Funded by the Coleridge Initiative’s Democratizing Our Data Challenge and in collaboration with New Jersey and Virginia, DataSpark will be leading the effort to create a multi-state postsecondary report for New England and the Mid-Atlantic. The effort will securely link education and employment records cross-state and explore to what extent postsecondary graduates work out-of-state following graduation. 

As it turns 30, DataSpark, located at the University of Rhode Island Libraries, is about to undertake a major, multi-state effort to determine whether Rhode Island and its neighboring states are, in fact, experiencing a “brain drain.” DataSpark operates and maintains Rhode Island’s statewide longitudinal data system (SLDS), also known as the RI DataHUB, linking individual level data from early childhood through time in the workforce.