The state of open education data | Opensource.com

"At the Open Education Working Group we are interested in all aspects of open education, from Open Education Resources (OERs) and new learning and teaching practices, to open source tools and open licenses. One fairly new area that is starting to show real traction in opening up education is open education data. By that we are primarily referring to the open data that comes out of education institutions, be they physical or online. Examples include reference data, such as the location of academic institutions; internal data such as staff names, resources available, personnel data, budgets; course data, curriculum data, and learning objectives; and user-generated data such as learning analytics, assessments, performance data, etc. The connection between data and open education might initially seem tenuous. While open education is fundamentally about removing barriers to education (this could be barriers to entry, or barriers to content or knowledge), and opening up data of any sort clearly fits with this agenda, it is in the raising of potential that open education data has a true role to play. Once we have access to education data and can start to play with it, there is suddenly the potential to see education and its components differently. This new perspective provides us with an opportunity to revolutionise education and make it better. The 'making it better' can take the form of policy change, civil action, or the building of apps to support choices and learning ..."