Common Data Set
The Common Data Set (CDS) initiative is a collaborative effort among data providers in the higher education community and college guide publishers as represented by College Board, Peterson's, and U.S. News & World Reports.
The goal is to have each institution complete the CDS once each year and make copies available to the interested publishers, who would then require only a relatively small amount of additional information. In addition to reducing the cost and time of institutional researchers to respond to publisher's surveys, the CDS represents a standardization of data elements and definitions across publications thus minimizing conflicting counts and other data irregularities.
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