All in Standards
Data Standards and Data Dictionaries Need Data Governance
Given the likely impact of the coming U.S. DATA Act on access to federal spending data, and continued development of federal “open data” programs, I wanted to “pick the brain” of someone for whom data and metadata standardization is a “meat and potatoes” business.
How Important Is "Perfect Data" To Your Data Analytics Program?
If you’re doing exploratory data analysis to help you decide how much data prep might be needed to make your data public, that’s one thing.
Pushing for standardization of such regulatory information will greatly enhance public access and transparency — as long as effective governance and sufficient resources are made available to support the process and the systems that provide public access.
NOAA’s Big Data Project Comes Into Focus
What’s different about this newly announced NOAA program is not just the potential “big data” scope of the program but the way in which private sector cloud vendors are involved as intermediaries not only to the public but also to potential data vendors and resellers.
Knowing An Organization’s Data Management Maturity Helps Promote Effective Open Data Program Planning
Each data element in a data asset inventory has its own “lifecycle” that when properly managed provides a framework for tracking and optimizing how data are used from creation through obsolescence.
Open Data Management at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Much of what the EPA staff talked about involved processes and activities that are necessarily associated not only with “open data” but with any data intensive business process. Data must be managed. Systems that share data need to be coordinated. Resources need to be allocated and shared. Such requirements are not unique to “open data” but are universally relevant.
Data Transparency Needs Data Strategy!
We want systems and processes to be more effective and transparent, we want to be able to take advantage of improved standards and technologies when they make sense — but we also need to balance the cost benefits of change in a fiscally austere and change resistant environment.
You do need to avoid adopting standards and processes developed by other organizations without first understanding how and why they were developed. That requires research, communication with the other organization, and thoughtful planning.
Government Performance Measurement and DATA Act Implementation Need to be Coordinated
Hopefully a coordinated data management strategy is something that Treasury, OMB, GAO, and the White House are already working on.
Now we’re seeing more attention being paid in the public sector to data management strategy as data assets become a more visible — and public — components of government action. That’s a good thing.
On balance I believe passage of the DATA Act will be a good thing as long as its implementation is effectively planned and managed. Before commenting on its ultimate success or failure, though, I’d like to see a detailed work plan with resources, responsibilities, a timeline, and deliverables. That’s just good project management.
Who Will Pay for Open Data?
Alicia Green’s Open data is the next iteration of public records shows how the definition of “open data” continues to evolve.
Data Standardization Scores and Changing the DATA Act
The basic ideas behind the DATA Act’s focus on financial data standardization makes such eminently good sense that efforts to weaken such standardization should be carefully and openly assessed. Fundamentally, data standardization if managed well can reduce costs, improve data manageability, reduce errors, and improve communication. Implementing data standards can also improve how date transparency efforts are supported as long as the people who operate the underlying systems want to be more transparent.