(NASIS) Requirements Definition Document - Bureau of Indian ...

NASIS Requirements Definition Document (RDD)
Version 1.0
17 February 2006
possible the distillation of data into reports at school, Education Line Office, Regional Director, OIEP
Central Office, and state levels. ELOs will be able to run reports covering their jurisdictions and OIEP
will run bureau-wide aggregate reports as well as all other reports.
The other primary NASIS requirement, although secondary to the above reporting and analysis
requirement, is the delivery of NASIS Student and School Services. Student and School Services are
similar to those that would be anticipated in most schools systems. NASIS will provide schools with as
complete a feature set as possible to support and satisfy day to day and planning needs. This would
include data input, collection, and reporting for a variety of functions such as, but not limited to,
scheduling, attendance, grade reporting, behavior tracking, test and assessment histories, program
enrollments, and other areas of need. There are some OIEP-unique requirements related to, for example,
transportation and residential/dormitory operations.
To reduce overall life cycle costs and simplify system support, and to take advantage of proven technology,
NASIS is envisioned as a centralized, Web-based system. Other implementations are possible if they can be
shown to be superior.
1.4 Use Cases
The table below summarizes how NASIS is to be employed by the primary types of users.
USER
Central Office Analysts
and Planners
Use
In certain aspects, OIEP is different from schools and school systems across the
country. These differences may have significant impact on the manner that an off the
shelf School Information System must be modified in order to meet the unique needs
of the BIA and the BIA funded schools.
The BIA for this project operates as single system, but at the same time each of its
schools is run more or less autonomously, with their own curriculums, and their own
local policies and procedures. It is critical that the system provide a means for the BIA
to gather data consistently and at the same time allow schools sufficient flexibility to
meet their own very different needs.
For the purposes of this project, it is important to understand that the Bureau of Indian
Affairs is similar to a State Education Agency in its reporting requirements. Schools
funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs must report to the BIA data using data definers
that are commonly reported by all schools in the system. For example Bureau schools
must report to the BIA information on a student’s tribal membership, and in a few
cases where a student is not a tribal member their status as non-Indian. However,
because BIA schools in some cases may receive funding or receive accreditation from
the states where they are located, they must also report to the states. In most cases a
state is not interested in tribal membership but require schools to report on a student’s
ethnicity using that states ethnicity codes. Not all states use the same ethnicity codes,
or definers of ethnicity. The NASIS system must both maintain the tribal membership
fields and at the same time allow locally or state defined fields for ethnicity codes.
This is needed so that the BIA can gather data in a consistent manner and allows the
schools the ability to meet state requirements
Another difference is that the BIA funds several different types of schools and
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