Data Linkage Flow Chart and Guide

This two-page guide is meant to help agencies and partners determine the best ways to link and deduplicate preschool supply and demand data based on available data, both in terms of the method (e.g., probabilistic matching or deterministic matching) and software (e.g., R, SAS, Stata). It also provides an overview of probabilistic matching methods, ways to improve matching processes in the presence of imperfect or incomplete data, as well as probabilistic command codes by software.  

This tool is part of Preschool Supply & Demand, a collaboration between the Strategic Data Project and representatives from the California Department of Education, Denver Public Schools, Denver Preschool Program, South Carolina First Steps, Chicago Early Childhood Integrated Data System, National Head Start Association, Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care, and Washington Education Research and Data Center. It is supported by the Gates Foundation.