A comprehensive analysis of the Italian school system using harmonised open data via the SchoolDataIT R package

Leonardo Cefalo () and Paolo Maranzano ()
Additional contact information
Leonardo Cefalo: Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
Paolo Maranzano: University of Milano-Bicocca

Statistical Methods & Applications, 2025, vol. 34, issue 4, No 11, 815-839

Abstract: Abstract We present the SchoolDataIT R library, which provides an overview on the current status of the Italian educational system by gathering relevant open data on school infrastructure through web scraping and harmonises them into an organic database. In addition to infrastructural information, the software retrieves the results of the Invalsi census survey, which is typically considered a thorough indicator of education quality nationwide. The package is composed of four main groups of functions. The first group retrieves the inputs from the source web pages; the second one is employed for basic data editing; the third one aggregates the data at a given territorial level, either municipalities (LAU) or provinces (NUTS-3); lastly, mapping functions are included to render the final datasets through static or interactive maps. We show the potential application of the software by providing a practical example that highlights the importance of spatial statistics to model data about the educational system at the territorial level. Indeed, territorial disparities can be found across several dimensions of both infrastructure endowment and education quality, representing a significant challenge to territorial sustainability.

Keywords: Italian school system; School infrastructure; Web scraping; SchoolDataIT library; R programming language (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10260-025-00805-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:stmapp:v:34:y:2025:i:4:d:10.1007_s10260-025-00805-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10260/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10260-025-00805-0

Access Statistics for this article

Statistical Methods & Applications is currently edited by Tommaso Proietti

More articles in Statistical Methods & Applications from Springer, Società Italiana di Statistica
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().