The United States Department of Education, Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), implemented its first XML schema in 2002, responding to a business request to streamline student aid data when two major systems were merged. Since this time, FSA has used its move to XML technology as a cornerstone for an effective enterprise data management strategy, which emphasizes data as a critical asset. Through its Data Strategy Initiative, FSA created a Target State Vision (TSV), which streamlined business functions as a result of analyzing FSA data flows. At the heart of this initiative were the following goals: reduce redundant data storage, improve customer service, increase accuracy of analytics, increase efficiency in data handling, reduce costs, remove FSA from the Government Accountability Office high-risk lists, and maintain a clean audit.

The XML Framework enabled FSA to realize the benefits of fully integrating XML as an enterprise-wide standard for internal and external data exchange and data storage. By establishing enterprise-wide XML standards and policies, this vision represented a strategic shift in FSA's approach to data exchange and modeling, and enabled FSA to take full advantage of XML's position as the industry standard for data exchange, as well as XML's more advanced technical capabilities.

Last November, the Institute of Education Sciences announced that 14 states were awarded grants to improve their statewide longitudinal data systems. Authorized in 2002 as part of the Educational Technical Assistance Act, the competitive grant program is intended to help state education agencies design, develop, and implement statewide longitudinal data systems to enable these agencies to efficiently and accurately meet reporting requirements; promote linkages across states; protect student privacy; facilitate research needed to eliminate achievement gaps and improve learning of all students; and support data-driven decision-making at all levels, including the classroom level. In this session, representatives from six of the grantee states will describe the work their states are doing to develop, implement, and use their longitudinal data systems.

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It’s All About KIDS (64 KB)

When faced with the daunting job of assigning 6.5 million unique student identifiers for students in the State of California, the California School Information Services built a plan for quality data. In this session, we will share how we focused the efforts of more than 1,100 local education agencies (LEAs) and charter schools to collect and validate the data before the identifiers were assigned, as well as the rollout of our statewide census, anomaly correction software, and reporting tools that help LEAs find their dropouts and graduates to achieve a high quality statewide baseline.

The Florida K-20 Education Data Warehouse integrates existing, transformed data extracted from multiple sources that are available at the state level. It provides a single repository of data concerning students served in the K-20 public education system as well as educational facilities, curriculum, and staff involved in instructional activities. Items to be discussed include benefits and challenges in establishing and managing a large scale data warehouse.

A task force of the National Forum on Education Statistics recently produced the publication, Forum Guide to Demystifying Decision Support Systems: A Resource for Educators and Education Constituents. Members of the task force will present this new document, discuss its development, and make suggestions for the effective use of the publication in education organizations.

Yes, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has a new website. After five years without a major overhaul, NCES has redesigned the look and feel of nces.ed.gov. This session will focus on the design, navigation, and functionality of the new website. There will also be a review of the website usage statistics and how they served as a driving force behind the development of the new navigational structure. The session will end with a short demonstration on how the NCES website is updated and maintained on an ongoing basis by using administrative web tools.

The Performance Based Data Management Initiative (PBDMI) is complete as a development project and is now being established as an institutional program for the collection, management, and use of elementary and secondary education data. This session will summarize the accomplishments and lessons learned over the past year working with the states to transmit quality education data between the states and the U.S. Department of Education (ED). This overview will also describe upcoming milestones in 2006 to fully establish the Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN) as the primary federal source of elementary and secondary education data. The Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development has introduced regulations that will enable the Secretary of Education to require that ED-sponsored and Office of Management and Budget-approved collections could be required as mandatory collections enforceable under the grant making authority of the Secretary. This session will discuss these regulations as well as the status of the development of agency requirements and guidelines on the collection and reporting of race and ethnicity data on students and education staff. In closing, the presenters will provide a quick overview of each of the upcoming PBDMI sessions.

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Becoming EDFacts: The Future of the Education Data
Exchange Network (EDEN) and a PBDMI Update (984 KB)

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