Brief Overall Description of the Dataset:
College, grad school, online programs, high school, and global university statistics. Has school rankings that are created by US News and World Report, enrollment statistics, graduate salary data, and entrance exam statistics.
Link: http://www.usnews.com/education
Date Inventory Completed: 6/4/15
Screening
- Is the data collected opinion-based? Partially
- 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 to other higher education data sets by school name
Purpose
What is the purpose of the organization collecting the data?
Provide information on educational institutions and rank them according to various criteria.
Why is it collected and how does the organization use it?
Data is collected for students to assess different schools and figure out what marks they need to get in.
Who else uses the data?
Parents, students, educators. General data is open for everybody’s use. “Expanded profiles” provided by compass is used by students looking to go to grad school.
- Who do they sell the data to?
They sell “U.S. News Grad Compass” to anybody who pays the 1-year fee of $29.95.
Method
What is the data collection method?
Data is collected from individual school reports.
What is the type of data collected?
Administrative - School admission statistics, i.e. enrollment, acceptance rate, freshman retention rate, graduation rate, test scores, and rankings given by U.S. News.
If designed, who created the questions?
N/A
- What is the raw source of the collected data (prior to any aggregation)?
Schools
Description
- What is the general topic of the data (1-2 words)?
K-12 and Higher Education
What are the earliest and latest dates for which data is available?
The actual U.S. News website only has the most recent year rankings available (2015). Another website has their results archived though from 1982: http://theairspace.net/commentary/u-s-news-best-college-rankings-1983-2013/
Is data collected and available periodically?
Yes
How soon after a reference period ends can a data source be prepared and provided?
Less than one year.
Selectivity (conversely, the representativeness)
What is the universe (e.g., population) that the data represents (consider inclusion/exclusion criteria)?
Charter, magnet, and public high schools, colleges, grad schools, online programs, community colleges, and global universities.
Accessibility
How is the data accessed?
Partial data available on website in table format, but must screen scraped.
- Is it open data?
No
- Any legal, regulatory, or administrative restrictions on accessing the data source?
No
Cost? - One time or annual or project based payment?
$29.95 for one year compass pass that give access to entering class SAT’s and GPAs, financial aid packages given to students, and all grad school data.
Does this dataset appear to meet our needs for the Census study? NO
Explanation: Data not available at the student level.