Frequently asked questions about the TIENET® Special Education Management System

1. How does TIENET® automate IEP development, management and historical record keeping?
   TIENET implements a guided workflow process that provides Special Educators with a straightforward step-by-step process that assures compliance and error free data entry. In addition, TIENET® tracks the entire Special Education process including the pre-referral, referral, eligibility determination, IEP, and Annual Review stages of the overall process. TIENET®'s “document chronology” presents in one place all documents and letters that have been created for a student. TIENET®'s “event chronology” provides a fine grained log of all actions (meetings, letters sent, etc.) that have ever been taken with regard to the student. The event chronology is cross-linked to the document chronology to provide convenient access to any documents related to an event.
   
   
2. How customizable is TIENET®?
   Virtually all curriculum elements, terminology, data fields, forms, document templates and reports can be customized for a school or district at any time. If desired, these elements can even be customized by school district staff.
   
   
3. Can TIENET® facilitate compliance management using automated non-compliance notifications and automated deadline reminders?
   Yes, the following integrated components of TIENET® work together to ensure compliance:
   
   
• The guided workflow process ensures that appropriate notification messages, "to-do" items (with reminders and deadlines), and meeting notifications are dropped into an individual user's messaging inbox and onto their personal calendar.
• The communications system provides messaging, announcements, discussion groups, and chat services. The messaging system is workflow process "aware", and is integrated with the calendaring system.
• The calendaring manages and monitors service delivery, timelines, deadlines and meetings.
• The reporting system allows administrators to monitor completion of activities and the compliance status of documents and procedures.


4. Can TIENET® be used to aggregate, disaggregate and analyze data utilizing various metrics?
   Yes, TIENET® includes an ad-hoc reporting component that allows multi-dimensional analysis reports to be easily created through a web browser. Student counts, document data, statistics and other measures can be analyzed across multiple dimensions. The online reports support ad-hoc charting and "drilldown" into underlying detailed data.
   
   
5. How does TIENET® optimize Medicaid recovery and student count funding?
   Service provision is assigned and monitored directly through the messaging and calendaring system within TIENET®. Service providers are given access to TIENET® through the security system and can report online the services that they have provided. The individual reports of service are aggregated into summary reports that can be submitted in electronic format to Medicaid Reimbursement companies.
   
   
6. How does TIENET® produce federal and state mandated Special Education reports and address reporting requirements that change over time?
   TIENET® includes an Advanced Reporting Tool that enables a federal or state report to be produced in exactly the format expected by the requesting agency. Changing requirements are addressed by modifying the report templates, and in some cases, the data model itself. TIENET® utilizes a rich system of metadata that allows changes to the data model to be applied using only standard web browser access.
   
   
7. How does TIENET® reduce staff and administrative time spent on paperwork?
   Following are some examples of how TIENET® reduces time spent on paperwork.
   
   
• TIENET® ensures that data is entered once. For example, information captured from the district's SIS will automatically populate corresponding fields in an IEP document.
• TIENET® ensures that data entered once can be used for multiple purposes. For example, information entered in an IEP document is captured into the student's record and used to produce state and federal reports.
• The guided workflow process takes users through a step-by-step process that systematically produces compliant IEP documents with less editing efforts and fewer compliance errors.
• TIENET®'s easy to use reporting and document storage system ensures that users spend much less time finding the information they need.
• TIENET®'s report diagnostic system ensures that users spend less time discovering and correcting data errors when producing state and federal reports.


8. How does the system support data and report accessibility at all levels?
   TIENET® supports data and report accessibility at all levels in two ways. First, all data elements in the system can be referenced from the ad-hoc reporting system to produce a variety of reports including data list reports, multi-dimensional reports, advanced state/federal reports, and student progress reports. Second, security groups and privileges determine the scope of data access and reporting allowed for a user; e.g., individual students, caseloads, classes, location-wide, district-wide, etc. Third, ad-hoc reports can be "owned" by an individual or "shared".
   
   
9. How does the system address historical record keeping?
   TIENET®'s "document chronology" presents in one place all documents and letters that have been created for a student. TIENET®'s "event chronology" provides a fine-grained log of all actions (meetings, letters sent, etc.) that have taken with regard to the student. The event chronology is conveniently cross-linked to the document chronology which allows the user to quickly access any related documents while viewing the event chronology. The system also supports an integrated document imaging capability.
   
   
10. Are the IEP forms web-based and available to end-users through an Internet browser?
    Yes, the following browsers are supported.
    
• Internet Explorer™ for Windows™ (version 6 or later).
• Internet Explorer™ for Mac® OS (version 5 or later).
• Netscape Navigator™ (any operating system, version 7 or later)
• America Online® (AOL) 7.0 or later (recommended only for occasional home use)


11. When developing IEP documents, are fields from the SIS automatically populated?
    Yes, any fields that originate from the SIS (e.g. address, contact info, etc) are automatically populated.
    
