Research Application

To request the use of Michigan’s education data researchers should complete an application, which will be reviewed by the Michigan Education Research Institute (MERI).

STEP 1: Ensure eligibility

• MEDC can release data to researchers at an institution of higher education or a non-profit research institution.
• Researchers requesting data must have their primary affiliation with an eligible institution, or be a currently enrolled student in a doctoral program at an eligible institution.
• If you are a graduate student or a postdoctoral researcher at an eligible institution, please review these guidelines prior to starting your application.

STEP 2: Confirm that data are available through MEDC

Prior to submitting an application, researchers should review MEDC codebooks and confirm that MEDC is in possession of data and variables that are required for the study. Because the data request needs to include specific variables and data years, please use the MEDC codebooks to ensure that the variables needed are available in the years covered by the study.

MEDC is unable to provide researchers with summary statistics, aggregate counts or highly customized files, many of which are available at mischooldata.org.

Therefore, researchers should familiarize themselves with the holdings of mischooldata.org and determine whether publicly available data can be used in lieu of individual-level records to answer research questions.

For applications which require a match between program records and MEDC data, please review the process by which MEDC performs a probabilistic match between any incoming dataset and the PII dataset maintained in house.

STEP 3: Preliminary forms and training

Prior to submitting an application, researchers should:

• obtain approval from their Institutional Review Board (IRB).
• review FERPA exceptions if the request involves individual student data.
• ask all members of your research team who will be included as part of this application to complete FERPA training.
• obtain signed confidentiality and security forms for all research team members included in the application.

STEP 4: Complete the Research Application

To submit the online research application, researchers first create an account through Survey Monkey Apply. Other members of the research team can be invited as research as collaborators once an application is generated.

The MERI Research Application Guide lists all relevant steps.

MERI RESEARCH APPLICATION

Upcoming application deadlines are:

• February 3, 2023
• April 7, 2023
• June 9, 2023
• August 4, 2023
• October 6, 2023
• December 1, 2023

AMENDING AN APPROVED RESEARCH PROJECT

As of Fall 2023, we have switched to a new amendment request (née change request) process. Researchers should review the amendment instructions prior to logging into the Michigan Education Research Institute - Research Proposal System to update their application.

The deadlines for submitting change request:

• March 3, 2023
• May 5, 2023
• July 7, 2023
• September 1, 2023
• November 3, 2023

Our team is available to discuss studies and provide feedback on developing applications.