National Center and State Collaborative (NCSC)

   Technology
The National Center and State Collaborative (NCSC) was a multi-state, multi-organizational consortium that was awarded a General Supervision Enhancement Grant (GSEG) in late 2010 by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in the U.S. Department of Education. The purpose of the grant was to develop an alternate assessment system and related content to assess the English Language Arts and Mathematics achievement of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.

NCSC Consortium workshops define system architecture and technology requirements for assessing students with significant cognitive disabilities.

Challenge

The goal of NCSC was to apply the lessons learned from the past decade of research on alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA‐AAS) to develop a multi‐state comprehensive assessment system for students with significant cognitive disabilities. During the Analysis phase of the NCSC consortium, Jason Dunton served as lead business analyst and held responsibility for business analysis deliverables.

Solution

Two extended workshops were held over three weeks to capture the needs, requirements and desires of the Consortium in the design of the overall system architecture. The NCSC consortium represented 24 states, the pacific assessment consortium and the US Virgin Islands. The workshop participants included individuals from NCSC Workgroups and experts in the accessibility, assessment, and technology fields.

Result

The Analysis Phase deliverables were successfully developed, submitted, and received by the NCSC consortium. Two documents were produced.

The National Center and State Collaborative (NCSC) Architecture and Technology Analysis Phase Report-Out

These structured conversations had the goal to provide the necessary information to define the enterprise architecture for the multi-state assessment and reporting system for kids with the most significant cognitive disabilities. The document represented the workshop discussions, exercises, and resulting analysis. It included a future perspective, project sliders, a risk log, user roles and goals, personas, and workflows.

Report and Recommendations, Architecture and Technology System Requirements for the NCSC Assessment Platform

The Architecture and Technology Requirements Document described the fundamental architecture of the NCSC GSEG technology solution. Its purpose was to identify the technical requirements that the NCSC System must comply with in order to deliver on the promise of the GSEG grant and the aspirations of the NCSC program to dramatically improve the quality and value of the summative alternate assessment provided to students with significant intellectual or physical disabilities.