For anyone who has been following the furor over Twitter's moves to control it's network and infrastructure at the expense of the developers who gave it value (and it's logo!), Clever and LearnSprout should be concerning.
The idea is that School's can integrate their SIS system with Clever's network once, and then have "seamless" integrations with whatever tools operate on that network. This is "free of charge" to the schools.
However, the apps/tools that integrate with Clever must pay them.
It should be noted that Clever's data and API aren't based on any existing or proposed industry standard.
Schools are baited with the idea of a "free" integration. They'll end up paying for it in the long run, though, because those costs will be passed on for every application they use.
What's worse, they'll all be locked into this proprietary standard.
On the surface, this all sounds like a "Great Idea". At the end of the day, it's an attempt at a land grab to try and control the market for student data. Is that even a market that should exist in the first place? Are schools making the right long-term choice when they integrate with a tool such as Clever and LearnSprout, it if means being locked into a proprietary standard down the road?
This sounds exactly like what has happened with the "centralized network" problem we have with Twitter, FB, etc.--and it is.
Yes, the existing toolset in K12 is abysmal. Schools and their vendors should be looking to implement standards such as those offered by IMS in Higher Ed, rather than just adding another proprietary mouth in the trough--especially one that doesn't offer any actual learning tools.
If Clever and LearnSprout issued their data formats under an open license through a standards body, I'd be way more interested. That said, I'm glad to see any kind of shake-up in the Ed space.
You make a good point numbsafari, though I disagree with your suggestion that schools will end up paying in the long run. Fundamentally, this is true, but I would add that schools will be paying much less than what they are paying now. Integration with 3rd party apps is time consuming and expensive. If a "once and done" option is available, schools will benefit.
The cost savings for developers is also very real. Instead of having to hire full-time integrators to manage each account with variants for each SIS, developers can plug into an API that works with all SISs once and be done.
Finally, we should remember that having access to an API that is not regulated by SIS companies allows for the development of a new generation of edtech that until now, was not possible due to the fact that much of the data is purposely locked away in the SIS. Would Pearson really want parents using something like Edmodo in lieu of their own portal? In the attention economy, it's not in Pearson's interest to enable these types of solutions.
Then why not publish your API specs and data formats under an open copyright license?
You don't necessarily have to submit them to a standards body like ECMA or IMS. You can just publish them under an open license that is free to use by everyone involved.
You'd still be able to provide your service and charge for it accordingly.
Pearson already offers an open-standards based integration solutions. Yes, it's convoluted and difficult to implement. But it's out there and it's used by almost all of the real SIS providers. The idea that FTP and CSV are the only options available to schools is false. See http://sifinfo.org for an example.
All you are doing is changing which fox is in the hen house. It's a good game, business-wise, but is it really the right move for the K-12 providers and their customers?
Typical cost of a SIF integration is well out of the budget for all but the largest districts in the country. From what we've seen it typically takes 6+ months to do a full implementation (faster if you hire some consultants). Clever is free and takes 5 minutes. From that perspective it makes a lot of sense for schools.
From the perspective of a software company, something like SIF adds needless additional costs. Want to plug into SIF? Get certified: http://www.sifinfo.org/us/sif-certification.asp. API docs? Support? Good luck finding that.
The reality is that most of the standards you're talking about are free money for high-priced consultants.
Well, obviously... otherwise there wouldn't be a place in the market for the solution you are providing.
Many of the SIS providers have failed to make these solutions easy to implement and they've allowed these standards to become overly complex. I've kinda said that in each of my posts.
But that's besides the point. I'm not arguing that Clever and LearnSprout aren't adding some kind of value. Of course they are.
But they are merely letting schools trade out one piece of vendor lock-in for another. And as we see play out in this industry, over and over again, is that vendor-lockin comes back to bite everyone involved.
So, instead of changing the conversation, why not address my question: why not offer the specs for your API and data formats under a free and open copyright regime? Let the market decide what format is best and what providers are best, but let the data be free and open.
With that, you'd even be beating SIF at their own game.
Worth mentioning that Clever is now making a few key engineering hires.. if improving education through data sounds exciting, shoot me a note and say hello! Or check out https://getclever.com/about/jobs
Since you are here, I have been following Clever and think it is a great idea. The only thing missing from the docs, is how do I get access to a school's data? In my use case, I would need to get class roster data for 1-10 teachers that use my product in their school. I communicate directly with the teachers, and from the docs, I have no idea how these teacher communicate with Clever to make this happen.
To access actual school data, you'll need an API key. Send us an email (info@getclever.com) and we'll set you up & show you how a school can opt to share data with your app.
