On Simply Connected Quandles

In this paper we provide an alternative characterization of finite simply connected quandles involving only cocycles with values in abelian groups of prime size. As a corollary of such a characterization and the classification of connected quandles of size $p^2$ and $p^3$ we obtain a classification of simply connected quandles of size $p^2$ (already obtained with a different method in \cite{VV}) and $p^3$ for $p>3$ using a method that works for quandles of size $p^n$ for arbitrary $n$. We also classify the simply connected quandles within two subclasses of finite involutory quandles: nilpotent latin quandles and core quandles.