skills/research-with-eduinsights/references/question-to-evidence.md

# Question-to-evidence map

Choose evidence by the person's meaning, then preserve the source's actual scope.

## Colleges and fields

- College identity and current context: IPEDS, College Scorecard, Carnegie Classifications, and dated accreditation coverage where available.
- Reported degrees: IPEDS completion records at college, CIP-6 field, credential level, reporting cycle, and release.
- Earnings and debt: broader College Scorecard field cohorts. These may be inherited by a narrower CIP-6 field and are not direct named-program outcomes.
- Enrollment history: comparable IPEDS collection cycles and accepted releases.
- Accreditation: dated DAPIP records. No matched record is not proof of no accreditation.
- Current course requirements and catalog program names: outside the serving snapshot.

## Fields and careers

- CIP-to-SOC edges describe structural preparation paths.
- They do not show where graduates worked, placement rates, probabilities, demand, or a guaranteed transition.
- Compare fields at the same taxonomy level and occupations at the same SOC level.

## Careers and work

- BLS OEWS supplies employment and pay estimates. Geographic and industry packages can overlap and are not additive.
- BLS Employment Projections supplies national outlook over a stated decade. It is not an AI forecast.
- O*NET supplies detailed occupations, tasks, skills, ratings, and work context.
- State projections use state-specific periods. Do not imply that all states share one period.

## AI-use evidence

- Anthropic Economic Index observations are empirical evidence about AI use within named Claude.ai or API populations.
- Lead with those findings when they are the strongest available evidence.
- State the product channel, observed population, geography, period, metric, and release.
- Do not convert AI use, task penetration, augmentation, or automation into unmeasured job loss, productivity, pay, or time savings.
- National AI context cannot be attached to a college, program, or occupation as direct evidence.

## Applicability and coverage

Translate the evidence fit into plain language:

- direct: the evidence matches the entity and level asked about;
- inherited: broader field evidence provides context for a narrower field;
- fallback: college-level evidence stands in when field evidence is unavailable;
- structural: a taxonomy or crosswalk indicates a possible relationship;
- empirical calibration: a bounded observed population informs the broader concept;
- context: macro or methodological evidence describes the environment only.

A zero is an observed number. A blank may mean suppressed, not collected, not applicable, not participating, stale, or unresolved. Use the reason returned by the tool.