The highly mobile nature of our student populations requires that we be able to share high quality data in an efficient manner. When a student transfers from one program, institution, district, or state to another, or advances from one sector of the education system to the next, information must accompany him or her to ensure continuity and appropriateness of service provided (e.g., class placement, program participation). Without common standards for communicating this information, transfer of data may be slow, laborious, and fraught with errors, and can increase staff burden (e.g., time spent deciphering data) and potentially compromise student outcomes.
While education institutions across the P-20W (early learning through postsecondary and workforce) environment use many different data standards to meet information needs, there are certain data we all need to be able to understand, compare, and exchange in an accurate, timely, and consistent manner. For these, we need a shared vocabulary for education data—that is, we need common education data standards. The Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) initiative is a common vocabulary, data models that reflect that vocabulary, tools to help educational stakeholders understand and use educational data, an assembly of metadata from other education data initiatives, and a community of educational stakeholders who discuss the use of CEDS and the development of the standard.\r\n\t\t
\r\n\t\t","Keyword":"","Topic":"","Expr1":null,"SortOrder":1.0000},{"Faq":"How was CEDS started?","Response":"NCES heard strong interest in, and sometimes concern about, data standards directly from state education agencies (SEAs) and other governmental actors involved in creating statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDSs), national organizations, and other Federal offices. To develop voluntary common standards and to support SEAs in improving data quality, NCES established a technical working group under the Director’s Expert Guidance and Assistance clause in the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in the Fall of 2009. It was constituted under the authority of the Director of IES to convene (ESRA Sec. 114(g)).
","Keyword":null,"Topic":null,"Expr1":null,"SortOrder":2.0000},{"Faq":"How is CEDS maintained and developed?","Response":"CEDS is supported by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). \r\nVersions 1 through 5 of the standard were developed by a combination of a CEDS Stakeholder Group (including representatives from across the P20W field) and open meetings and conversations. Starting with Version 6, CEDS is developed and maintained by an open community that allows anyone to participate. When necessary, community members work in subgroups to focus expertise on a topic to be presented to the entire community for acceptance.
","Keyword":null,"Topic":null,"Expr1":null,"SortOrder":3.0000},{"Faq":"How Can I Use Align?","Response":"Align makes metadata comparisons across data systems or organizations possible. By aligning each data dictionary to CEDS, data systems have a common vocabulary on which to compare. Align can be used for many purposes. Here are three example scenarios:
The Mapping Toolkit provides resources to help with mapping data sources to CEDS.
","Keyword":null,"Topic":null,"Expr1":null,"SortOrder":4.0000},{"Faq":"What is Connect? ","Response":"CEDS Connect is an innovative tool that allows users to find and create use cases, called \"Connections,\" that employ unit-level data elements (or variables) to perform practical applications across the P20W environment. CEDS Connect allows stakeholders to generate specific and relevant Connections to identify policy questions, calculate metrics and indicators, address reporting requirements, and many other data tasks by identifying the related data elements and defining analytic approaches. Connect enables users at different levels to consider the metric definitions of data points such as graduation rate, program enrollment, or academic outcomes. By establishing the data elements necessary to answer a given question, as well as recommended logic and routines for analysis, CEDS Connect is designed to help the education data community work together towards standard definitions and methodologies that will provide common, comparable data measurements and reporting that can cross districts, states, and educational agencies.
","Keyword":null,"Topic":null,"Expr1":null,"SortOrder":5.0000},{"Faq":"How is CEDS different from the Common Core State Standards?","Response":"The Common Core and CEDS are different. The Common Core State Standards deal with standards that children need to learn and is a state-led initiative, and CEDS deals with data element standards and is an initiative led by a different community.
The Common Core State Standards define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate from high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs. The Core standards are focused on providing clear goals for student learning. The Common Core State Standards is a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).
The Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) is a set of commonly agreed upon names, definitions, option sets, and technical specifications for a given selection of data elements. CEDS focuses on the meaning of data stored in longitudinal data systems, and is being developed by education data stakeholders facilitated by NCES. CEDS will support systemic education reform efforts by making it possible for states to collect the data they need to fully understand their progress on successfully adopting the Common Core State Standards or any other standards.
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