Click the letters below to jump to that section of the glossary.
If you have recommendations for items to be added on this webpage please click the purple, “Submit Feedback” button below.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A, B
ACCESS/ ACCESS for ELLs - ACCESS stands for Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners. It is the name of the English Language proficiency test, used to assess a student’s English proficiency level created by WIDA.
Agency – School or district; synonym to entity.
API – Application Program Interface, a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. An API is like a waiter in a restaurant. Imagine that you are sitting down in a restaurant. You are representing the end user. The kitchen that prepares your food is representing the backend. The waiter is who communicates between the two, just like an API.
C, D
CCR - College and Career Ready.
CESA – Cooperative Educational Service Agency. Abbreviation is pronounced (see-suh). There are 12 CESAs throughout Wisconsin, with regional support staff to assist a geographic region of schools/LEAs.
Critical Error – Most severe validation message preventing data from flowing into the data warehouse.
CST – Customer Services Team.
Collection - A collection of data elements within a similar topic. Example, the Attendance collection includes Possible Days of Attendance and Actual Days of Attendance data elements.
CRDC - Civil Rights Data Collection.
CTE/CE- Career and Technical Education/Career Education.
Data Element – A data value that is collected for reporting. A few examples would be Attendance, Race/Ethnicity, and Enrollment Begin Date. It's important to note that these can vary between public schools and Choice schools.
Data Flow - Data flow represents data movement from one component to another or from one system to another. For example, data entered in a school’s SIS flows into WISEdata and is visible to you via the WISEdata Portal.
DPI – Department of Public Instruction; DPI is also the State Education Agency, or SEA.
DSA – District Security Administrators, grant access to WISE applications at the district level.
DW - Data Warehouse –DW, stores data about Wisconsin's public and Choice schools; the data stored here populates WISEdash.
E, F
EC - Early Childhood. This name encompasses a wide variety of services and options.
Ed-Fi - Ed-Fi is a nonprofit organization fully funded by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. This organization has established the Ed-Fi Data Standard, a set of rules that allow educational data systems to connect.
Ed-Fi Credential - This application allows LEAs to create and manage credentials required for connecting an LEAs Student Information System (SIS) to the WISEdata Ed-Fi API. Credentials, key and secret, are used to verify the identity of the LEA and Vendor. Also referred to as Ed-Cred.
EL/ELL - English Language Learner / English Learner
ELP/LEP - English Language Proficiency/Limited English Proficiency, student’s English proficiency level according to their ACCESS test; this will be a number value between 1 - 7.
Error (Non Critical) – (non-critical error) This type of validation message may still allow data to flow into the data warehouse but will most likely be reported incorrectly.
ESEA/ESSA - The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was signed into law in 2015, reauthorized by President Obama. Previously known as “No Child Left Behind,” the 2015 reauthorized version of ESEA included many key changes. These changes also resulted in a new name for the act: Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. This federal identification system requires the identification of the lowest performing public schools and schools with low performing student groups in each state. Wisconsin's plan was approved by the US Department of Education in January 2018.
Exit - Ending a student enrollment within the school year as reported in WISEdata, typically the last day of school. There is a select list of Exit Types from which to choose.
FAPE - Free Appropriate Public Education.
G, H, I
Help Ticket – A request for assistance submitted through the DPI website.
IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
IEP - Individualized Education Program, a student’s special education plan; only public schools utilize IEPs.
ISP - Individual Service Plan; similar to an IEP that is utilized in a private school setting.
ISS - In-school suspension, only reported to DPI if a student with a disability.
J, K
KBA - Knowledge Based Article. Short articles helpful for assisting and understanding errors/warnings, accessible through the Knowledgebase Article (KBA) Portal.
Key and Secret - Credentials issued by the Ed-Fi Credential application that are entered into the school’s SIS to establish data flow to WISEdata Portal.
L, M
Local Person ID - This is an ID assigned to the student (and staff) at the school or district level. This is different from a WISEid, as the Local Person ID is at the school or district level only. A WISEid is used by DPI and other schools/districts to track a person’s data over time and place.
LEA - Local Educational Agency, a school or district.
N, O
Oct 1/ Oct 1 CC - October 1 Child Count, special education count date, special education students must have an active IEP and sSEPA record on this date to be counted for reporting.
OSS - Out-of-school suspension. Also, Office of the State Superintendent of DPI.
P, Q
Push - Sending data. For example, a SIS will push data to WISEdata as part of the data flow.
Queue - Where your Help Ticket lands. Customer Services Team members manage the queue daily.
R, S
Roster - Course information, data about students and teachers associated with the courses, and the location of where courses are taught, such as the primary school where the student is enrolled.
SIS - Student information system, a vendor tool chosen by the district/school for collecting and reporting data. Your SIS will house a lot more data than is actually sent to WISEdata.
sLIPA - Student Language Instruction Program Association. A student’s language instruction services record.
Snapshot - A static data report taken from active, dynamic tables in the DPI Data Warehouse (DW) at a specific point of time. Named this because it ‘captures’ data like a picture or photograph, freezing a moment in time. Snapshots are saved to a “permanent” location and taken on a predetermined date. Snapshots are provided for the purpose of public reporting and accountability. WISEdata has two snapshots, one in December and one in May.
SPED - Special Education. This acronym is used to refer both to a student receiving special education services, as well as the services themselves.
sSEPA - Student Special Education Program association. A student’s special education record.
SEOA - Student Education Organization Association. This is an endpoint, which is like a 'mini-collection.' WISEdata and Ed-Fi have and use many different endpoints. The SEOA endpoint refers to a student’s enrollment record as reported to WISEdata.
T, U, V
TFS - Third Friday of September is the annual enrollment count date. This is the date that students must be enrolled and receiving services to be counted for reporting.
UAT - User Acceptance Testing. A "Test Environment" of the WISE applications containing fake data, used for training and demonstration purposes.
Vendor - Also known as student information system or SIS (see SIS above for additional information), could also be referring to the SPED or HR-staff applications; known by company name.
W
WAMS - Wisconsin’s Web Access Management System, allows authorized individuals to access State Internet applications using the same means of identification for all State Web applications. WAMs is overseen by the Department of Administration (DOA) and not DPI.
Warning - A validation message that may or may not be an issue but needs to be reviewed.
WISE - Wisconsin Information System for Education.
WISEclassroom - The main training page for many WISE applications.
WISEdash - A dashboard and reporting tool, a secure portal that allows district staff to turn data into information quickly and easily, so they can make more informed decisions about student learning. Data Dashboard will showcase data by topic for review of trends and accuracy. There is also a redacted, public version of WISEdash known as WISEdash Public Portal.
WISEdata - A secure web application used for continuous student data collection.
WISEhome - Refers both to the login portal used for requesting application access and viewing applications, as well as the landing page listing all applications a user has been granted acces to use once logged in to that portal. Users must log in using their school-associated WAMS username and password.
WISEid (number) - A unique, permanent, and unduplicated identification number. This 10-digit numeric field is required for all reported students and for educators.
WISEid - A secure web application used to maintain basic demographic information about people in schools. WISEid provides identity management through the assigning of a secure, individual identification number.
WISEsecure - A secure web application used by administrators to assign users access and user roles to other DPI WISE applications.
WISEstaff - A secure web application within WISEdata used to maintain required information about school staff members.
WL - World language, formerly known as foreign language.
X Y Z
~