SIMS APIs for Assessment – Update for Partners August 2017

Background

We have been approached on a number of occasions by partners who enquire about exchanging data within the SIMS assessment area. The purpose of this document is to confirm the supported approach for achieving this, and to provide confirmation of the retirement of the APIs relating to Mark Sheets, Programmes of Study (POS) and Templates.

Supported Approach

The supported approach for partners wishing to access data within the SIMS assessment area is in two parts.

Distribution of Partner’s Templates

The first part of the approach is to assist partners to provide templates for mutual customers via the standard SIMS Assessment import/export facilities.

Templates are the key device to facilitate the coherent display of results within SIMS.  Templates decide what and how we display marks on SIMS screens and are used to form Mark Sheets and POS when a group of learners are added.  In our next generation software, the term Template is used for both Mark Sheets and POS whereas the ‘Template’ for a POS in SIMS 7 is referred to as a ‘Scheme Structure’; we refer to both as ‘Templates’ within the document. Marks inserted in to SIMS will be difficult for users to consume unless a Template already exists or is provided by the partner.  It should be relatively straight forward for SIMS users to create Mark Sheets / POS from the templates.

In both the existing SIMS and in the next generation, the concept of Partner Templates for Mark Sheets and POS are and will be supported. 

• Partner’s need to request a SQL script to change the ‘Supplier’ in SIMS 7 and can then use SIMS to generate templates including templates which use formulae
• SIMS Primary will offer a similar concept (not patch) will be available for partners to create templates and to facilitate the sharing of templates via some form of market place.  These templates may contain new standard formulae too.

The key activity for partners is to use SIMS to create appropriate Templates within SIMS, export them and make the files available to customers.

Partners and schools must take care when exchanging templates and ensure comply with any licence conditions which may apply.  Whilst SIMS 7 does not implement a formal IP protection, our intention would be to incorporate more formal IP protection in SIMS Primary and beyond. Examples of these are Templates provided by:

NB: The list is not exhaustive and omission from the lists does not imply that other Templates are free of 3^rd party IP.

The Use of 3^rd Party Assessment APIs

The second part of the approach is to recommend the use of the third party assessment APIs which resemble SIF calls.  These offer access to:

Typically these require a few lines of code and exchange XML and are quite straight forward for partner’s to consume.

Confirmation of Retirement of APIs relating to Mark sheets, Programmes of Study and Templates in SIMS7

Mark sheets, Programmes of Study (POS) and the templates that underpin them are complex objects.    Templates in particular for both Mark Sheets and POS contain calculation algorithms and definitions which allow SIMS to display calculated results based on wide ranging formulae and to colour code results; formulae do not adhere to external standards and current plans are to replace these with an alternative model for the next generation of SIMS.    Additionally these Templates may contain third party intellectual property (IP) which may be copyright and could have associated terms of use applied.

From 28/02/2018 we are formally retiring support for these APIs. The APIs themselves will still exist within SIMS7 as we understand that some partner systems have utilised the APIs in their solution(s). Future support, should an API call fail, or a future release render the API no longer functional, will not be available.

Future Versions of SIMS

There is no plan to make the equivalent APIs for Templates and / or Mark Sheets available in SIMS Primary and subsequent versions. APIs will be made available to access:

• Aspects (Read)
• Results (Read/Write)
• Grade Sets (Read)
• Assessment Periods (Read)

In addition, we will make available the ability to exchange templates for mark sheets & POS along with the supporting aspects, grade sets and assessment periods

Conclusion

Between Partner APIs and Partner Template Distribution, we cover most of the anticipated use of partners within the Assessment Area.  We note that there may be more ‘creative’ ways of using these which may or may not be known to us.

Partners must ensure that copyright templates are not used outside of the supplier’s terms and conditions and ensure that schools are clearly informed of any licence constraints for their own Templates.

We will Support partners with issues using Templates, POS and Mark sheets until 28/02/2018 on a best endeavours basis.  Support may be restricted to ‘Please use a Template / POS / Mark sheet that works’ for the partner’s purpose.

The Partner Support Team will be happy to assist partners with making any required changes, but ask that partners note that there is no supportable equivalent API call to access templates or mark sheets.  As such partners will need to create an alternative ‘display device’ to specify results required by their system(s).