Open Data on Education in Argentina

Argentina is suffering from a generalized issue in statistical matters and access to public information. This is especially serious for such a foundational area for the future of our country as education. Both private institutions and NGOs work hard in order to enforce the ease of access and disclosure of open information by the government.

In educational matters, this is a double problem as data are not disclosed to the general public. Moreover, the scarce data which the Ministry of Education, the Chief of Staff and the provinces do release are not easily accessed or distributed.

At Fundación Lúminis, we are building a free-access data library on education, to enable work on investigation, incidence and citizenship awareness. The first stage of this process involved in the collection of the information which was available, and we already have more collected than 200 datasets from different indicators and several sources (https://www.fundacionluminis.org.ar/datos-abiertos-educacion/).

The second stage of this project involves a more in-depth collection work and disclosure of new data. The influence work on the state organisms has been a part of our agenda from the beginning of this project; and it is expected that both provincial and national governments take a more active role in data disclosure. In the same way, researchers and academic institutions have had a higher level of access to public information, this is why we seek to work with several universities in the collection and release of information held by researchers.

The objectives of this project are as follows:

• Transform the Educational Open Datasection in the Fundación Lúminis website into valid reference for the work of other NGOs, journalists, researchers and academic people.
• Simplify the access to information in the educational fieldat the service of research and the structuring of knowledge, based on a collaborative model.
• Design and develop a platform which may be positioned and operated as a technological resource which facilitates the users’ ownership of content.
• Develop applications which represent the information by means of dynamic graphics.
• Build educational indicator maps, by means of contrasting geolocalized data with macro-socio-educational indicator data.
• Promote cultural habits of collaborative work and the use of open data in the fields of management and education, with the objective of influencing decisions and processes of educational state policies.