Data+Quality

Increasingly, educators recognize the link among effective teaching, efficient schools, and quality data. As a state agency, the Virginia Department of Education collaborates with district data coordinators to establish procedures for data collection and reporting. A volunteer task force of the National Forum on Education Statistics developed a “Forum Guide to Building a Culture of Quality Data” for schools and school districts and is located at http://nces.ed.gov/forum/pub_2005801.asp. The guide covers “common principles that can increase the likelihood that data will be secure, accurate, and useful.” High-quality data should inform decisions about different educational technologies and help determine the impact of technologies on teaching, learning, and administration. All software tools or packages that create files or data stores should use a format based on an underlying open or de facto standard—or provide the capability to export to such a format. Database software implementation should adhere with all local security, confidentiality, and privacy policies. Newly deployed database technologies should support Java Database Connectivity and Microsoft connectivity technology, such as Open Database Connectivity or Object Linking and Embedding Database. Production databases should be tested periodically for recoverability, according to requirements for their use and preservation.