NCES Next Task Force to Modernize Federal Postsecondary Data Systems

IHEP's 22-member NCES Next Task Force will modernize federal postsecondary data systems, addressing data strategy, privacy, and AI. This initiative follows previous staff cuts at NCES and aims to create a comprehensive blueprint for strengthening government higher education data.

” With crucial federal information systems facing extraordinary unpredictability, our newest project will certainly deal with a few of the most important inquiries concerning how to modernize and streamline crucial federal information collections and produce a shared vision for strengthening the proof base for postsecondary plan and technique,” claimed Erin Dunlop Velez, vice head of state of research at IHEP, in a Thursday news release.

Education Department’s Vision for NCES

The Education Department is itself considering the future of NCES. Late last month, it released suggestions on “reimagining” the Institute of Education Sciences, that includes NCES. The referrals consisted of that NCES “need to create a structured and collaborated data strategy while preserving and reinforcing its important core functions” rather than “funding numerous information collections and longitudinal surveys that may be redundant or out-of-date.”

The task force will work over the following two years to create documents on “the government function in data collection and dissemination, leveraging state and management data in federal data collections, enhancing information access while safeguarding personal privacy, and using emerging modern technologies, consisting of the function of artificial intelligence.” The collection will certainly result in “a thorough IHEP-authored blueprint for restoring and reinforcing our government postsecondary data system.”

Context: NCES Staffing Challenges

A team has formed to recommend modifications to the National Center for Education And Learning Data, a fundamental greater ed information resource, after the Trump management gave up nearly all NCES staff members in 2014.

The Institute for Higher Education Policy has actually introduced a 22-member NCES Next Task Force, which includes previous NCES partner commissioners, 2 participants of the conservative-leaning American Venture Institute brain trust, a previous New Jersey higher ed assistant under Democratic guv Phil Murphy, professors of education and others.