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Open Up Government Data Wiki
Over at the Wired magazine "How-to wiki," there is a page about making government data more easily available.
- Open Up Government Data [wiki], Wired How-To Wiki, Based on work by Alexis Madrigal.
We've established this wiki to help focus attention on valuable data resources that need to be made more accessible or usable. Do you know of a legacy dataset in danger of being lost? How about a set of Excel (or — shudder — Lotus 1-2-3) spreadsheets that would work better in another format? Data locked up in PDF's? This is your place to report where government data is locked up by design, neglect or misapplication of technology. We want you to point out the government data that you need or would like to have. Get involved! Based on what you contribute here, we'll follow up with government agencies to see what their plans are for that data — and track the results of the emerging era of Data.gov. With your help, we can combine the best of new social media and old-school journalism to get more of the data we've already paid for in our hands.From the look of it, I'd say that the folks who designed this page are not familiar with the many existing sources of government data, but that's just a guess. Nevertheless, I think this is worth monitoring and I hope that librarians contribute to it. (It's easy! "Just jump in and edit the wiki. Add links to data that's out of date or in danger of being forgotten or that comes stored in a less-than-ideal format. Help define how Data.gov gets built by making sure that the data you need is included." And... "If you're not comfortable with the MediaWiki formatting language, feel free to get in touch with Wired.com staff writer, Alexis Madrigal, either by e-mail alexis.madrigal[at]gmail.com or on Twitter: @alexismadrigal.) They note:
We're not writing a policy paper here. We're trying to highlight datasets and sources of knowledge that the new Administration — and it's open-data friendly CIO — could make more widely available and accessible with small, concrete actions.Already on the list: Economic Research Service, ClinicalTrials.gov, creating a data catalog of every agency's data streams, "View Data Release From the User's Point of View, not the Agency's", and more. It also lists "Models for Government Data Release, Transparency" such as ESDIS (Earth Science Data and Information System Project at Goddard). Continue reading
bulk data downloads
Recommended reading: O'Reilly Radar - Bulk Data Downloads: A Breakthrough in Government Transparency by Tim O'Reilly (March 4, 2009): "What would it mean if all the bulk data from the Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Government Printing Office, and "the appropriate entities of the House of Representatives" were made available?" Here's an excerpt from the appropriations bill that's the focus of the post - "*Public Access to Legislative Data* - There is support for enhancing public access to legislative documents, bill status, summary information, and other legislative data through more direct methods such as bulk data downloads and other means of no-charge digital access to legislative databases..." O'Reilly was especially struck by the possibilities embedded in that final passage - "bulk data downloads and other means of no-charge digital access to legislative databases" and the specific reference to agencies ... Read the full Radar post here! Continue reading
Bulk data and Legislative Information 2.0
Tim O'Reilly writes that bulk data of Congressional information may soon be a reality. Congressman Mike Honda (D-CA 15th District) an interesting rider explanatory statement the subcommittee was working on which would require the agencies that the U.S. Congress to distribute their data in bulk. No doubt this was due in no small part to the wonderful folks at the Sunlight Foundation and many other govt transparency activists. The rider explanatory statement has made it into Division G - Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2009, the section that Honda's subcommittee is working on, but not in the current text of the bill. You can track the changes of the bill with GovTrack.us bill tracker (I hope Tim is reading this because he lamented the lack of change control :-) ):
The money quote on the H.R.1105 appropriations Omnibus bill rider explanatory statement is this paragraph here:
*Public Access to Legislative Data* - There is support for enhancing public access to legislative documents, bill status, summary information, and other legislative data through more direct methods such as bulk data downloads and other means of no-charge digital access to legislative databases. The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, and Government Printing Office and the appropriate entities of the House of Representatives are directed to prepare a report on the feasibility of providing advanced search capabilities. This report is to be provided to the Committees on Appropriations of the House and Senate within 120 days of the release of Legislative Information System 2.0.Continue reading
Calls for Comment on Proposed Federal Data Collections
I'm forwarding this heads-up from the Association of Public Data Users (APDU) list. Over the last two weeks, there have been quite a few calls for comment on proposed data collections published in the Federal Register (see below with due date). Maybe it's because I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, but I was a little peeved by my failed information search. I found the Census Bureau's FR posting (Federal Register: January 7, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 4) Page 672) (btw, I tried in FDsys.gpo.gov but they've not loaded Volume 74 yet) but at first was stymied because the summary page has no link to the Census Bureau's Web site, and does not have contact information or any link to more information. The full listing has the information, but comments must be written, no Web submissions :-| Ok fine, I go to www.census.gov and after more than 5 minutes of search/browse, give up on finding exactly *how* to submit comments on the proposed "Quarterly Financial Report" or "Survey of Local Government Finances." What's even worse, census.gov does not have a "contact us" link on it's first page. I finally found it in the footer of a second level page, but could find nothing in the Question and Answer Center about RFCs, proposed data sets etc. *sigh* I guess this is turning into an FDsys comment. I noticed in FDsys that you can sign up to receive the daily Federal Register Table of Contents which is cool. But there needs to be a way to browse only the requests for comments (or rules changes, notices...) of specific agencies in the FR as well as receive email or RSS of requests for comments. There also needs to be a link in the FR to the agency in question and not just their top level site but to the place on the site with information on the RFC and directions for how to submit comments. And lastly (this is not an FDsys comment but a general agency comment) RFCs should be submitted online. So go ahead and submit comments for the proposed data collections below, I dare you.
- Census Bureau
Quarterly Financial Report (February 9, 2009)
Survey of Local Government Finances (School Systems) (March 13, 2009) - Office of Management and Budget
2007 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)-Updates for 2012 (April 7, 2009) - Bureau of Labor Statistics
Labor Market Information (LMI) Cooperative Agreement (March 3, 2009) - Employment and Training Administration, Department of Labor
O*Net Data Collection Program (January 30, 2009) - Science Resources Statistics, National Science Foundation
Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges (March 10, 2009) - National Institutes of Health
Information Program on Clinical Trials: Maintaining a Registry and Results Databank (February 5, 2009) - Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services
Feasibility Test for Design Phase of National Study of Child Care Supply and Demand (February 5, 2009) - Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Department of Health and Human Services
The AHRQ Data Inventory (January 30, 2009) - Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services
CAHPS Home Health Care Survey (March 10, 2009) - Surface Transportation Board, Department of Transportation
Class I Railroad Annual Report (February 9, 2009)
Quarterly Report of Freight Commodity Statistics (February 9, 2009)
Big Data, Environmental Data
The Journal Nature has a special issue about "Big Data" with articles by Clifford Lynch, Cory Doctorow, and others. The whole issue is worth reading and is freely available online for a short time.
Coping with floods of data is now one of science's biggest challenges. In this Nature Special, we assess the need to complement smart science with smart searching; look at what the next Google will be; talk to the pioneering biologists who are trying to use wiki-type web pages to manage and interpret data; and recall that the first mass data crunchers were not computers, but the remarkable women of Harvard's Observatory.In the area of government information, David Goldston, the former chief of staff of the House Committee on Science, writes about environmental data.
- Big data: Data wrangling by David Goldston, Nature 455, no. 7209 (September 3, 2008): 15.
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