Summary of the IPEDS data release schedule

The Best Known Date for IPEDS data release!

IPEDS stand for Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and is a set of survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a division of the United State Education Department(US ED).

All the IPEDS survey data can be obtained through the IPEDS data center. IPEDS survey data are published in various quality control levels. The most recent guide line are covered in the document: IPEDS Data Release Procedure. In essence, beginning with data submitted in the 2011-12 survey year, data will be released in 3 phases: preliminary, provisional and final, geared toward national, state and institutional level analysis. In tech terms, these are what they mean:

• Preliminary - Edited but unimputed for non-responding school
• Provisional - Fully Edited with Imputing for non-responding institutions
• Final - Includes Edited updates from PYR - were referred to as 'revised data'

However, to track down when each set of data were published, it is not an easy task. One source of this kind of information is the 'This Week in IPEDS' news letter/email. The archive for these news letters can be found at IPEDS news site. However, even with the news letter, sometimes it is still hard to pinpoint the date a certain data set is made available at the IPEDS data center.

The following info is compiled from the news letters mentioned above. The only thing can be said about the date is these are the 'best known date'. Procedures to derive these info are detailed in this document.

Survey Year 2010-11

Survey Year	Survey	Preliminary*	Provisional	Final
2010-11	IC	2/8/2011	9/20/2011	4/27/2012
2010-11	C	2/8/2011	9/20/2011	4/27/2012
2010-11	E12	2/8/2011	9/20/2011	4/27/2012
2010-11	HR	-	11/22/2011	Target ?/?/2013
2010-11	SFA	-	-	4/27/2012
2010-11	EF	-	-	-
2010-11	F	-	-	-
2010-11	GR	-	-	-

Survey Year 2011-12

Survey Year	Survey	Preliminary*	Provisional	Final
2011-12	IC	-	9/26/2012	Target ?/?/2013
2011-12	C	-	9/26/2012	Target ?/?/2013
2011-12	E12	-	9/26/2012	Target ?/?/2013
2011-12	HR	-	9/26/2012	Target ?/?/2013
2011-12	SFA	-	9/26/2012	Target ?/?/2013
2011-12	EF	10/9/2012	Target ?/?/2012	Target ?/?/2013
2011-12	F	10/9/2012	Target ?/?/2012	Target ?/?/2013
2011-12	GR	10/9/2012	Target ?/?/2012	Target ?/?/2013

* Preliminary data will not be accessible once the provisional data is made available.

IC -Institutional Characteristics
C - The Completion Survey
E12 - 12-month Enrollment Survey
HR - Human Resource Survey
SFA - Student Financial Aid Survey
EF - Fall Enrollment Survey
GR - The Graduation Rate Survey

* A personal note: It take about 5 months for preliminary release and about 7-11 months for provisional release.