How Can the Department of Education Increase Innovation, Transparency and Access to Data?

Despite the growing amount of information about higher education, many students and families still need access to clear, helpful resources to make informed decisions about going to -- and paying for -- college.

President Barack Obama has called for innovation in college access, including by making sure all students have easy-to-understand information. Now, the US Department of Education needs your input on specific ways that we can increase innovation, transparency, and access to data. In particular, we are interested in how APIs (application programming interfaces, which are a set of software instructions and standards that allow machine-to-machine communication) could make our data and processes more open and efficient.

So we need you -- student advocates, designers, developers, and others -- to weigh in on a Request for Information (RFI) on how the Department could use APIs to increase access to higher education data or financial aid programs. There may be ways that Department forms -- like the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) -- or information-gathering processes could be made easier for students by incorporating the use of APIs. We invite the best and most creative thinking on specific ways that Department of Education APIs could be used to improve outcomes for students.

[Soo is a senior policy advisor at the US Department of Education]