Facilitating the Safe Sharing of Student Data Between Researchers and Schools

• In Event: Interrogating the Truth While Protecting Children's Privacy

Abstract

EDNONPROFIT2 mission is to advance scientific insights that help kids thrive. We facilitate large-scale research projects about student wellbeing in schools throughout the country.
We have developed our online EDNONPROFIT2 Research Network (“CLRN”) to seamlessly connect schools who care about student wellbeing with researchers who study it. Our partner researchers create activities; our partner schools then offer their students the opportunity to participate in those activities, allowing researchers to access large, representative samples that are otherwise difficult to find.

As the bridge between these two partners, EDNONPROFIT2 is committed to protecting student privacy. EDNONPROFIT2 is designated as a school official under FERPA, allowing us to conduct research on behalf of the school and access students’ Student Information Systems (“SIS”) data, including demographics, school performance, and attendance records. We anonymize this data and attach it to students’ responses to activities in order to provide researchers information about the student before, during, and after participation in their interventions.

Our legal infrastructure enables school, scientists, and EDNONPROFIT2 to comply with federal, state, and local laws, and best practices governing school-based research, to ensure that data is truly safeguarded. Key components of this infrastructure are: (1) standardized school agreements; (2) standardized researcher agreements; (3) streamlined institutional review board (IRB) protocols; (4) a rigorous student privacy policy; and (5) a data security framework consistent with industry best practices.

There are significant inequities across race, class, and other factors that impact students’ outcomes in education and beyond. It is vital that researchers can access information about students’ identities to understand how parents, educators, and others who work with young people can find solutions that correct these inequities. We make it simple for researchers to access comprehensive datasets while protecting students’ privacy and preventing access to identifiable data, guided by our values of scientific integrity and kids first.

Authors

• Kelly Organ, Character Lab
  Presenting Author

• Sean Talamas, Character Lab
  Non-Presenting Author