| Notes |
How to Build Successful Community Data Collaborations
July 2015
As communities strengthen their collaborative work around serving and supporting students through the attainment pipeline, they must be sure to collaborate around data as well. This can prove challenging as institutions and organizations that are accustomed to handling their data internally must learn how to adopt a culture of more open and transparent data sharing. This is an ongoing process that may not only help communities to learn how to serve students more effectively, but can also enable community partners to build more trust in each other and collaborate in other areas.
The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) and StriveTogether have identified several promising practices within communities that have been successful in sharing actionable data. This guidebook includes a joint animation produced by DQC, StriveTogether, and IHEP that outlines these practices. It emphasizes leadership buy-in, user training, and a thorough understanding of the data systems that already exist in order to better integrate and house them. In addition, the importance of protecting student data cannot be overstated. Our animation and other resources in this guidebook help communities understand how the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a roadmap to safely sharing data that will be used to benefit students.
A vital tool in data governance and data sharing is a community data-sharing agreement. This formal agreement clearly outlines what information each partner will exchange and be able to access; its development takes a significant amount of time, coordination, communication, and commitment. As students of all ages navigate through schools, after-school programs, and other community-based services, the ability to track individuals across service providers enables communities to identify important information: leaks in the pipeline, successful interventions that herald more positive outcomes, interventions that need to change to produce better results, and inefficient processes that lead to unmet needs or duplicative efforts.
Data about the trends and experiences among underserved students in the community—whether they are still moving through high school or are adults returning to college—allow community partners to engage more deeply to seek out more information and develop new ideas. When communities are able to access and organize these data, they often discover opportunities to realign resources, increase efficiency, and spend time and money more wisely in supporting students.
In addition to the data-sharing animation that outlines tips for successful community data collaborations, this section of our guidebook also features an interview with leaders in Providence, R.I. on a service and data-sharing agreement that has recently been put in place between Providence Public Schools and a collaborative of youth-serving organizations. These relationships enable stakeholders to share a new online case management system to better match students with the supports they need.
Finally, this chapter ends with a list of additional resources where you can find more information on successful data-sharing agreements and data governance. |