August 2013

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on July 29 to provide an update on the U.S. Department of Education’s inventory of its data collections. The Department of Education plans to make this inventory publicly available, with the exception of restricted-use data, by November 2013.

According to the report, the department is expected to release 300 fields of metadata on each of the major data collections included in the inventory, along with the data elements associated with each collection. Eventually, the inventory is expected to include all of the statistical and grant collections that the department undertakes.

The Department of Education intends to release these data collections through its own website or on data.gov, depending on when updates to data.gov are completed.

More information regarding the data collections that were included as of June and are expected to be included by November is available in the GAO report.