As Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion research (DEI) becomes an increasingly prominent field in higher education, the need for central hubs at which DEI information can be accessed has become increasingly strong. In an attempt to address this need, the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) announced Tuesday the creation of a DEI research platform to host their own work and that of others using their data.
Sponsored by the Cognizant Foundation, the initiative aims to leverage the data from the NSC’s network of over 3600 post-secondary to institutions to “allow the education and workforce communities, and other third parties, to access Clearinghouse research and specific projects and initiatives focused on influencing positive societal change.” 
Rick Torres
“It’s a great initiative,” said Dr. Yolanda Watson Spiva, president of Complete College America. “I think they have a treasure trove of data, so making it more accessible is important.”
According to Rick Torres, President and CEO of the NSC, one of the key benefits of the initiative is that it will make comparisons between different studies easier.
“Historically, one of the problems with education research has been replicability. Can you take research that was done in State A for Population B and replicate that same thing in State X with Population Y?,” he said. “So, one of the reasons that the equity hub becomes a very powerful tool is that the Clearinghouse has the ability to normalize the cohorts that you’re talking about. So now, you’re talking apples to apples, and that makes research not only scalable, but usable.”
The NSC hopes to make it more straightforward for researchers and practitioners to find the data that are most relevant to them.
