The Nebraska Statewide Workforce & Educational Reporting System (NSWERS) is a state longitudinal data system (SLDS) that coordinates data sharing, processing, and dissemination efforts across the Nebraska public school systems, Nebraska community colleges, the University of Nebraska system, the Nebraska Department of Labor, and other statewide…

"Pathways to Implementation" highlights innovative strategies and effective models in career pathways policy, implementation, and programming, as well as challenges states encounter in this work. This seven-part series addresses the key elements of Bellwether's framework for career pathways policy implementation. Each brief defines the…

Substantial shares of eligible students forgo or lose access to tuition-free college benefits, in part due to limited access to information on eligibility and other requirements. Given students' dependence on the Internet for information on how to pay for college, we examine the availability and digital accessibility of critical program…

Open science has become an important part of contemporary science, and some open science practices (such as data sharing) have been prominent aspects of Educational Data Mining (EDM) since the start of the field. There have been recent pushes for EDM to more fully embrace the range of open science practices that are seen in other fields. In this…

Only weeks into its new term, the Trump administration has taken steps to lay off federally funded education research staff, cancel nearly $1 billion in contracts and dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. These moves have upended evaluations of federally funded education programs and threatened access to massive data sets that states,…

Historic data in analog (or print) format is a valuable resource that is utilized by scientists in many fields. This type of data may be found in various locations on university campuses including offices, labs, storage facilities, and archives. This study investigates whether biological data held in one institutional university archives could be…

A national poll from the Data Quality Campaign (DQC), conducted by The Harris Poll, surveyed early childhood administrators--educational or child care professionals in program director or general manager roles serving children from birth through age four--to find out how they are collecting, using, and reporting data. Early childhood…

Each year, state legislators introduce hundreds of bills that generate new data collections, analyses, and resources, playing a crucial role in how people access and use data. Notably, in 2023 legislators introduced and enacted bills governing cross-agency data systems--the most important step that states must take to make robust access to data…

Everyone who uses student information has a responsibility to maintain students' privacy and the security of their data. Ensuring student data privacy is about so much more than complying with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). While privacy must be top of mind when thinking about collecting and using personally identifiable…

Research-intensive institutions rely on specialized central offices to support research administrators and investigators through various processes and requirements. This helps researchers successfully and compliantly conduct and manage research. However, when these support offices communicate their processes and resources from disparate locations,…

Despite increased efforts to assess the adoption rates of open science and robustness of reproducibility in sub-disciplines of education technology, there is a lack of understanding of why some research is not reproducible. Prior work has taken the first step toward assessing reproducibility of research, but has assumed certain constraints which…

Engaging with primary researchers during qualitative secondary analysis is a practice much recommended but rarely written about. In this article, I reflect on my experience of crossing an imagined boundary between the discrete textual dataset and its creators, of acknowledging and engaging with those researchers who invested in constructing the…

Researchers in the education sciences, like those in other disciplines, are increasingly encountering requirements and incentives to make the data supporting empirical research available to others. However, the process of preparing and sharing research data can be daunting. The present article aims to support researchers who are beginning to think…

In 2024, state legislators introduced hundreds of bills that would affect data collection, access, and use across early education, K-12, postsecondary, and the workforce. As in 2023, legislators continued to introduce and enact legislation governing cross-agency data systems. These policies are the most important step toward making statewide…

Text and data mining activities -- that is, the automated processing of digital materials to uncover new knowledge -- have become more frequent in all areas of scientific research. Because they require a massive use of copyrighted work, there are evident conflicts with copyright legislation. Countries at the forefront of research and development…