Blog
Thursday, January 21, 2010
They Gave Us The Beatles, We Gave Them Data.gov
Vivek Kundra
Taking a page from our efforts here in the Obama Administration, the United Kingdom today launched data.gov.uk - a site to aggregate datasets from the UK government. It is exciting to see the seeds of openness, accountability, and transparency taking root around the world.
When we launched Data.gov here at the White House website in May 2009, we had just 47 datasets online. It was a modest start, but the growth we’ve seen has been phenomenal. Today, there are more than 168,000 datasets online, and federal agencies are poised to publish new high-value information this week as the next step in Administration’s Open Government Initiative.
But the U.S. and UK governments aren’t alone in data sites. There is a nationwide movement to unlock public data. Governments of all sizes are unlocking the value of data for their constituents. Washington, D.C., San Francisco, the City of New York, the State of California, the State of Utah, the State of Michigan, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have launched data.gov-type sites, as have cities in Canada and the UK. All of these sites are dedicated to breaking down longstanding barriers between governments and the people they serve -- facilitating collaboration and transforming dry data into tools that can improve people’s lives.
As we grow Data.gov across the Administration, we are focused on releasing high-value datasets to increase agency accountability and responsiveness; improve public knowledge of the agency and its operations; create economic opportunity; or respond to need and demand as identified through public consultation.
For instance, when the Department of Agriculture makes nutrition information available, families can make smarter eating choices; when the Department of Education makes key information available about colleges and universities, students can make better-informed choices about the quality and cost of education; and when the Department of Labor makes safety information available, employers can better protect workers.
The Federal Government does not have a monopoly on the best ideas. We are all part of an increasingly complex network of communities, ideas, and information. We applaud today’s launch of data.gov.uk and look forward to working with the international community to ensure that people across the world are actively engaged in helping find the most innovative paths to solve some of the toughest problems we face. Moreover, we are pleased to see that other governments share the Administration's philosophy that data availability will help change how government operates and empower citizens to participate in making government services more effective, accessible, and transparent.
Vivek Kundra is the Federal Chief Information Officer
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Changing the Way Washington Works
Vivek Kundra
In order to democratize data and advance the President’s agenda of an open, transparent and participatory government, the Data.gov platform was launched on May 21, 2009, with 47 datasets. Today, we have over 118,000 datasets and have received more than 47 million hits. Since the launch, many state, local and international governments have followed the path to democratize data through their own platforms. From San Francisco to the United Kingdom, there is a global movement to share public sector data to unleash the creativity of citizens, drive transparency and ensure accountability. Data transparency can spur economic, scientific, and educational innovation by making it easier to build applications, conduct analysis, and perform research.
The current version of Data.gov platform is just the beginning. We’ve developed a Data.gov Concept of Operations and would appreciate your input. Following are the key principles as we continue to evolve Data.gov:
- Focus on Access
Data.gov is designed to increase access to government data as close to the authoritative source as possible. The goal is to strengthen our democratic institutions through a transparent, collaborative and participatory platform while fostering development of innovative applications (e.g. visualizations, mash-ups) and analysis by third parties. Policy analysts, researchers, application developers, non-profit organizations, entrepreneurs and the general public should have numerous resources for accessing, understanding and using the vast array of government datasets.
- Open Platform
Data.gov will use a modular architecture with application programming interfaces (API) to facilitate shared services for agencies and enable the development of third party tools. The architecture, APIs and services will evolve based on public and agency input.
- Disaggregation of Data
Data should be disaggregated from agency reports, tools or visualizations to enable direct access to the underlying data.
- Grow and Improve Through User Feedback
Feedback should be used to identify high-value datasets, help set priorities for integration of new and existing datasets and improve the usability of data and applications.
- Program Responsibility
Agency program executives and data stewards are responsible for ensuring information quality, providing context and meaning for data, protecting privacy and assuring information security.
- Rapid Integration
Agencies should rapidly integrate current and new data into Data.gov with sufficient documentation to allow the public to determine fitness for use in the targeted context.
- Embrace, Scale and Drive Best Practices
Data.gov will implement, enhance and propagate best practices for data and information management, sharing and dissemination across agencies, with our state, local and tribal partners as well as internationally.
The Administration is making available high-value data that helps promote national priorities and improve the everyday lives of Americans through Data.gov. When the Department of Agriculture makes nutrition information available, families can make smarter eating choices. When the Department of Education makes key information available about colleges and universities, students can make better-informed decisions about the quality and cost of their education. When the Department of Labor makes safety information available, employers can better protect workers.
We’ve posted the Concept of Operations and invite you to join the dialogue on Data.gov. Through initiatives like Data.gov, we are laying a new foundation that changes the default setting of government from closed, opaque and secretive to open, transparent and participatory.
Vivek Kundra is the Federal Chief Information Officer
Monday, September 28, 2009
Moving Beyond Compliance: The Status Quo Is No Longer Acceptable
Vivek Kundra (Federal CIO), Robert Carey (Navy CIO) and Vance Hitch (DOJ CIO)
The threats to our nations information security continue to evolve and therefore our approach to cybersecurity must confront these new realities. In order to meet the evolving challenges we now face, Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) metrics need to be rationalized to focus on outcomes over compliance. Doing so will enable new and actionable insight into agencies' information and network security postures, possible vulnerabilities and the ability to better protect our federal systems.
With this in mind, we have established a taskforce to develop new metrics for information security performance for Federal agencies that are focused on outcomes. To solicit the best ideas, OMB has reached out across the Federal community, as well as to the private sector.
Participants in the taskforce include: the Federal CIO Council, the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Government Accountability Office and the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board.
The participants in the Security Metrics Taskforce held their inaugural meeting on September 17, 2009. OMB plans to have the taskforce develop a draft set of metrics for comment by the end of November.
The participants agreed that a new set of security metrics could move the agencies forward in securing their systems as "what gets measured, gets done." They discussed the various factors that will impact the development of new metrics, including:
- A trust but verify approach
- Fulfilling statutory requirements
- Real-time awareness security posture
At the next meeting, the taskforce will begin developing potential metrics and we look forward to your input.
