
Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools - greattypo
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/22/clever-seed/
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numbsafari
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.

~~~
boboze
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.

~~~
numbsafari
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?

~~~
rgarcia
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.

~~~
numbsafari
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.

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greattypo
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>

~~~
jcampbell1
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.

~~~
2arrs2ells
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.

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btipling
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.

~~~
slammdunc23
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).

~~~
pflats
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.

~~~
trhtrsh
The killer app for SIS is "support for 200-row CSV upload" ?!

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christiangenco
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.

1\. <https://getclever.com/developers/docs>

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mcs
I've played around with some of those proprietary (Pearson) school formats
before, and they suck.

This is a world of change for school software development.

~~~
stephenhuey
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!

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droithomme
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?

~~~
greattypo
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.

~~~
Jeff_29
I'm working on an education startup. Where can I find a good comparison
between you and LearnSprout?

~~~
emilydong
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.

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rrouse
I wonder how some of the aspects of this works around FERPA (e.g. giving
developers access to data)

~~~
2arrs2ells
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).

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zdw
I'm not able to gather a business model for this - who are their customers,
how do they get paid?

~~~
stef25
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.

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mvkel
Interesting approach. Not sure how you get over $10mm, as there are only so
many LMS companies.

They must have a pretty good vision to attract the capital

