Controversy Surrounding "Unit Record" Data Reporting
In March 2005 The US Department of Education released a study on the Feasibility of a Student Unit Record System Within the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. This Unit Record proposal met with immediate and vocal opposition from congressional leaders as well as colleges and universities. The US Department of Education argued that the development of a national student unit record tracking system, with appropriate privacy safeguards, which collects, analyzes and uses longitudinal student progression data was a vital tool for accountability and policy-making. This sparked an immediate reaction regarding the implications of what this means for Institutions of Higher Education. Unit Record reporting, as originally conceived, would require institutions that report to IPEDS to upload not summary data but rather to upload files that contain individual student records. These files would contain a wide range of information on the student but would, most importantly, include the student's Social Security Number. Concerns were raised that attending even one course would mean you are added to a federal database for the rest of your life. In a report issued in March 2006 by the US Department of Education, Social Security Number was specifically excluded from the Unit Record upload data. It has been suggested that SSN will still be collected but it will be done so by a third-party before it is uploaded to the IPEDS Unit Record Database.
Read more about this topic: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
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