Common Education Data Standards

In my new role with Quality Information Partners I am working for the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) facilitating the K-12 Stakeholder Group for the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS). CEDS is a set of voluntary standards that will enable more effective use of data to support improved student achievement.

This week a final draft of the standards was released for public comment. Version 2 of the standards will be released in January along with online tools that support adoption and implementation...

NCES is pleased to announce the release of the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) Version 2 Final Draft for public comment. The Version 2 Final Draft includes a broad scope of elements spanning much of the P-20 spectrum and provides greater context for understanding the standards' interrelationships and practical utility. Specifically, the Version 2 Final Draft:

• focuses on Early Learning, K-12, and Postsecondary sectors;
• includes elements, definitions, and options sets;
• includes entities (the real world constructs described by elements) and element-entity relationships;
• is complemented by use case connections describing elements' functional applications; and
• is accompanied by search capabilities to aid exploration of the standards.

The Version 2 Standard Final Draft can be found at the NCES website (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/ceds/version2/data_elements.asp), through which users can submit comments on the final draft standards. All comments must be submitted by November 28th in order to be considered for the Version 2 release in January 2012.

The Version 2 release in January will include:

· a finalized list of elements, definitions, and option sets;

· a CEDS Logical Data Model to describe the relationships among CEDS elements; and

· a Data Alignment Tool to allow users to easily map and compare their own data dictionaries to CEDS and standards used by other organizations.

CEDS is a specified set of the most commonly used education data elements. These voluntary standards are being developed to support the effective exchange of data as students transfer within and across states and transition between education sectors. The standards will also aid in streamlining federal reporting. This common vocabulary will improve the consistency and comparability of data throughout all education levels and sectors, and enable more effective use of data to support improved student achievement.