A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

The Quest for Quality Data

From the Desk of Craig Luigart

How well can you do your job if the information you gather is not accurate or valid? How many times has someone called you and asked for information that you needed to collect from several sources?but you weren't sure when the sources last updated their data? And how often have you had to complete a survey but, while answering a question, realized the question could mean many different things?

States Frustrated with Data Collection Burden
These frustrations result from problems with data quality and collection; they occur every day?not only for us, but also for the education folks at the state and local levels who are desperately trying to provide ED staff members with relevant information.

The Department has numerous federal education programs, and all of them have employees who collect data for program management and evaluation purposes. Employees at the state level say, however, that they are tired of providing us with the same information over and over: They tell us the data we collect is duplicative, redundant, inaccurate and unusable.

A New Solution
For the past year, my staff and I have been working with state education representatives to analyze and solve these problems. Our conclusion: Wouldn't it be great to have a common method of acquiring and exchanging data with the states? Such a method would enable ED to simply acquire existing data at the state level, then convert the data so it could be used for ED's many diverse purposes.

Minimize the Burden
Reauthorized in 1995, the Paperwork Reduction Act establishes requirements for federal agencies regarding information collection. For one, the agency's CIO must certify that the data from proposed collections are genuinely needed and will be used effectively to enhance the management of the agency's programs. The act also seeks to organize collection activities in a way that minimizes the burden on members of the public who must provide an agency with information.

Team to Ensure Quality
We at ED would like to take these requirements one step further and develop a system that would certify not only that the collection is accurate, but also that the information is high quality. Several weeks go, I met with key staff from various areas of ED to broach the idea of establishing a cross-Departmental team that would address issues we all share related to data collection and quality. This team would participate in developing an enterprise-wide information manage-ment process that would work for all of us. We could ensure that states need to provide data only once?instead of time after time.

Lower Frustration Levels
Leading the effort to manage our information better will be Arthur Graham, our new deputy CIO for Information Management. We are pleased to have him on board to direct this initiative. We believe that forming a Department-wide team to address issues related to effective data management is the first step in getting a handle on the issue of data quality.

Ultimately, creating a system to ease the frustration levels of state education staff is of great importance to the entire organization.

next article - Welcome: New Deputy Chief Information Officer