Catalogue description Department for Education and Employment: Analytical Services: Register of Educational Establishments: Dataset

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 95.

Application Software: For the REE database, Microsoft Access 97. EduBase was run as a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 relational database with multiple tables, stored procedures, functions, jobs, and user defined data types. The extracts were converted to CSV format and saved to the server by programs written in C#.NET, using SQL stored procedures to retrieve the data (formatted as XML) from the database.

User Interface:(1) a public internet site providing the ability for interested parties to query the data and retrieve limited numbers of records. (2) A read-only interface available to users of the PRISM DfES Intranet via the DfES internal network. (3) A private extranet allowing access for the Poulter Partners help desk operators and authenticated members of the DfES. The extranet allowed data changes to be proposed, verified and applied to the database and provided management reports in relation to database activity and service levels.

Logical structure and schema: The copy of the REE database transferred to NDAD in December 2000 consisted of 53 tables linked in one-to-many relationships. The copy of the EduBase database transferred to NDAD in 2006 was accessioned as a single table, although the original database is likely to have been structured as several tables.

Details of how the data was originally captured and validated are not available.

Dynamic or closed: The copy of the REE database transferred to NDAD in December 2000 exhibits both closed and dynamic features. The main REE table could be said to be closed, in the sense that any changes to the data in the table were recorded in the separate history table. Other elements of the database were dynamic, in that there was no formal structure to preserve data altered or erased. The EduBase database transferred in 2006 was a dynamic system, in the sense that most of the data was frequently updated.

The Register of Educational Establishments (REE) database was created by the former Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) to hold basic information about schools and similar educational bodies, primarily in England. It was succeeded by EduBase in 2002. Both databases had been maintained for the DfEE and its successor, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), by external contractors. From 1996 until 2002 the contractor was the Schools Register, a division of Dudley Jenkins List Broking Ltd. The Schools Register conducts its own surveys of schools, and supplies data on schools for direct marketing purposes. In 2002 the contract was awarded to PoulterNet, a subsidiary of Poulter Partners, an advertising, design, direct marketing, brand development and publicity company. PoulterNet developed EduBase.

The original REE is thought to have been established in 1996, replacing an earlier system called the Index of Educational Establishments. This played a similar role to the REE database, and was maintained in-house by the DfEE. Nothing further is known about the predecessor system, and no data from it is thought to have survived.

Both the REE database and EduBase were made available to Department staff via their intranet, PRISM. The databases were used for a variety of administrative and statistical purposes, including:

• Generating mailings to schools.
• As a sampling frame, i.e. to determine which schools should be included in sample surveys and consultations carried out by the Department.
• Ensuring that the Department has the correct contextual data for the production of performance tables.
• Checking that schools have returned their annual Schools' Census returns.
• Identifying data on an individual school or groups of schools.

In 2002 the DfES planned to provide the public with access via the Internet to a limited range of data in the database. The contractor maintaining the database has had the right to use the data for certain commercial purposes, and responds to requests for data from schools, local education authorities (LEAs), businesses and the general public.

With the 2006 transfer of EduBase, the 'data owner' arrangement was confirmed; and the proposal to provide a version of the database online had by this time become a reality with the creation of the EduBase website at www.edubase.gov.uk.