The Common Data Set

Southern Polytechnic State University

Background Information:

The Common Data Set (CDS) represents an effort led by guidebook publishers, with the cooperation of institutional researchers and others, to develop a common set of core questions in a single instrument that will then be used by the publishers to meet approximately 80% of their information needs. This initiative came out of the October 1995 meeting at Lafayette College.

 In theory, then, each institution would complete the CDS once each year and send copies of it to the interested publishers, who would then need to request only a relatively small amount of additional information with brief publication-specific supplemental surveys. This should relieve some (much?) of the survey burden currently shouldered by institutional researchers and others at our institutions, and should produce a standardization of data elements an definitions across publications to minimize conflicting counts and other irregularities. Institutions that have already developed a Standard Survey Response form (SSR) would incorporate the CDS into it; those that are planning to develop a SSR would use the CDS as a base from which to build a more thorough and useful SSR.

 The initial developers of the CDS have been the College Board and Orchard House. Peterson's Guides, US News, NCES, and Money also participated in a working session at the Forum to move this effort forward. The plan as I understand it is for the developers to solicit feedback and continue to refine the CDS over the next 3 months, with the goal of having something ready for Fall data collection. It should be understood that the CDS is an evolving instrument: the Fall 1997 version will probably be different than the Fall 1996 version. Furthermore, the only way for this communal effort to work is for all of those involved to be willing to cooperate and compromise as reasonably as possible.

 ~excerpted from AIR website/message contributed by Mike McGuire

You can find more information about the Common Data Set from these websites: The Common Data Set Initiative, AIR Alert #1,  and U.S. News and World Report.