DATA-COPE Newsletter Issue 1
Hello DATA-COPErs,
Welcome to the first edition of the DATA-COPE member newsletter. This monthly (or bi-weekly) mailing will keep you up to date on news related to research and analysis in the education space with a specific eye on the work being done in education agencies around the country. There is too much great stuff going on to fit into one mailing, so this will serve as the highlights. DATA-COPE’s mailing list currently has over 300 members from a variety of contexts - state and local education agencies, research firms, university researchers, and policy makers - all interested in the intersection of data analysis, education policy, and informed policy making.
This inaugural mailing will be slightly different in order to make some major announcements. Keep reading to find out:
Who is on this list and how to I unsubscribe or sign others up?
All about the new DATA-COPE website and DATA-COPE online community
The transition from LinkedIn to the new DATA-COPE community site
How to contribute your ideas, questions, and content to DATA-COPE!
How'd I Get Here?
First, how did you get on this list and how do you get off of this list? DATA-COPE’s mailing list consists of members who have reached out to Jared Knowles (me) or DJ Cratty about wanting to participate in more discussions about data use in state and districts and the application of rigorous analysis to education data.
To get off of this list, just use the handy unsubscribe link at the bottom of this e-mail. Our apologies for the inbox clutter.
To sign your colleagues up, just send them to the new DATA-COPE website and they can sign up there: http://datacope.org/members-2/.
DATA-COPE's New Online Community
Second, I want to announce two great new resources for DATA-COPE members -- the DATA-COPE homepage, and the DATA-COPE member forums. The DATA-COPE homepage is now at www.datacope.org. There you will find publicly available information about news and resources that are of interest to education data analysts. Have an idea? Want to contribute an article to the website? Then, head on over to…
The DATA-COPE member forums. We’re excited to provide you with a forum system powered by Discourse. The member forums allow you to post discussions, solicit feedback, take polls of your fellow DATA-COPE members, post job openings, and message one another privately. You can sign up for an account at http://forums.datacope.org or you can use your Google account, Twitter account, or GitHub account to sign in (no need for a new username and password!). Stop over today and post a question or just say hello.
Access to the DATA-COPE member forums is restricted to DATA-COPE members. Membership is approved by DJ and myself. The member forums are powered by the open source Discourse forum software and provide a clean, smooth, and powerful discussion forum platform that is state of the art. We think you’ll enjoy this space and be able to participate more in discussions through this forum than the LinkedIn discussion group. Once you sign up, you can also invite your colleagues.
Winding Down the LinkedIn Group
Third, I want to let you know about the transition from LinkedIn. The LinkedIn group will continue to exist, but DJ and myself will monitor it much less frequently and will remind members to move over to the DATA-COPE member forums. Feel free to post a discussion in both places, but from now on, consider the DATA-COPE member forums as the primary method to communicate with fellow DATA-COPE members.
DATA-COPE Needs You
Fourth, I want to encourage you to participate. We have more content coming your way, but the best way to share information is to go to the forums and post a question, a project, an announcement, or an idea you have and see what others have to say. We’ll be highlighting, with your permission, those forum posts in our future newsletters. We’re also always looking for contributors to DATA-COPE’s homepage with resources about doing data analysis and research in education within state and local education agencies. Have an idea or a story? Share it in the forum.
That's it for this first edition, but we look forward to many more.
Jared and DJ, DATA-COPE co-founders