Open Data Portal (US0073)

Data must be accessible, discoverable, and usable to have the desired impact of increasing transparency and improving public service delivery. The United States continues to promote open data best practices, connect experts through working groups and roundtables, and produce resources for both agencies and the public. The first and second NAPs included commitments to make government data more accessible and useful to the
public.

For details of these commitments, see the report: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/united-states-mid-term-report-2015-2017/

Commitment 21. Open Data to the Public

Commitment Text:

Open Data to the Public

Data must be accessible, discoverable, and usable to have the desired impact of increasing transparency and improving public service delivery. The United States continues to promote open data best practices, connect experts through working groups and roundtables, and produce resources for both agencies and the public. The first and second NAPs included commitments to make government data more accessible and useful to the public. To build upon these successes as well as launch new initiatives to help fulfill open data’s potential, the United States will:

• Develop National Open Data Guidelines. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Chief Technology Officer will work with Data.gov, the Federal Open Data working group, representatives from Federal, state, and local governments, and civil society stakeholders to create Open Data National Guidelines on key issues for Federal open data.
• Promote Public Feedback Tools to Facilitate the Release of Open Data. The U.S. Open Data Policy directs agencies to engage with data users to prioritize release of open government data, and agencies approach this requirement in a variety of ways. The Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration will work with Federal agencies to promote consistent, customer-friendly feedback mechanisms on opening new datasets and improving existing datasets.

Responsible Institutions: General Services Administration, Office of Management and Budget, and Office of Science and Techonology Policy

Supporting Institution: Center for Open Data Enterprise

Start Date: Not Specified ....... End Date: Not Specified

Commitment Aim

This commitment aimed to open data to the public by developing national open data guidelines for federally held data. It would also promote “consistent, customer-friendly feedback mechanisms” to better engage with the public on questions surrounding which datasets to open and improvements to existing datasets.

Status

Midterm: Limited

At the midterm, the government had made limited progress on this commitment. In 2016, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Center for Open Data Enterprise co-hosted a roundtable series on several core open data topics. The attendees synthesized the findings into several thematic reports and a best practices document, as confirmed by both the government’s midterm self-assessment report [316] and Joel Gurin, president of the Center for Open Data Enterprise. [317] However, no actual national open data guidelines emerged from these activities. Regarding public feedback tools on federal datasets, the government set up a new feature via the Data.gov Help Desk allowing users to submit stories describing how they have used federal data. [318] Beyond this, the government made no discernible progress. The Help Desk itself was launched prior to the start of the evaluation period for the government’s third national action plan and is therefore not evaluated here.

End of term: Limited

Progress on this commitment remains limited at the end of term. Using publicly available information, the IRM researcher was unable to document any additional progress on the development of national open data guidelines post-midterm. The research also could not verify any progress on the development of the public feedback tools described in the commitment text.

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Did Not Change

Civic Participation: Did Not Change

This commitment did not open government with respect to access to information or civic participation, due to its limited completion.

Carried Forward?

At the time of writing, the US government had not published its fourth national action plan, so it is unclear if this commitment will be carried forward. The government should nevertheless continue to aim to facilitate greater access to government-held information based on targeted engagement with civil society stakeholders.

[316] United States of America, Midterm Self-Assessment Report for the Open Government Partnership: Third Open Government National Action Plan, 2015-2017, September 2016, 23, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/sites/default/files/USA_NAP3_self-assessment-report_20160916.pdf, consulted 4 October 2017. See also, The Center for Open Data Enterprise, The 2016 U.S. Open Data Roundtables: Recommendations from Data Providers and Users, September 2016, 5, http://reports.opendataenterprise.org/2016opendataroundtables.pdf, consulted 4 October 2017.

[317] Written comments provided to the IRM researcher by Joel Gurin, 1 November 2017.

[318] United States of America, Midterm Self-Assessment Report for the Open Government Partnership: Third Open Government National Action Plan, 2015-2017, September 2016, 23, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/sites/default/files/USA_NAP3_self-assessment-report_20160916.pdf, consulted 4 October 2017. The IRM researcher confirmed that the Help Desk was active at midterm at “Data Requests,” Data.gov, https://www.data.gov/requests/, consulted 30 June 2017 via the Wayback Machine.