Two weeks ago we embarked on a college road trip, starting in Boston and ending in LA. None of us knew what we were beginning. Here we were, three intrepid ex-college students returning to the very place we left, the very place that inspired the app.

During our 10-day road trip, we visited 26 universities—meeting with students, campus founders, and campus press. We received great product feedback and were able to have a true user experience ourselves. Arriving at a college minutes before a meeting and being able to use OneSchool to find the location of a coffee house showed me just how valuable such an app can be.

Our peripatetic life was only possible through the many friends who graciously offered us their hospitality and couches. Every morning was a new college, a new city, and often a new time zone. It was nights like the drive from New Mexico to LA when you’re the only person on the road that you begin to wonder if this is insanity or determination…perhaps both.

During that night drive, I caught glimpse of a shooting star; I then found myself driving grandma-style up against the wheel, switching gaze between the road and the sky. The scenery that had been cloaked by the night suddenly began to reveal itself and I watched the sunrise in my side mirror. And to think that I had been driving for hours through a pitch-black desert, not knowing I was surrounded by such beauty.

It reminded me of the way so many students blindly go through class, not knowing how it will apply to their life.  Drive through it, but don’t drive past it. For all of us, this journey emphasized that it’s not about the destination; it’s about the adventure. 5500 miles later—our adventure is continuing.

http://youtu.be/NHPbKUvduPI

OneSchool is pleased to announce the OneSchool API for educational data.  The OneSchool API will release, free of charge, data on courses, textbooks, school events, faculty directories, organizations, and bus transit information at hundreds of schools across the country. Over 20 startups and developers have committed to our API Private Beta.

Last week we met with Aneesh Chopra, the CTO of the United States, and discussed how the entire higher education community could benefit as more startups, enterprises, and non-profits gain access to university data and leverage this data in new and upcoming technologies for the greater public good.  

At the EDUCAUSE conference, we presented our Open Schools Initiative, which aims to create an unprecedented level of openness in higher education. If schools use a standard system to produce data such as course details, facility maps, faculty directories, grade distributions, campus events, student organizations, and real-time transit information, the schools, communities, and students would benefit in terms of cost, reliability, and accessibility. We believe in one school data format, one open standard, and one higher education community, united for a common cause.

Educational data is very difficult to get.  Right now, there are only two ways to get most of it.  One is to go through the tedious, expensive, and often unsuccessful public records/FOIA request process. The other, for those with the technical know-how, is to write complex programs to scrape data from college websites.  Because educational data is unavailable or not machine-readable, innovation in the education market by startups, nonprofits, and enterprises is stifled.

We believe this situation is unacceptable.  We believe that a standard set of data should be easy to access at every school in the world. That’s why OneSchool, as part of our OPEN initiative to liberate higher education data, is releasing the OneSchool API.  The API will be available at first in private beta to a select group of launch partners to test and improve the API before public release.  The API will be continually improved, as we add more schools, and provide increasingly comprehensive data.

Check out our API at http://oneschool.com/ourapi 

Also, you can see more about OneSchool here.

(Source: youtube.com)

Check out our new video filmed on Penn State’s campus!

(Source: youtu.be)

Ever wish college life (academic-wise) was a little bit easier? Why does it have to be so “survival of the fittest”? What ever happened to working with each other?

A social world is a happy world.

That is exactly why it is our mission to promote the Open Schools Initiative to serve the higher education community. We are supporting a common and federated standard for outputting useful information to students, faculty, alumni, and administrators. The Open Schools Initiative aims to create an unprecedented level of openness in higher education.

What does this mean? 

It’s time to get social. No, not partying- that’s a given. It is time to start using a free system (OneSchool) that produces data such as:

• Course detail
• Facility maps
• Faculty directories
• Grade distributions
• Campus events
• Student organizations
• Real-time transit information
• and more…

Why do I care?

The higher education community would benefit as more start-ups, enterprises, and non-profits leverage this data in new and upcoming technologies for the greater public good.

Again, why do I care?

Because everything we do is for you.

FREE information. FLEXIBILE information. OPEN information.

So, let’s all be a little bit more open.

Lots of people were skeptical, but that’s always true when you do something that hasn’t been done before.

- Jessica Livingston