Open Data and K-12 Education - Where's the Connection? - OpenDataSoft

"K-12 Open Data Initiatives present unique opportunities and challenges for public education institutions. The opportunities to engage with constituents and stakeholders within the community are enticing. Bond referenda analysis, capital improvement spending analysis, and communication on student performance, regulations, and sentiment analyses represent just a few of the ways institutions can benefit from opening data to the community.

It’s not all that easy, however. It is important to note that these same institutions must comply with applicable state and federal laws, rules, regulations and policies related to maintainence and handling of confidential data and information, including but not limited to the: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and state statutes covering the proper and secure maintenance of education records. These laws and statutes will vary by state and sometimes by region and institution. For data governance there is a long list of tasks:

• Proper and secure maintenance of testing material;
• Reporting suppression requirements;
• Public records acts;
• Institutional data and information handling, disposal, and retention policies;
• Data quality and reporting tasks.

All of these need to be taken into account.

Our series will focus on the opportunities and challenges of opening K12 data specifically in North Carolina. The opportunities we will spell out can easily be imagined as models to be replicated and adapted to other contexts in different states. We will explore the changing landscape of K12 education and how open data can help parents and other institutional stakeholders use data for decision making. Wading into how different districts handle and report on data is challenging."