It's probably not important to them, as I'm not their target audience but I looked at their home page and their about page and that techcrunch article and still have no idea what they do.
Sounds to me like they provide an API for "5-minute SIS Integration for Educational Applications" (from their home page) and that an SIS is an "information system [that] capture[s] and store[s] data on students — from class lists and attendance to grades" (from the TC article).
One of the major pains in the butt for a teacher is getting students set up on a learning web app. Either you spend a bunch of your own time making an account for each student (which is time you could spend doing something more important) or you spend a bunch of class time having students sign up for the accounts during your teaching period (which is time you and they could spend doing something more important).
If a web app had a secure API to include all of my class lists automatically, I'd be much more likely to use it.
Yeah I guess their target audience would know what those things are. That's why I hedged my comment. I'm glad they're doing well, obviously doesn't seem to be a problem for them.
They provided a "vertical network" for K-12 Education data (your kids' test and homework scores), similar to what companies like Ariba and CommerceOne provided for manufacturers and what Facebook and Twitter provide for Advertisers.
Clever is an SIS: student information system. The SIS we use at my school is a web app that integrates all the database functions you might associate with schools: scheduling, grading, attendance, discipline, etc.
Ours is ugly but functional.
edit: Apparently I misunderstood what I read. Sorry.
I definitely see the appeal here. Do you have any plans to give schools an on-site solution, rather than use your servers? Do you do this? Your site is rather light on details.
I'd like to take a moment to point out how fantastically awesome Clever's API documentation[1] is.
Everyone with an API take note: examples in your favorite language of each API request with a demo API key already set up is how you get developers playing with your API. There was almost zero barrier to entry for me to get data from their API into a language I knew how to manipulate JSON objects with and muck around to my heart's content.
Note to Clever: perhaps go all the way to converting the response body to a JSON object in each language?
Edit: also, the "show/hide, collapse, expand" buttons are confusing. You only need two buttons that change their action depending on the current state ("collapse" becomes "expand" if the content is collapsed), and "show/hide" should be up by the `h2`s.
So many of my teacher friends have showed me the high-priced software that often causes them problems, and I've been frustrated by how many entrenched vendors there are who are slow to innovate in this industry. All the best to Clever in their endeavors!
Wait a minute, is this taking private information about minors and, without guardian consent, using a proprietary API to give the information to private industry for-profit corporations?
Co-founder of Clever here. Clever is a more efficient and secure way for schools to connect their learning applications with their SIS database. No data is shared otherwise. Clever helps schools stay compliant with FERPA, the federal laws on student privacy.
Hey Jeff_29, I work on partnerships at LearnSprout and the best way to get a good look is to just contact both companies. You can reach me at emily@learnsprout.com.
If anything, I would expect to see Clever and LearnSprout both to enable schools to have a finer-grained control over their data above and beyond their existing integrations with third-parties. At this point, many of those integrations are pretty poorly thought out and, as a result, many schools are likely over-sharing data in order to "just get it done."
Of course, many existing SIS integration tools provide such capabilities, it's just that they are overly cumbersome to implement and use and so very often aren't.
Schools and enterprise businesses have a lot more in common than you'd think...
Clever helps schools stay FERPA compliant. Our tech gives them fine-grained control over what data they share & where it goes. And all of the data sharing happens in a secure way (vs. the "email an Excel file" status quo).
From the article: "its customers are online learning companies that want to integrate software with the wealth of data found in Student Information Systems". The app is free for the schools themselves.
The idea is that School's can integrate their SIS system with Clever's network once, and then have "seamless" integrations with whatever tools operate on that network. This is "free of charge" to the schools.
However, the apps/tools that integrate with Clever must pay them.
It should be noted that Clever's data and API aren't based on any existing or proposed industry standard.
Schools are baited with the idea of a "free" integration. They'll end up paying for it in the long run, though, because those costs will be passed on for every application they use.
What's worse, they'll all be locked into this proprietary standard.
On the surface, this all sounds like a "Great Idea". At the end of the day, it's an attempt at a land grab to try and control the market for student data. Is that even a market that should exist in the first place? Are schools making the right long-term choice when they integrate with a tool such as Clever and LearnSprout, it if means being locked into a proprietary standard down the road?
This sounds exactly like what has happened with the "centralized network" problem we have with Twitter, FB, etc.--and it is.
Yes, the existing toolset in K12 is abysmal. Schools and their vendors should be looking to implement standards such as those offered by IMS in Higher Ed, rather than just adding another proprietary mouth in the trough--especially one that doesn't offer any actual learning tools.
If Clever and LearnSprout issued their data formats under an open license through a standards body, I'd be way more interested. That said, I'm glad to see any kind of shake-up in the Ed space.