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Key users learn about the Department’s data through online channels: online search engines; the Department’s websites and blogs; the Department’s digital newsletters, reports and social media; and Data.gov. Data.gov/education (http://www.data.gov/education/) is one of the most visited communities on the Data.gov website. Subject matter experts from the Department host, co-host, and present at conferences, workshops, webinars, data jams and datapalooza events to spread the word about the Department’s data to key audiences. In response to the President’s call to action to create compelling educational software, the White House hosted its first-ever education game jam in September 2014. Over one weekend, 100 game developers along with 35 teachers, learning researchers, and students gathered together at a local education technology startup to develop new, fun ways to learn. To build on the momentum created by the White House Education Game Jam, the Office of Educational Technology is partnering with games industry leaders and education stakeholders to hold regional Education Game Jams. The first of these events was held in Austin, Texas in March 2015. On April 21, 2015 the Office of Educational Technology and the non-profit, Games for Change, co-hosted a day-long summit to identify strategies for the broader creation, dissemination, and use of quality games in classrooms and beyond. Leading developers, producers, publishers, educators, students, and other stakeholders were brought together to break down barriers and have meaningful dialogues about what each party wants and needs so we can make progress in games for education together. (See http://www.tech.ed.gov/games) The Office of Educational Technology and the chair of the Department’s Open Data Workgroup participated in a workshop, Accelerating Data Collaboratives: A Workshop on Cross-Sector Data Sharing for Public Problem-Solving, co-hosted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the Governance Lab. The Department of Education facilitated the two breakout sessions focused on education. (See more on the GovLab Data Collaboratives site: http://www.thegovlab.org/datacollaboratives/) The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, 18F, the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), and DC Legal Hackers hosted an Accessibility Hackathon on March 31, 2015. The hackathon drew about 80 participants and featured experts discussing this work, networking opportunities, and the opportunity to make a real difference on these issues. (See more on the 18F blog post, “In Case You Missed It: #a11yhack, an Accessibility Hackathon,” (https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/04/07/icymi-a11yhack-accessibility-awareness-hackathon/) and the 18F Accessibility Hackathon site (http://18f.github.io/hackathons/a11yhack/) The My Brother’s Keeper initiative is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach led by an interagency federal task force to build ladders of opportunity, and to unlock the full potential of our young people, including boys and young men of color. The initiative and the Department of Education partnered with the Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation at Georgetown University to host a My Brother’s Keeper Data Jam in Washington, DC. The event brought together a diverse group of high school students, teachers, data scientists, data visualization experts, developers and community and non-profit leaders. Teams were designed to capitalize on the range of perspectives and expertise among the participants. The aim was to find new and better ways to use data to highlight opportunities, and to create solutions that can improve life outcomes for all students. Several teams continue to develop their ideas. (See homeroom blog post, My Brother’s Keeper Data Jam: Old World Values with New World Strategies and Tools, on ED.gov: http://www.ed.gov/blog/2014/08/my-brothers-keeper-data-jam-old-world-values-with-new-world-strategies-and-tools-2/) |
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Key users, like developers, provide the following suggestions for improving the usability of Department data: •Convert column heads and codes to human-readable values for open datasets •Provide more open data as APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) instead of just downloadable files The Department continues to leverage the General Service Administration’s API-generator tool, inventory.data.gov. Meanwhile, the Department is exploring other cost-effective, scalable hosting solutions that would warehouse data as well as host and manage APIs. The Data Strategy Team and data stewards in the program offices work to decode or translate column headings and other abbreviations and codes when posting new datasets. Code books are made available online, and on the ED Data Inventory site. Inventoried data collection entries include searchable data dictionaries with all elements and their definitions. |
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Suggestions from key users on additional agency data resources to release include: • Post departmental business and program award data from reports and tables in reports, also as Comma-Separated Values (CSV) or APIs for easier access • Make program competition and award data more open and syndicated • Provide more granular, school-level data whenever possible within guidelines to protect student privacy The Department’s Data Strategy Team has representatives from every program office Department-wide. The group continues to post more data in downloadable formats, and to explore a department-wide solution to make it easier to warehouse large datasets and create APIs. The Office of Communications and Outreach is working on a Program Information Publishing System, which is currently in a business process reengineering phase to plan for a new ED.gov customer experience with open program data, more intuitive discovery and search tools, and potential for user customization and automated updates. The Department continues to work to release school-level data whenever possible while still protecting student privacy, and being mindful of mosaic-effect risks. The most recent Civil Rights Data Collection release in March 2014 provided school-level data (http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/expansive-survey-americas-public-schools-reveals-troubling-racial-disparities). This is the first time since 2000 that the Department has compiled data from all 97,000 of the nation's public schools, and its 16,500 school districts—representing 49 million students. And for the first time ever, state-, district- and school-level information is accessible to the public in a searchable online database at http://crdc.ed.gov. |