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The North Carolina Education Research Data Center facilitates problem-focused research on education by sharing data with qualified researchers.
The North Carolina Data Center Advisory Board makes and applies policies pertaining to the North Carolina Education Research Data Center , including the scope of the Data Center projects and granting others access to the data. This Board includes representatives from Duke University and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
Eligible Institutions and Researchers
Data can be released to the following institutions:
- An institution of higher education, a non-profit research institution, or a government agency with
- established protocols for an Institutional Review Board, Human Subjects Review Committee, or equivalent body to review proposals for research projects employing sensitive data.
I. Procedures for Obtaining Data (Also see summary checklist below)
A. All Researchers:
All who use data from the Data Center will have to do the following:
• Sign a confidentiality agreement.
• Ensure that their research assistants sign a confidentiality agreement and abide by the procedures for protecting confidentiality of the data.
• Obtain their institution's IRB approval of their project.
• Agree to send any paper to DPI and the Data Center before publication. Such papers include conference presentations, accepted publications, and any press releases.
• Researchers with external funding and those requiring data customization will compensate the Data Center for time personnel spend on the project.
B. New Research Projects from Other University Faculty:
These researchers must
• Submit a proposal to the Committee, who will evaluate it in terms of its research question and feasibility. (See below for more on evaluation criteria.)
• Fulfill all of the General Procedures for obtaining data.
C. Students:
Due to resource limitations, access to data is limited to doctoral candidates and those working on a Master's thesis. These researchers must:
• Submit a proposal to the Committee,
• Have a faculty member sponsor that proposal by writing a letter of support, and
• Fulfill all of the General Procedures for obtaining data.
Normally, graduate students must have a faculty member sponsor their proposals. Due to resource constraints, students may have access only to existing datasets. The Data Center will not customize data except for a dissertation.
D. Grant-Proposal Writers:
Faculty members writing grant proposals will need information about the measures the Data Center has. For any data set the Data Center receives or creates, the Data Center produces codebooks with detailed written information about the data set and measures therein. Any one who could become eligible to use the data may have access to the codebooks and data dictionaries without going through the proposal process.
Any grant-proposal writer who would like access to the data sets will fulfill all requirements in section B and the General Procedures for obtaining data.
The Principal Investigator for the project will work with the Data Center Director to estimate the time involved for the project and include that estimate as a line-item on the grant proposal budget.
E. All Others:
Others may include s tudents who are not working on a thesis, policy-makers, and school boards. At this point, the Data Center does not have the resources to serve these people.
II. Committee Guidelines for Evaluating Proposals
Proposals should include a description of the project, the data sets and measures required to address the project, the timeline of the analysis, and benefits to the Data Center . If the project requires labor from the Data Center beyond providing existing data sets (e.g., creating customized data sets), these activities must be described and justified in the proposal. Most proposals are 5-10 pages long.
Proposals should include an abstract (approx. 250 words) with the title of the project, names of investigators, funding source (or proposed funding source). The abstract should state the goals of the project and the Data Center 's role in meeting those goals. Proposals should include the data request form.
The Committee will evaluate the quality and feasibility of proposals and ensure that different scholars do not duplicate each other's efforts. The Committee also will set priorities for accommodating different projects using the following guidelines.
A. Mission:
The Committee will give higher priority to proposals that meet State Board of Education priorities. Proposals with a different focus are still eligible for data, but if all other factors are equal, the proposal fitting the Consortium's mission will have a higher priority.
B. Geography:
The Spencer Foundation funded the North Carolina Education Research Consortium as part of its Southern Initiative. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is a partner in this effort. Therefore, the Committee will also give higher priority to research based in North Carolina . Giving priority to North Carolina researchers does not prohibit others from using the data. Such people may consider collaborating with someone who is part of the Consortium.
C. Benefit to the Data Center:
Benefits to the Data Center could include providing funds to the Data Center, providing new data sets to the Data Center, enhancing the existing data by cleaning it or calculating derived variables, improving the understanding of the data providing by documenting information about the data or validating the data against other sources and giving that product to the Data Center.
III. Different Kinds of Requests Researchers May Make of the Data Center
A. Existing Products
1. Codebooks:
The Data Center writes codebooks for each data set it receives or creates. These documents inform researchers about the data sets, but they do not contain confidential information nor do they allow researchers to manipulate or analyze the data. Therefore, people may have access to these documents without submitting a proposal to the Committee. However, for any other product, new researchers must adhere to the procedures described above.
2. Data Sets:
The Data Center can accommodate requests for copies of data sets that currently exist in the Data Center .
B. New Products
1. Customized Data Sets:
A researcher might want the Data Center to merge, concatenate, or subset various existing files. Although this type of request requires some programming from the Data Center , it does not raise new confidentiality concerns. However, a researcher who wants a customized data set will have to explain why it is necessary for the Data Center to alter the data sets rather than having the researcher alter the data sets.
2. Creating New Data Sets Based on Matching Names or Social Security Numbers:
In this case, a researcher might conduct a survey of students in one school and want to match the survey to some of the Data Center data. This type of request raises additional confidentiality concerns because the researcher already knows the identity of the students. To protect the student's confidentiality, the Data Center will request a file with the identifiers and a randomized ID, match that file to the Data Center data, and return the encrypted file to the researcher. Then, the researcher will use that encrypted file to conduct studies.
All researchers will have signed the Researcher Confidentiality Agreement in which they promise not to try to identify any individual. This type of project is the most labor-intensive for the Data Center to undertake and will require the researcher to offset Data Center costs.
IV. Requirements for Using the Data Center Data
1. Signed confidentiality agreement for Principal Investigator and all research assistants.
2. IRB approval from the Principal Investigator's institution
3. Completed proposal for use of the data.
4. Agreement to give copies of the completed study to Data Center and to the Department of Public Instruction.
5. For externally funded projects or those requiring customization , compensation of the Data Center for access to the data and time spent on the project by Data Center personnel.
6. For students only - Faculty sponsorship of the proposal, indicated by a letter of reference.
Data Request Form
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