Data Sharing

What is data sharing? Data sharing refers to formal arrangements between multiple organizations to share program and participant data, such as educational attainment, employment, job retention, wages, and use of public assistance programs. 

How does data sharing help? Data sharing can allow local workforce system organizations to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of programs by analyzing participant outcomes that they are unable to track themselves or that are already gathered by other parts of the system.

For example, a state community college board may want to measure student employment outcomes to evaluate their occupational training programs. Gathering these data could be difficult and costly, especially after students leave school. Data sharing with the state agency responsible for collecting employment and wage data for the Unemployment Insurance Program makes this evaluation possible.  

How is data sharing accomplished? Some states have developed shared data systems, or “data warehouses,” to securely collect and store information from workforce system organizations and programs. Furthermore, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act encourages sharing administrative data among federally funded programs at the state level.