School officials are one step closer to sharing student data between multiple software programs without any retyping, thanks to an industry-wide initiative that has been tested and found to work.

The Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) is an open-standard specification that lets different software programs—such as student information systems and library automation software—connect through a central server and share information in a common computer language.

Driven by K-12 education technology providers, SIF—a division the Software and Information Industry Association—aims to save educators from repeatedly entering and updating student information. The goal is to enable diverse software applications to interact and share data efficiently, reliably, and securely in real time, regardless of their platform.

In August 2000, eSchool News reported that SIF Implementation Specification v1.0 had been released to software developers. Now, a remote demonstration of SIF-compliant products in early February has proven the specification works.

In the first-ever "Connect-a-thon," held Feb. 4 through 8, approximately a dozen companies were able to establish a connection over the internet through a zone integration server (ZIS) to share database information. The ZIS is the component where data from one piece of software communicate with data from another program.

In the experiment, the participating companies added new students to a student information system and then looked to see if the information was also added to the library software, the bus scheduling software, and so on.

Participants also tried changing student information to see if it would be updated on all the programs. And they queried for information to see if they could conduct a search of all the programs.

"Things just pretty much worked," said Eric Peterson, chief technology officer at Edustructures, a company that makes zone integration servers.

SIF is an open standard, so any company can add support for it to the company's software product. "The specifications have been out there for a while, and now it's getting to the point that it actually works," Peterson said.

Currently, more than 120 companies are working to make SIF possible.

"The Connect-a-thon is significant because this is the first time vendors who have been building support for SIF into their systems found that it actually works," Peterson said.

SIF Director Tim Magner described the Connect-a-thon as a "milestone" for SIF, which has been in the works for nearly three years.

"It means that SIF is real, that schools can begin to assess their own readiness to implement SIF, and that they should begin to explore how SIF can make a difference in their district," he said.

SIF is more than a technology solution, Magner said. It's an infrastructure that links software systems in schools to software programs at the district level. "It's not just about hardware and software, it's also about data management and school administration," he said.