Data Sources and Verification
What each kind of fact is based on, and how we check it.
Last updated 12 October 2026
Sources by kind of fact
| Fact | Source |
|---|---|
| School name, address, city, state, public or private control | IPEDS Institutional Characteristics (HD2024), U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics — via College Navigator |
| Institutional accreditation (accreditor, status, date) | DAPIP — Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs, U.S. Department of Education |
| Candidate schools to research | IPEDS completions and programs-offered files for CIP 50.0411 (Game and Interactive Media Design), 11.0804 and 10.0304, plus schools known to publish game degrees under other codes. A CIP code only makes a school a candidate. |
| Program title, award, field, delivery, attendance, curriculum, tools, portfolio policy, admissions, deadlines, tuition, fees, funding, facilities, student-work links | The school's own pages: program and department pages, catalogs and bulletins (including catalog platforms the school links to), admissions, bursar and financial aid pages |
| Campus photographs and logos | Wikimedia Commons files linked from each school's Wikidata entry, with author, license and source shown on the page and on the image credits page |
Other directories, ranking sites and search engines may help us find a school's pages, but they never establish a fact, and we do not copy their content.
How a fact is verified
- A researcher records the value, the official URL and a verbatim quote from that page that contains the value.
- A script re-fetches the page (rendering it in a browser when the content is built with JavaScript), reduces it to visible text and searches for the quote.
- Only facts whose quote is found are shown. A fact on a page that cannot be reached, or whose quote is not found, is stored for review and never published.
- An editor can confirm a fact manually after reading the source; that confirmation is logged.
We do not bypass bot protection. When a school's site blocks automated access, we use other official pages (often the catalog) or leave the fact as not verified. At the last import the database held 141 visible programs, each with its sources listed on its page.
Dates and freshness
Each program and school page shows when its facts were last checked. Deadlines are tied to the intake printed by the school and are marked passed after the date; they are never moved to a new year. Records older than a year are flagged for re-verification and shown with a notice.
Corrections
If something is wrong or out of date, suggest an update with an official source. See also our editorial methodology.