About · Our mission
An educational research initiative focused on Michigan higher education transparency, data-driven curriculum analysis, and long-term integration with authoritative public data sources.
We envision a Michigan where every stakeholder — from first-year students to legislative researchers — can access authoritative, comparable information about general education without proprietary barriers or institutional gatekeeping. The platform serves as a public good infrastructure layer for higher education transparency.
General education is not a bureaucratic hurdle but a deliberate investment in democratic citizenship, analytical reasoning, and adaptive learning. Our educational mission is to make that investment visible: to show how institutions define it, how students experience it, and how policy shapes its future across Michigan.
We pursue three research goals: (1) establish reproducible datasets for Michigan gen ed comparison; (2) document institutional variation with methodological rigor; and (3) connect curricular structures to enrollment, transfer, and workforce outcomes. Findings are published through the Research Center and cited in the References library.
Curriculum revision, transfer policy, and student advising all benefit from shared evidence. By normalizing disparate sources into typed, import-ready models, the platform enables decision makers to move from anecdote to analysis — while preserving links to primary sources for verification.
While national context informs our work, Michigan's unique mix of public research universities, regional comprehensives, private liberal arts colleges, and community colleges demands state-specific tooling. MTA policy, merit curriculum standards, and regional enrollment patterns are first-class concerns in our architecture.
Michigan focus
While national context informs our work, Michigan's unique mix of public research universities, regional comprehensives, private liberal arts colleges, and community colleges demands state-specific tooling. MTA policy, merit curriculum standards, and regional enrollment patterns are first-class concerns in our architecture.
Transfer planning, institution selection, and gen ed requirement clarity.
Structured requirement data and enrollment context for advising sessions.
Peer benchmarking and competency model references for revision cycles.
Import-ready datasets and comparative analytics for IR offices.
Statewide enrollment trends, transfer policy, and workforce alignment evidence.
Merit curriculum alignment and college readiness indicator crosswalks.
Platform development phases from institution catalog through live data integration and contributor workflows.
Complete profiles for all 89 Michigan institutions with sector taxonomy.
Cross-institutional gen ed frameworks, MTA mapping, and transfer tools.
IPEDS enrollment, BLS workforce, and program enrollment visualizations.
Publications, timeline, trends, and searchable scholarly library.
Ferris State deep dive with governance and assessment documentation.
Automated annual refresh from NCES IPEDS data files.
Authenticated workflows for IR staff to submit catalog updates.
Automated ingestion of enrollment, completion, and finance survey components with institution crosswalk.
Program-to-SOC code mapping for workforce projection overlays on program enrollment pages.
M-STEP, SAT, and graduation rate feeds for high school readiness modules.
Structured course equivalency records from Michigan Transfer Network partners.
Semi-automated gen ed requirement extraction with human review workflow.
Validation, coverage, and dry-run merge preview for IPEDS, CEPI, BLS, and Ferris datasets.
Start with our institution map, dive into the Research Center, or review the scholarly references that inform research integrity.