Imagine that you are going on a journey. You’re headed somewhere you have visited a few times before, but your memory is fuzzy on the exact directions to take—so you use your navigation app. As you set out, it’s easy to become distracted by your favorite podcast or roadside attractions. You encounter some construction that requires you to take an unexpected turn. Yet even when you veer off your original course, you can rely on the navigation system to correct and update your route instantaneously.

Now imagine that instead of receiving instant feedback as you drive, you have to wait a few minutes—or hours, or months—before knowing if you’re on the right track. Sounds frustrating and ridiculous, right?

This is the challenge that school districts face when navigating student assessment data. As schools adopt more technology to support students’ learning, they inevitably generate more and more data. But this data is usually summative, offering insight into a learner’s progress only at the end of a lesson or grading period.

Furthermore, this information is often spread across many tools, making it difficult to identify learning gaps, tailor instruction, and improve student outcomes. Well-meaning educators and school administrators often spend valuable time and energy reviewing multiple dashboards and platforms, manually inputting data, and reconciling disparate systems. In other words, they get lost in data.

What if it were possible to access comprehensive assessment data in real time? Doing so would allow educators to best support each student’s journey. Data interoperability—the seamless, secure, and controlled exchange of data between applications—has the potential to provide real-time feedback to students and teachers, keeping them on the road to their learning objectives.

Read the full article about data interoperability by My Nguyen at EdSurge.