Data Collection and Analysis in Florida

The pattern for higher education assessment in Florida has been to assess students beginning with K-12 and on to entry and eventual success in college. In general, policies and practices in the state have focused on:

1. The rigors of student preparation in high school

2. The readiness of students to do college level work

3, The basic skills acquired through general education

Much of the assessment that is done also focuses on the institutions themselves and their performance. There has been a long history of focusing on goals for efficiency and productivity; these seem to be the definition of institutional quality in the eyes of many policymakers. Florida has few formal, statewide policies in place, but there are three main practices that are ongoing for higher education:

A testing program for students to determine readiness, placement, & basic competencies

A regular and systematic program review process

A growing data reporting and collection effort

The K-20 Data Warehouse is a first-in-the-nation education database. This database will be a comprehensive collection of information on all students in the state, for all levels of education they attend. The level of data will be massive, with information on student demographics, academic information, and financial aid, for starters. The system will also track a student's high school class, their college destinations after graduation, any need for remediation, and later performance. Institutions are also examined, including the performance of instructors based on how well students subsequently perform. It will allow for an analysis of students across systems, including articulation between schools and a student's progression. Presently, some of this data being warehoused is publicly available; some is summarized by the Board, and some remains unavailable.

The K-20 Education Data Warehouse

Vast information describing students, teachers, districts, schools, colleges and universities exist at the state level. However, these data bases have been maintained in disparate systems.

The data warehouse provides a single store of information that enhances the capabilities for policymakers to make informed decisions and provides access to longitudinal information about Florida’s education system to managers, program staff, citizens and others who wish to investigate various educational phenomena.

Data for the current production database have been extracted from eight major databases maintained at the state level. Those sources are:

1. PK12 Student Data (school district)

2. Community Colleges

3. University System

4. Workforce Development Information System

5. Financial Aid (state & federal)

6. Bright Futures (FL scholarship program)

7. P or K-12 Assessment

8. GED

The data from these sources have been integrated in the warehouse. In future releases, data will be extracted from additional sources along with additional data from some of the original sources.

Click here to see the data subjects and facets.

Current Release - Facet Descriptions

Student Demographic is centered on the unique record of a given student. Entities are used to capture and make available historical student demographic information (which may change over time, such as county of residence; this does not apply to data that may be corrected, such as birth year). All other facets of this subject are related directly or indirectly to the identifier of the student demographic.

Financial Assistance gathers information on how, when and why the student was assisted financially. The assistance is limited to study-related assistance (excludes facts such as when the student receives food stamps). The facet also includes definition data about the assistance program itself, and application information provided by the student.

Active Student is centered on the participation of the student in a given program or school, for a given period (year, term, etc.). Entities allow for multiple occurrences of different information, providing a view on the evolution of the student. By definition, an occurrence of an Active Student in P/K-12 exists per year, while an Adult Education, Community College, Vocational Technical or University Active Student occurrence exists per term. The Active Student facet is closely related to the Educational Curriculum subject, where the definition of “what” program the student is active in is described.

Student Award gathers information on the award obtained by the student and in the case of a GED award the information on the student candidacy

Student-Test is centered on the participation of the student in a given test (such as SAT and FCAT). The facet also includes the definition of the test itself (independent of the student registration), such as the organization that conducts the test. The facet does not include course-related tests or detailed answers (question by question). The facet is built such that new tests can be added easily.

Educational Institution generically describes all institutions, regardless of their type, so references to an institution can be standardized. Standardized data, applicable to any type of institution, are included. Educational institution includes university, community college, private school and P/K-12 school.

District contains the data used to recognize and describe each P/K-12 public school district individually.

Future Releases - Facet Descriptions

Educational Curriculum generically defines either a domain or discipline of study (as defined by the National Center for Education Statistics’ Classification of Instructional Program) or a group of courses defined by the institution. It provides the means to describe what a student registers for Vocational Studies and Academic graduate studies. This includes information related to the programs and courses offered in the state’s educational institutions. It does not refer to a particular student but provides the mean to describe what a student registers for, such as high school courses or undergraduate studies.