    
12. Does the system ensure that all other fields are filled in correctly?
    Yes, the guided workflow process includes a set of configurable constraints that ensures that all fields are filled in correctly. Helpful explanations and guidance are presented to a user attempting to fill in a field incorrectly.
    
    
13. Does the system support translation into foreign languages?
    The system supports the translation of goals and objectives, form templates, and actual documents (i.e. narrative text) into multiple languages. For many languages, an automatic machine translation is available, but due to limitations in this technology, the result is generally reviewed and edited by a fluent person to fully ensure that the appropriate language meanings are represented by the translation.
    
    
14. Does the system allow IEP team members to collaborate on the forms from multiple locations?
    Yes, multiple team members can work on the same document simultaneously from multiple locations. The specific section of the form a user is editing is locked for the duration of editing, but other users can edit other sections. In addition, the discussion group and chat room capability of the system enables users to form a 'threaded' discussion around any topic.
    
    
15. Does the system automatically generate IEP progress reports with objectives generated from the original IEP forms?
    Yes, a progress report can be generated from the IEP goals and objectives with a single click. The user can then easily record new progress the student has made. The progress report is then updated to show the new progress. Progress records are maintained by the system so that performance may be viewed in a longitudinal fashion.
    
    
16. Does the system store and maintain data on who is involved in the IEP development of each child?
    Detailed data can be maintained in a profile for each staff member. During the IEP workflow process, appropriate notification messages, "to-do" items, reminders, deadlines, and meeting notifications are sent to the people involved.
    
    
17. Does the system record assessment of the student's current level of educational performance?
    Student progress is recorded at several points of the IEP process. First, at the 'pre-referral' step, customizable templates are available to record student's strengths and weakness; including the student's progress in his current grade level placement. Next, the PLEP (Present Levels of Educational Performance) component, completed as part of the IEP generating phase in the TIENET application, is completed by the appropriate CST (Child Study Team Member) providing additional support data on the child's level of educational performance. Finally, TIENET® provides an IEP progress report (card), which is usually completed by the child's teacher and shared either on-line or in hard copy with the parent. All these documents and the events surrounding their completion are archived in TIENET® and retrievable at anytime (anywhere) with appropriate user privileges. A child's progress is reported within the context of the regular school curriculum, thus providing assurance of compliance with both IDEA and NCLB.
    
    
18. Does the system display whether the form is required or optional based on the District's internal business process?
    TIENET®'s guided workflow process, built on a district determined set of operational constraints, determines when a particular form is presented for consideration and if the form is required or optional.
    
    
19. Does the system display whether a form is compliant and complete based on the district's customizable requirements? Does the system display an explicit list of compliance issues still remaining to be resolved for a set of forms?
    Yes, based on the constraints configured for the workflow process, TIENET® shows whether a document is compliant (has met all the required constraints) and can show an explicit list of remaining issues (constraints that have not yet been met). The constraints are customizable (with high security privileges, at the front end using only a web browser).
    
    
20. Does TIENET® organize forms into sets of those required for each stage of a district's documented processes - automatically adding forms as needed for each IEP student?
    Yes, TIENET® organizes forms into sets according to each stage of the process. Generally, these stages include pre-referral, referral, eligibility determination, and IEP. However, the exact stages can be customized according to the business process in use by a school district. The guided workflow process adds forms as needed.
    
    
21. Does the system ensure form precedence (specific sequence of forms entered according to the business process in use by a school district)?
    Yes, the guided workflow process can be configured to ensure form precedence.
    
    
22. Does the system allow a form to be changed until finalized but not locked until the form has passed the internal compliance test?
    Yes, TIENET® allows a form to be in draft, review or final mode. The document can be edited in draft or review mode, although review mode is designed to impose additional restrictions on who can edit which parts of the document. The document cannot be finalized until all required constraints have been met. Once finalized, it cannot be changed.
    
    
23. Can completed forms be locked as completed legal documents and stored for easy retrieval across years?
    Yes, when the document is placed in final mode, it is locked against further changes and will continue to be available in the "document chronology" for easy retrieval for as many years as the district determines. In addition, the document imaging capability means that both completed IEP's and original documentation; e.g., hand written notes are available to support legal situations that the district might find itself involved in defending.
    
    
24. Does the system ensure that the duration of an IEP does not exceed the mandated requirement (e.g. one year)?
    Yes, administrative reports and notifications can easily be configured to notify administrators of students in danger of exceeding the maximum IEP duration.
    
    
25. How do parents view their student's progress information?
    If enabled by the school district, a parent can login in by supplying their child's student ID and a parent password, and then view their child's progress. Alternatively, the progress report can be emailed to the parent from within TIENET®.