

• Ed-Fi Data Handbook for DS v5.2
• Ed-Fi Data Handbook for DS v5.1
• Ed-Fi Data Handbook for DS v5.0
• Ed-Fi UDM UML Diagrams (Visio format, on GitHub)

Additional documentation is provided in the Ed-Fi Unifying Data Model documentation. This additional documentation provides narrative overviews of domains and key entities, as well as normative best practice guidance.

Version

The most recent v5 release is Ed-Fi Data Standard for Suite 3 v5.2.0.

It is the minor release of Data Standard v5 following the previous final release v5.0.0 and the stable final version v4.0 before it.

• For more information on the community development and governance process, please visit Standards Development Process (in Confluence).
• For more information on data standard versioning, please consult: Ed-Fi Data Standard Versioning and Releases

REST API Bindings

This release contains only changes classified as "non-breaking", so for API clients using previous final versions should be fine. However, those who have been using version v4.0 or earlier may need be aware of the breaking changes introduced earlier by v5.0 (which the v5.2 is build on) and prepare for those changes. API bindings have been published with the v5.0 final release.

Bulk / XML Bindings

In addition, a set of Bulk / XML standards (core entity XML definitions and interchange specifications) based on this release are available on GitHub.

Sample Data

The Data Standard includes sample data in the bulk XML format. The sample data is based on an entirely fictitious district called "Grand Bend ISD." Note that the sample data does not cover all model elements, and that while some effort is made to provide realistic data, the data is managed more to provide coverage of elements rather than realism.

Default Descriptors

The Standard includes default "code sets" or "enumeration values" and their definitions. Descriptor values are published on GitHub in XML format.

Only descriptor values in the "ed-fi.org" namespace are part of the standard. In some contexts, the Alliance publishes values in the Grand Bend "gbisd.edu" namespace (Grand Bend the fictitious district for the sample data). This is done for descriptors whose actual values are nearly always locally defined, and therefore non-standardizable.

Data Exchange Standards

For a list of standards built on the Ed-Fi Unifying Data Model, visit the Ed-Fi Data Exchange Standards Home.

Guidelines

The Ed-Fi Alliance publishes technical guidelines for building solutions based on the Ed-Fi Data Standard:

• For REST API design and implementation guidelines, visit the Ed-Fi API Design & Implementation Guidelines documentation.