Report to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
by
The E-Rate Implementation Working Group (Working Group)
composed of
U.S. Department of Education
Institute of Museum and Library Services
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
Rural Utilities Service
Education and Library Networks Coalition
July 31, 1997
IV. Data Standardization
The Working Group has seen RFPs and other detailed descriptions of services run in excess of one thousand pages. Although the E-Rate Ruling directs SLC to make these posted documents searchable by various quantifiable data about the schools and libraries covered by the application, searches of the information in the RFP/descriptions of services themselves will necessarily be limited. Similarly, although the requirements for the inventory/assessments cover specific subject matters, the methods of quantification have not been provided. 10
Textual data, such as the RFP/descriptions of services and the inventory/assessments, may be scanned optically to convert it to machine-readable form. Files of such data may then be accessed by search engines that look for individual words or combinations of words. The data may also be classified and aggregated using such techniques, but such operations are cumbersome and subject to substantial inaccuracies. Moreover, both applicants and SLC would have to incur substantial expenses in collecting, scanning and storing the massive number of documents that will be generated by the well in excess of 100,000 schools, libraries, higher-level entities and consortia that can be expected to participate in the E-rate.
Far more efficient and productive use may be made of large quantities of data if it is recorded or summarized in standard record formats, and the standardized data are input into the system. Standardized summary data can then be used to identify underlying detailed but unstandardized data for further analysis and can be analyzed in their own right. The detailed unstandardized data can either be scanned into the system or simply held in a convenient location in paper form for examination by parties interested in it on the basis of the summaries. Service providers have confirmed to us that the RFP/descriptions of services would be much more useful to them if maintained in this manner.
The RFP/requests for proposals and inventory/assessments provide a good example of the substantial benefits that could be achieved from the data collection already required by the E-Rate Ruling, if standardized data formats were provided for summaries of the former and the text of the latter. Standardized summaries of the RFP/requests for services, which were intended to provide information to potential service providers, could also be aggregated and analyzed to establish a baseline for existing telecommunications services in schools and libraries and to measure their growth as the operation of the E-rate progresses. Standardized inventory/assessments, which were intended to ensure that applicants "had done their homework" and provide backup for the required certification as to funding for the necessary hardware, software and staff training for effective use of the requested eligible services (¶577(5)), could serve the same analytical purpose for the other necessary technology components. In combination, this standardized information could be an important component for a management information system for the use of the school and library governing bodies responsible for the management of educational technology systems. Finally, as recommended by the Departments of Commerce and Education in their ex-parte filing of April 25, 1997, fact-finding activities should be undertaken to aid in monitoring the performance of the E-rate process. In the early years of the E-rate, before the effects on educational outcomes can be measured, the changes in aggregate inventories that could be measured with aggregated standardized data could be an important component of this measurement process.
Very painstaking effort would be required to ensure that any standardized data formats are very simple and require the least possible change from existing data collection efforts by schools and libraries and their governing bodies. Even standardized data collection should involve only data that is truly necessary and creates incremental expense, if any, that is commensurate with the value of the data. Minimization of bureaucracy and burden, and maximization of productivity should be the goals of any standardization effort. The Working Group's impression is that such would be the case here, but until the necessary field work has been done, we limit our recommendation to a request that the FCC instruct SLC to explore which data already required to be collected should be standardized.
This page last updated 8/10/97 (pjh).
10
For example, electrical capacity could be measured by a receptacle count or by building amperage. See also n.9, above. Some fine tuning may be necessary in the inventory/assessment specifications. For example, the specifications refer to modems and their speeds (¶572), but most local-area networks would use Ethernet cards or similar devices.
[ III. Aggregation/ Disaggregations ]
[ V. Data
Warehouse ]