Brief Overall Description of the Dataset:
School ranking data, including test scores, enrollment data, student-teacher ratio, and other types of school data.
Link: http://www.schooldigger.com/
Date Inventory Completed: 6/4/15
Screening
- Is the data collected opinion-based?
- Is the data collection recurring (must be collected at least annually)?
- Is there data available for 2013?
- For Education: Is the data collected at least the school level?
- Can we access the data by August 15th?
- Can the data be linked to other education/workforce datasets (e.g., K-12, higher education, workforce)? Can be linked through the school name.
Purpose
What is the purpose of the organization collecting the data?
To display school ranking data among other information about the school.
Why is it collected and how does the organization use it?
The organization displays it in tables that are easy to read and use by an average person, they also calculate rankings.
Who else uses the data?
Parents, students, educators, researchers
- Who do they sell the data to?
N/A
Method
What is the data collection method?
Unknown
What is the type of data collected?
Administrative
If designed, who created the questions?
N/A
What is the raw source of the collected data (prior to any aggregation)?
School administrative data that is publicly available
Description
- What is the general topic of the data (1-2 words)?
Education rankings
What are the earliest and latest dates for which data is available?
Most charts are 2006-2014
Is data collected and available periodically?
Yes, although not clear how often. Likely yearly.
How soon after a reference period ends can a data source be prepared and provided?
Unknown
Selectivity (conversely, the representativeness)
What is the universe (e.g., population) that the data represents (consider inclusion/exclusion criteria)?
All K-12 schools in the country
Accessibility
How is the data accessed?
Online
- Is it open data?
Yes
- Any legal, regulatory, or administrative restrictions on accessing the data source?
Can’t use data for commercial purposes without explicit permission from School Digger
Cost? - One time or annual or project based payment?
Could probably contact and gain access to their database for a cost, but it would be unnecessary.
Does this dataset appear to meet our needs for the Census study? NO
Explanation: This site essentially compiles information that is publically available on most Department of Education websites. Maybe useful to screen scrape if some states don’t have much data on their website, but other than that not worth it.