Vocational Education Data System (VEDS)

All secondary districts with approved career and technical education programs must submit enrollment and performance data annually. The VEDS system is maintained by staff of the New Jersey Department of Education’s (NJDOE) Office of Career and Technical Education to collect information on all students enrolled in approved career and technical education programs. These materials continue to be revised on a yearly basis to more completely meet the data requirements of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006. Failure to submit data on time could impact the allocation of funding.

General Information for Data Submission:

The required data elements for the VEDS report at secondary and postsecondary level are listed in the data dictionaries (see below). The VEDS data can be submitted either in Access format or in Excel format on a floppy diskette or a CD-Rom. A pilot data submission with online uploading of the VEDS file may be available soon on this web page. The district’s ID and password will be needed from the district’s web-user admistrator in order to upload the district’s VEDS data file. A paper printout report is not acceptable.

A VEDS transmittal diskette with this year’s data collection letter will be sent out to the districts’ superintendents if the district reported last year. The file on the floppy diskett is for the districts to modify and update. Last year’s seniors have been removed from this file and the grade level has been updated for each student. You do not have to use this disk if you prefer to extract data from the district’s data system or enter data from the scratch. You may create a floppy diskette or a CD-Rom to transmit your current data back to the DOE with your county and district codes labeled on the diskette.

Entering Data:

Excel, text or Access format can be used for the VEDS data entry. Be sure to include all of the data fields listed in the data dictionary. You may change the order of the data fields/columns for you own convinience.
Report all secondary and adult students enrolled in the CIP codes for the 2007-2008 school year. The district’s approved CIP codes can be found online at http://www.nj.gov/njded/voc/pubvoc.htm.

Please be aware that each student can only be entered in the data file once. If there are any duplicated students submitted in the report, one of the records will be deleted without notice to the district. All of the data cells need to be filled.

New Changes since VEDS 2006-2007 ( also see the data dictionary below):

Social security number and NJSMART Student ID at secondary level are no longer collected. Please delete the columns of SSN and NJSMART ID from your VEDS file.
For each student, only one program should be reported. If a student completed courses in two different approved programs, the priority order will be:

Report the program in which the student has the higher status. A completer is a higher status than a concentrator and a concentrator is a higher status than a participant.
If the student has the same status in both programs, report the program that is either a nontraditional program or a Tech Prep program (see the Tech Prep program definition in the data dictionary at www.state.nj.us/njded/data/veds).
if neither program is a nontraditional nor Tech Prep program, or they are both non-traditional and Tech Prep, please select one program to report for that student.

Only the student’s status in the program will be collected, not the total courses in the program, total credits for the progtam, completed number of courses and completed credits. The district should enter the correct status for each student based on their completion of the courses in the program (see the secondary data dictionary below).
One new field Migrant Status is added to this year’s data collection:
Simplified HSPA information. Only the HSPA Reading Language Art and HSPA Math proficiency level will be collect, not the scale score. The Alternate Proficiency Assessment (APA) results are as results for data entry under HSPA for those students with severe disabilities who are unable to participate in HSPA.

Submit the Data

A VEDS08 Excel form needs to be saved to your PC for data entry. After completing the data entry,

Save your data file on a floppy disk or a CD-Rom; Please compile all of your district data on one Excel worksheet if Excel is used for the report. One file for secondary and one file for postsecondary if you have postsecondary programs.
Label it with your county and district codes; and
Have the transmittal form signed and mail it to the address at the end of this letter.

Please submit all data by September 15, 2008 to:

New Jersey Department of Education
Office of Vocational-Technical, Career and Innovative Programs
PO Box 500
Trenton, NJ 08625-0500
Attention: Shinlan Liu

For technical assistance, please call Shinlan Liu at (609) 633-1056 or e-mail shinlan.liu@doe.state.nj.us.
VEDS Data Dictionary

VEDS Secondary Data Dictionary -- VEDS08 SEC Data dictionary.doc
VEDS Adult data dictionary -- VEDS08 Adult.doc

Using Excel to submit VEDS data, please save both of VEDS Excel files for secondary and adult data entry; print out the transmittal forms and get them signed when the data entry is completed..

SEC1.xls
ADULT1.xls
SEC Transmittal Form.doc
PSEC Transmittal Form.doc

Technical Support: shinlan.liu@doe.state.nj.us