Introduction to CIPSEA: Working Confidentially with Federal Statistical Data
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CIPSEA — the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act — is the federal law that protects confidential statistical data collected by NCES, the Census Bureau, and the eleven other principal statistical agencies. If your work brings you into contact with restricted-use federal data, CIPSEA governs what you can do with it, who can access it, what happens when something goes wrong, and what the criminal penalties are for violations. ESRA 2018 made formal CIPSEA training a federal requirement for everyone with access to protected data.
This course covers the full landscape: what CIPSEA is and why it exists; the legal and regulatory framework, including how it interacts with FERPA, the Privacy Act, and FOIA; the practical mechanics of applying for restricted-use data and managing day-to-day compliance; and disclosure avoidance and the output review process. Each lesson includes a knowledge check, and the final test issues a certificate of completion that satisfies the introductory CIPSEA training requirement.
Your instructor is Shelley Burns, who spent over thirty years at NCES and chaired the IES Disclosure Review Board for nearly fourteen years. She personally oversaw the IES restricted-use data license program that gives education researchers access to NCES data, and represented NCES on the inter-agency Committee on Disclosure and Confidentiality (CDAC). The course distills what she learned across thousands of license applications and tens of thousands of output reviews.
What you’ll learn
• What CIPSEA protects, who it applies to, and the criminal penalties for violations
• How CIPSEA interacts with FERPA, the Privacy Act, and FOIA
• How to apply for a restricted-use data license and manage day-to-day compliance
• What you’re actually signing in a Data Use Agreement
• How disclosure review works, why outputs get rejected, and how to avoid common mistakes
• What’s changing in disclosure avoidance — differential privacy, synthetic data, and AI
Curriculum
- 1 Section
- 4 Lessons
- 4 Hours
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- CIPSEA 101 — Introduction to CIPSEA | Agora Research AcademyIntroduction to CIPSEA — the federal law protecting confidential statistical data collected by NCES, the Census Bureau, and other principal statistical agencies. Taught by Shelley Burns, former Chair of the IES Disclosure Review Board (2011–2025) and 30+ year NCES veteran. Five video lessons covering what CIPSEA is, the legal framework, working with restricted-use data, and disclosure avoidance. Issues a certificate of completion that satisfies the ESRA 2018 CIPSEA training requirement. Enroll: edevaluator.org/learn Agora Research Academy is the training arm of Agora Education Research, a Massachusetts 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by former NCES and IES staff.9
- 1.1CIPSEA 101 — Course Orientation and Lesson 1: What Is CIPSEA?
- 1.2Knowledge Check 1 — Lesson 1: What Is CIPSEA?5 Questions
- 1.3CIPSEA 101 — Lesson 2: The Legal and Regulatory Framework
- 1.4Knowledge Check 2 — Lesson 2: The Legal and Regulatory Framework5 Questions
- 1.5CIPSEA 101 — Lesson 3: Working with Restricted-Use Data in Practice
- 1.6Knowledge Check 3 — Lesson 3: Working with Restricted-Use Data6 Questions
- 1.7CIPSEA 101 — Lesson 4: Disclosure Avoidance and Output Review
- 1.8Knowledge Check 4 — Lesson 4: Disclosure Avoidance and Output Review5 Questions
- 1.9Final Test — All Lessons20 Questions
Instructor
Shelley Burns
Shelley Burns spent over thirty years at the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). From 2011 to 2025 she served as Chair of the IES Disclosure Review Board, overseeing the restricted-use data license program and reviewing outputs across the full NCES portfolio. She represented NCES on the inter-agency Committee on Disclosure and Confidentiality (CDAC) and contributed to federal statistical standards on disclosure limitation, confidentiality protection, and restricted-use data licensing.
$40.00
