In 2025 we will begin our 10th year of operation as a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming the way higher education does business and drive student success by providing efficient access to information. We started our organization based on the notion that we must build solutions that enable colleges and universities to have functional control over the data that sits in their systems of record, to utilize them as they see fit with desired products. This ability to control and utilize information with the freedom to utilize a variety of products is what continues to drive us forward.
In 2021, I stated the following: “DXtera was founded on the principle that control over your data (as an education organization and eventually as a learner) is the key to educational success, for both administrators and learners alike. DXtera’s community has always viewed this control over education data as a greater good. Education delivery depends on access to data. Those who can access the data (from the classroom through the executive suite) have the ability to make better decisions and deliver optimized services for their students. . . and ultimately achieve more equitable student success.” This message continues to drive us, and in the age of AI, being able to develop services that will enable institutions to increase the Trust in AI tools and its utilization has become a focus area.
When we started the organization we were fortunate to have USA Funds (then and what is now the Strada Education Foundation) as a founding collaborator. We participated in a collaborative structured start-up process that enabled us to become a sustaining stand-alone organization in 2020. This collaboration allowed us to learn from and grow with the talent and energy of an emerging foundation in the education ecosystem. We continue to be thankful to them, and the other foundations that have collaborated with us through investments in projects to deliver more solutions and services demanded by the market.
Membership and engagement highlights:
- Over 150 active members and engaged collaborators where our team is developing, deploying and supporting the use of innovative solutions.
- This equates to our solutions being utilized by institutions of higher education and through collaboration products with over 1 Million students in the USA and Europe; and
- Our network now exceeds 10,000+ engagement participants across more than 10 countries. This includes our active involvement in innovative projects, thought leadership and working groups through our collaboration with UNESCO, and the Broadband Commission.
2025+ vision
As we begin our 10th year of operations our members and collaborators will be actively engaged in supporting activities across the following areas:
- Facilitating the development of Open Source infrastructure – Support an action-oriented and collaborative process to spur the development of a comprehensive open source infrastructure to enable greater student success with increased functional control of data across the education ecosystem.
- Increasing Trust in the use of AI – By enabling institutional data that is located in disparate systems of records, within the secure perimeter of the institution, to be utilized to train the AI tools, and improve the effectiveness in the results provided from these tools for the population of the institution.
- Developing more solutions through collaboration – Over the past year we expanded our commitment to extend the capabilities of our open source portfolio and have been significantly increasing the projects with collaborators in areas of demand, including:
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- – Learner and employment records to accelerate the skills-based economy
- – Completion requirements management and transfer pathways. In particular, scaling the work we are doing with Ithaka S+R to support the Universal Transfer Explorer Project to multiple additional states in the US.
- – Automation of data publishing into standard formats for a variety of products, services and educational initiatives. Working with the National Student Clearinghouse and to significantly increase the deployment of the Post-Secondary Data Partnership automation solution.
- – Utilizing and promoting the CampusAPI specification for enhanced interoperability.
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- Activating Affiliates – Utilizing the tools available to us to support the open source solutions with services required by institutions that are challenged by limited resources to implement the full suite of solutions developed by DXtera. The focus of the affiliates will include:
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- – to deliver demanded hosted services, beyond our non-profit capabilities, for colleges and direct engagement through company collaborators.
- – Product development that builds on the open source foundation developed by the Institute; and
- – Nurturing the SmartCampus platform into the marketplace.
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- Thought Leadership – Throughout the year we bring together innovators from across the ecosystem to share, learn, explore and collaborate to intentionally develop the open source infrastructure required to support a public “information highway” that enables the equitable use of education data, including:
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- – Continuing our Tuesday sessions on the third Tuesday of each month at 11:00 ET/17:00 CET to highlight an emerging solution to a current challenge for optimizing data within education. Leading innovators share their work and we facilitate an active discussion among the participants from around the globe.
- – Expanding our collaboration with the Massive Data Institute to accelerate the equitable use of education data through our 4th Annual Forum on October 10, 2025 at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University; and Collaborating on a multi-day conference (June 9-11, 2025) focused on leading and developing next generation solutions of public goods that will support the equitable use of education data.
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If you are a doer, an innovator, leader, investor or collaborator, come join us in developing the next generation of solutions and a public good highway that supports the education ecosystem. We want individuals from diverse backgrounds, organizations, and forward-thinking educators and thought leaders to join us in order to bring open source solutions that enable functional control of data and more equitable solutions to learners. Please join today!
