The 2020-2021 Statewide Information System (SIS) Handbook has been published on the ADE Data Center: SIS Handbook Portal website. The SIS handbook is released prior to March 1^st of every year for districts to plan in ahead for the data entry needs in eSchoolPLUS, eFinancePLUS and SIS LEA Profile source systems.

The Arkansas Department of Education (ADE), Division of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) - Office of Information Technology is pleased to announce the release of the SIS Handbook on a web-based online/digital platform moving from a static PDF handbook in the past. The SIS is updated yearly; either to remove data elements that are no longer needed, modify current data collection items per cycle and/or, to add new data elements as required by Ad-hoc, State and Federal reporting requirements. 

SIS Handbook Portal: https://adedata.arkansas.gov/sishandbook/

On a high-level overview, this year the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) is making changes in few areas to improve the over-all data collection process. For a quick preview of SIS Handbook changes for school year, 2020-2021, use the below direct hyperlink:

 SIS Handbook Changes

SIS Handbook Portal High-Level Features:

• Ability to download and print each SIS table individually as PDF or excel.
• Ability to compare individual table with a prior year and track changes in comparison to the prior year.
• Ability to search and download the appendices as PDF and Excel
• Ability to search and sort available on all pages
• Ability to custom search for the SIS Handbook
• Ability to drill down the appendices for County, District
• Inclusion of dedicated ‘Data Changes’ tab to track all changes (addition, modification, deletion) for the current year by table, appendix and reports

The SIS implements the provisions of several Arkansas General Assembly enactments which mandate that the ADE make extensive use of Information Technology (IT) at the state and the local levels to provide accurate and timely information to policy makers and to the reduce the state reporting burden. This is an important data collection