Education Datapalooza: Unleashing the Power of Open Data to ...

Imagine new tools to help students choose a college that is right for them and their family.? Or imagine an easy-to-read virtual dashboard for parents to track the academic performance of their children.? Or imagine a digital file that makes it easier for children of active military and for foster youth to make the transition to a new school.

These are the kinds of advances that were on display at the White House last fall, as more than 150 of America?s entrepreneurs, software developers, education experts, and policy makers come together for an Education Datapalooza. The gathering was a chance to celebrate new products, services, and apps?all built with freely available data from the government and other sources?that have the potential to help American students succeed and that empower students and their families to make informed educational decisions. Notable among the day?s many impressive announcements:

• Over 78 million people are now able to download their own Federal student loan and grant data from the Department of Education via the NSLDS Student Access system.
• On the K-12 level, pioneering school districts and states?including York County and New York State?are committing to give students the ability to access and download their own academic data.
• A new state-led effort will make it easier to transfer academic information digitally and securely when moving between schools, an especially valuable service for children of active military and foster children.
• A new Department of Education and higher education institution collaboration to work on a data standard for postsecondary course catalogs, degree requirements, and related information. As more postsecondary institutions provide their course and awards data in the same format, students will benefit with new options to shorten college completion time and costs.

Watch our playlist of the day?s presenters, including Secretary Duncan and US CTO Todd Park,?or view them?here.

Many of the announcements of the day build off a simple principle: in an increasingly digital educational system, students should have easy access to their own data.? Moreover, these data should be secure, yet mobile; too often, students can see their data online but can?t take it with them.

One of the core projects talked about is the MyData Initiative?a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Education and software developers to help students securely export or download their own educational data in open, machine-readable, human-readable formats, on any system. A number of vendors that already provide schools with software systems have committed to offer this functionality.

Giving students their own data can be potentially game-changing. For example, with access to their own data, students are able to create personal learning profiles?educational portfolios of their own records. They can then choose to safely share pieces of those learning profiles with an ever-growing network of applications being built by private-sector entrepreneurs to help inform choices about which classes to take, which colleges to apply to, and how to pay for tuition.

Open data standards can also solve problems inherent in the antiquated paper-based student record system. For example, many teachers and principals across the country deal with new students who show up at their classrooms with virtually no paper trail. This forces educators to make important decisions with no student records, no data, and no points of reference. If every student information system can import and export student academic records in the same standardized format, it makes it easier for schools to transfer information internally and with other schools. Moreover, this problem disproportionately affects low-income students, who are often more likely to be transient and are most dependent on support from their schools.

Smart use of open data will help improve college access and affordability for students, and help us meet the President?s challenge to regain our place as world leader in our proportion of college graduates by 2020.

Other open data initiatives such as the Blue Button and Green Button?which are empowering citizens with their own health information and household energy usage information?have proven that liberating data from government vaults can fuel new products and services, grow new businesses, and help create jobs. The Education Datapalooza demonstrated that this model of openness and entrepreneurship can help us achieve similar gains for American education.

Complete list of speakers:

Todd Park, U.S. Chief Technology Officer

Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education

Ross Santy, Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education

Brandon Busteed, Executive Director, Gallup Education

Curt Allen and Mark Luetzelschwab, CEO and SVP, Agilix

Adam Wenchel, Chief Technology Officer, EverFi

Marina Martin, Head, Education Data Initiative, U.S. Department of Education

Robert Swiggum, Chief Information Officer, Georgia Department of Education

Shawn Bay, CEO, eScholar

Shane Green and Jenny Abramson, CEO and SVP, Personal

Richard Culatta, Deputy Director, Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education

Katie Garrett, Utah Education Network

Jonathan Harber, CEO, Pearson K-12 Technology

Eric William, Superintendent of York County Schools, Virginia

Sue Khim, CEO, Alltuition

Craig Carroll, CEO, Rezolve Group

Christina McIntyre, CEO, BecomeAlum.com

Jim Shelton, Assistant Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Education

Jose Ferreira, CEO, Knewton

Zac Katz, Chief of Staff, Federal Communications Commission

Anthony Swei, COO, Education Superhighway

Sunny Lee, Mozilla Foundation

Jacey Wilkins, Manufacturing Institute

Karen Cator, Director, Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education

Source: http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/01/education-datapalooza-unleashing-the-power-of-open-data-to-help-students-parents-and-teachers/

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