Major Changes

Assessment Identity Changes (DATASTD-1214, DATASTD-1194, DATASTD-1117)

A number of issues raised by implementers concern the composite key of the Assessment and StudentAssessment entity. The composite key in the Data Standard v2.0 was composed of four elements: AssessmentTitle, Version, GradeLevel, and Subject. This key cascades into other domain entities including ObjectiveAssessment, AssessmentItem, and StudentAssessment. 

This structure presents a few issues in field use:

• The composite key values do not guarantee uniqueness.
• An individual key field is not available for a particular assessment (e.g., a technically valid assessment can have no prescribed grade level).

Data Standard v2.2 introduces a new key consisting of AssessmentIdentifier and Namespace. This key follows the "partial-key surrogate pattern," in which a source system surrogate key (in this case, AssessmentIdentifier), is introduced and is scoped organizationally (in this case, by a vendor-specific Namespace). Based on implementer feedback, it appears that vendors most typically use UUIDs for the surrogate key.

StudentAssessment Identity Changes (DATASTD-1214,  DATASTD-979)

Similar to the changes to Assessment, the key to StudentAssessment was updated to accommodate a source system surrogate. In addition, the AdministrationDate of the assessment was dropped from the key, following a general pattern to remove dates from keys due to their volatility. This removal of the date in favor of a source system surrogate also resolves potential issues around support for capturing more than one student result in a single day.

The key to StudentAssessment becomes an Assessment reference, a Student reference, and the StudentAssessmentIdentifier (the source system surrogate).

Increase Flexibility in Domain Model for Grade Levels and Subjects (DATASTD-1214, DATASTD-1199, DATASTD-1198, DATASTD-1197)

The Data Standard v2.0 required a grade level collection on the assessment entity. Assessment providers note that assessments often do not target a particular grade level, but rather can be applicable to many grade levels. In addition, some assessments may have no clear grade level indexing (e.g., an IQ test). In accordance with this, GradeLevel is made an optional collection on the Assessment entity in Data Standard v2.2.

Assessment providers also noted that assessments can cover multiple subject areas, so AcademicSubject was made into a required collection on the Assessment entity.

Since learning objective metadata regarding grade level and subject behave similarly to that of the Assessment entity, the changes above were also made to the GradeLevel and AcademicSubject in the LearningObjective entity.

All Individual Changes

If the list does not appear, you can use this direct link to all changes