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README.md

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+# EDSI — Center for Educational Data Science & Innovation  
+*Advancing Education Equity & Effectiveness with Data & AI*
+
+---
+
+## About EDSI
+
+The **Center for Educational Data Science and Innovation (EDSI)** at the University of Maryland is a research center committed to improving educational outcomes through rigorous, data-driven methods. Situated within UMD’s College of Education, EDSI’s work spans data science, artificial intelligence, educational research, and policy innovation.
+
+We strive to:
+
+- **Advance equity in education** by ensuring data and AI tools benefit all students, especially those from underserved communities  
+- **Boost educational effectiveness and efficiency** through evidence-based interventions, real-time analytics, and intelligent systems  
+- **Foster collaboration across domains** — educators, researchers, policymakers, and industry partners — to responsibly implement data and AI in education  
+
+EDSI leads and supports numerous initiatives, including multimodal classroom data collection (e.g., audio, video, transcripts, annotations), development of AI tools for teaching and learning, and open research infrastructure.
+
+---
+
+## What You’ll Find Here
+
+This organization serves as a hub for our open software, tools, and data-driven research. Repositories fall into several categories:
+
+- **Core Projects** — foundational systems, APIs, and software maintained by EDSI  
+- **Research Prototypes & Experiments** — proof-of-concept models, analyses, and exploratory code  
+- **Datasets & Annotations** — anonymized datasets (where allowed), annotation tools, and utilities  
+- **Documentation & Guides** — user manuals, API docs, methodological notes  
+- **Community Contributions** — extensions, plug-ins, and collaborators’ projects  
+
+Every repository is intended to be accessible, transparent, and open to community engagement.
+
+---
+
+## Contributing
+
+We welcome participation from developers, researchers, and educators. To make it easy and fair:
+
+1. **Read the Code of Conduct** — all behavior should be respectful and inclusive (see `CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md`)  
+2. **Check contribution guidelines** in each repo — many provide templates for issues, pull requests, and changelogs  
+3. **Write clear commit messages & tests** when appropriate  
+4. **Respect licensing** — most projects adopt permissive open licenses (e.g. MIT, Apache)  
+5. **Engage via Issues / Discussions** — use the appropriate channels to propose ideas, report bugs, or ask clarifying questions  
+
+For first-time contributors, we encourage looking at documentation repositories or helping with small issues.
+
+---
+
+## Support & Contact
+
+If you'd like to collaborate, ask questions, or learn more:
+
+- Open an **Issue** or **Discussion** in a repository  
+- Send email: **edsi@umd.edu**  
+- Visit our website: [edsi.umd.edu](https://edsi.umd.edu)  
+- Follow us on social media:  
+  - X / Twitter: `@EDSI_UMD`  
+  - LinkedIn, YouTube, Bluesky — see links in the repository header  
+
+---
+
+## Staying Updated
+
+Stay in the loop with:
+
+- Project and release announcements  
+- Upcoming workshops, events, or webinars  
+- Calls for collaboration or dataset access  
+- Research publications and reports  
+
+We regularly post updates via GitHub, our website, and social media channels.
+
+---
+
+Thank you for visiting EDSI’s GitHub organization. We hope you’ll explore, experiment, and contribute. Together, let’s build technologies and insights that make education more equitable, effective, and empowered by data.  
+
+— The EDSI Team