Process Documentation, the Unsung Hero of Data Quality

Taking time away from pressing deadlines and daily demands to dig in and write down the how and why your team does their work is often not at the top of a data team’s priority list. But Generate states are doing just that, in partnership with their TA Teams to really dig into the steps needed for high quality and sustainable data submissions through Generate.

Now that New Hampshire has successfully submitted Child Count, Membership, Exiting, Discipline and Assessment files and is beginning to branch out to non-IDEA files, (Way to go New Hampshire team!) they have discovered that focusing on documentation ensures that the results are replicable and following the process heads off potential data quality issues.

Their TA team, Audrey Rudick and Christina MacDonald, have worked virtually with the team to document the overall Generate process, from how the data is coming in from their vendors to how the state validates data migrations. Specific areas included are:

• description of their data collections
• data validation procedures
• ETL validation
• edit check processes and data validation
• business uses
• additional reports
• troubleshooting processes
• managing changes to data collections

According to Gretchen Tetrault, New Hampshire EDFacts Coordinator, “This documentation we developed now serves as internal documentation for New Hampshire’s (NH) Special Education data flow, covering how data are collected, transferred, validated, loaded, reviewed, and used.  It will come in handy if we onboard a new EDFacts Coordinator or SpEd Data Steward."

Additionally, as New Hampshire expands their Generate capabilities into non-IDEA files, they will have tested and documented processes that will streamline planning for new file submissions and expanding the process with new stakeholders and data stewards across the New Hampshire Department of Education.

For more details on CIID’s resources for data process documentation or support from a TA provider, contact us at CIIDTA@aemcorp.com.