diff --git a/run_watch_data.py b/run_watch_data.py
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..f5605a5c6a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/run_watch_data.py
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+#! /usr/bin/env python
+
+# This script requires that you have watchdog installed. You can install
+# watchdog via 'pip install watchdog'
+
+import sys
+import time
+import logging
+import os
+from subprocess import Popen
+from signal import SIGTERM
+from watchdog.observers import Observer
+from watchdog.events import LoggingEventHandler, FileSystemEventHandler
+
+# To watch more (or more specific) directories, change WATCH_DIRS to include the
+# directories you want to watch. Note that this is recursive. If you want to
+# watch fewer or more extensions, you can change EXTENSIONS. To watch all
+# extensions, add "*" to EXTENSIONS.
+
+WATCH_DIRS = ["../data"]
+EXTENSIONS = ["*", "xml", "js", "css", "coffee", "scss", "html"]
+
+WATCH_DIRS = [os.path.abspath(os.path.normpath(dir)) for dir in WATCH_DIRS]
+
+class DjangoEventHandler(FileSystemEventHandler):
+
+    def __init__(self, process):
+        FileSystemEventHandler.__init__(self)
+
+        self.process = process
+
+    def on_any_event(self, event):
+        for extension in EXTENSIONS:
+            if event.src_path.endswith(extension) or extension == "*":
+                print "%s changed: restarting server." % event.src_path
+                os.system("touch lms/__init__.py")
+                break
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    event_handler = DjangoEventHandler(Popen(['rake', 'lms']))
+    observer = Observer()
+    for dir in WATCH_DIRS:
+        observer.schedule(event_handler, dir, recursive=True)
+    observer.start()
+    try:
+        while True:
+            time.sleep(1)
+    except KeyboardInterrupt:
+        observer.stop()
+    observer.join()