I’m an ed tech content provider. My organization Digital Respons-Ability focuses on creating content on and around the topic of digital citizenship. It’s what we do every day with in-person classes to online training.
In the content creator word inclusivity and accessibility are the requirements. Along with those words you’ll find questions like:
- Are you following UDL principles?
- Is your content accessible to different learners?
- Is it culturally responsive?
- Is it simple to usable and easy to navigate?
I feel like inclusivity is similar to interoperability. So I thought it would be simple to get an interoperability certification badge from Project Unicorn at InnovateEDU. In my head we were already doing it.
But both I, and Project Unicorn found that content providers don’t neatly into the questions and requirements for interoperability.
Chloe Sanducci is the Project Director at Project Unicorn. She has been with Digital Respons-Ability through this process. She gave me the Project Unicorn Interoperability Rubric at the beginning—to which I found myself answering “NA” to many of the questions requirements.
- “Data export costs are available on request after purchase”- NA, we don’t student data
- “Data quality: Linguistic plus numeric identifiers”- NA we don’t require student logins
Chloe understood my frustration and agreed with me that this interoperability was important to ed tech companies. She said, “interoperability can be your market advantage…aligning to data standards early in the product development cycles demonstrates visionary leadership and product maturity to customers and investors.” I wanted to be a “visionary” leader and get this badge, but it wasn’t a fit.
Digital Respons-Ability is just one of many ed tech content providers. We are all out there working to be inclusive not just in terms of curriculum but with state standards, distinct statutes and policies, different platforms and varied student data privacy plans. It’s a lot to keep up on.
Content providers are encountering similar issues as platforms and tools. There is a diverse and complex landscape for both education and interoperability standards. Chloe said, “standards are the foundation of interoperability in K-12 education technology.” It’s the same way with different state subject standards. When states define terms differently, put some standards in different subject areas, or don’t update their standards regularly it can cause confusion to a content provider.
Despite all the help with Project Unicorn Digital Respons-Ability didn’t get their interoperability badge. We just didn’t fit the criteria, but did sign their interoperability pledge. But Chloe said the process spurred discussions within her organization and they are looking at changing the rubric. We weren’t the first to run into these issues of fitting into these interoperability rubrics and we won’t be the last.
I hope that conversations can continue. “Collaboration across stakeholders—schools, vendors, and policymakers—ensures that standards evolve to meet real-world needs,” said Chloe. Let’s have that conversation; let’s look at our interoperability standards to welcome all ed tech companies who are dedicated to accessibility and inclusion.
