Education Data Exchange Network
The
Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN) is a set of
K-12 statistical reports gathered from state agencies by the
US Department of Education.
Formerly known as
Performance-Based Data Management Initiative (PBDMI), EDEN attempts to gather statistics from each state such as school populations within subgroups (race, gender, etc.), graduation rates and school spending.
EDEN data gathering is complicated by the fact that no data sent to federal agencies may contain private data about an individual student that would violate the
FERPA guildlines. So a state agency can not just send a list of students and their test scores. A reporting agency can only send a list of subgroups and counts if the counts are above a small number such as five.
EDEN data sets consists of three types:
*Statewide data often called State Education Agencies (SEA)
*District or regional data Local Education Agencies (LEA)
*School-specific data
There are
XML representations of EDEN files but the US Department of Education does not provide
XML Schemas to validate these files. These files are available from the
Wyoming Department of Education.
EDEN does not yet comply with federal information exchange guidelines as outlined in
ISO/IEC 11179 specification nor does it follow the
Federal XML Developers Guide.
After four years of effort and following audits by the General Accountability Office and ED's Office of the Inspector General, the office that administered EDEN was abolished and all the managers were removed from management positions.
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XML Developers' Guide