Student Employment is centered on the employment a given student has during his study years and for some years after leaving the education systems. The information, obtained from the Unemployment Insurance Office, is kept over time to allow longitudinal studies. In addition, tracking of high-school completers in a military career is available.

Education Funding represents the appropriations and other general funding provided to the various educational systems (P/K12, Workforce Development, Community Colleges and State Universities).

Revenues and Expenditures Statement has the financial statements of the districts and the post-secondary institutions.

Cost Analysis provides the calculated cost analysis per institution. The information is by Full Time Equivalent (FTE) and school for each district, and by credit hour and institution for Community Colleges and State Universities.

Educational Facility contains the data about the physical facilities known to belong to an institution. Some facilities belong to school districts, others to a college or a university. The facet includes the joint-use facilities.

Student-Course is centered on the participation of a student in a given course. The Student-Course facet is dependent on the existence of the corresponding Student Demographic facet occurrence and the corresponding Course facet occurrence within the Educational Curriculum subject. The facet includes the courses in which the student has registered as well as information usually found on a transcript once the courses are completed.

Course is centered on the course entity: it contains the descriptive information that characterizes each and every course. Courses from P/K-12, college and university systems are described separately. Courses are also grouped by Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP).

Employee Demographic contains entities that describe the employee, excluding data considered confidential.

Instructional Activity contains entities that describe the activities of teachers (high school) and faculty members (colleges and universities), related to actual teaching assignments.

Certified Staff contains entities that indicate how the instructional staff is certified to teach a given course. The facet excludes data about certified teachers who have never taught in the public sector. The Certified Staff facet has information about staff employed in public institutions only (excludes teachers in private institutions or who do not work).

Security and Access

Levels of User Access

The Basic user will have access to canned reports or predefined queries available on the DOE web site. The canned reports will be viewable and printable, but cannot be manipulated. The pre-defined queries will be viewable and printable and can be manipulated using pre-defined prompts.

The Web Intermediate user will have access to a web enabled reporting tool, Oracle Discoverer, for access to summarized or aggregated information contained in the data mart(s) (e.g., a subset of the information contained in the data warehouse). These data marts will contain particular information relevant to a specific subject. This access is password protected.

The Network Intermediate user (DOE/FBOE staff only) will have access via their local network to information contained in the data mart(s) using the reporting tools Oracle Discoverer and SAS. This access is password protected.

The Advanced user will have time-limited access to detailed extracts from the normalized data warehouse database. Access at this level will require approval by the Secretary of Education. (Anticipated availability January 1, 2003.)

Requirements for Each Level of Access

Basic. No prerequisites for access other than access to the Internet. Access to pre-defined queries will have a default password on the web site.

Web Intermediate

Must be headquarters staff or staff of the local school districts, community colleges and universities.

Must be designated by the local institution’s/headquarter’s chief information officer (CIO) or designee as requiring access to the EDW.

Must receive state level training in the structure and content of the EDW and the use of the access tool, Oracle Discoverer. This may include a web-based training package.

Must agree to the conditions of access as demonstrated by signing the Access Request Form and securing required local/headquarters approvals.

Must be granted a user id and utilize a password for access.

Network Intermediate

Must be headquarters DOE, community colleges and universities staff.

Must be designated by headquarters respective CIO as requiring access to the EDW.

Must attend state level training in the structure and content of the EDW and the use of the access tool, Oracle Discoverer.

Must agree to the conditions of access as demonstrated by signing the Access Request Form and securing required headquarters approval.

Must be granted a user id and utilize a password for access.

May utilize network SAS, but must purchase the client version of the product as well as initial and ongoing training and support.

Advanced (Anticipated availability January 1, 2003.)

Must have a bona fide need to access the information to complete a project supported by the Florida Board of Education.

Must provide detail on nature and purpose of request.

Must agree to the conditions of access as demonstrated by signing the Access Request Form and securing required local or headquarters approval.

Must receive state level training in the structure and content of the EDW. May be via web or in-house.

Must be granted a user IDD and utilize a password for access to requested files.

Must be approved by the Secretary of Education as requiring access to information extracted from the EDW normalized database.

SOURCE: Florida Education Data Warehouse

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General Overview of Data Collection and Analysis in Florida

K-20 Data Warehouse