James Madison’s birthday is an exciting time for open-government wonks.  Madison, the father of our Constitution and fourth president, was an outspoken advocate of open government.  This is why we dedicate an entire week to heightened public advocacy of transparency issues through public events, legislative initiatives, and op-eds.  This year offers several opportunities for public participation.

This week, our blog will be highlighting some basic ways to access government information such as how to use the Freedom of Information Act, how to access government data, and to know what information is already available to you as a citizen.

The week kicks off nationally today, March 15, with the 2010 National Freedom of Information Day Conference at the First Amendment Center.  The theme of this year’s conference is to assess the current state of government openness and then to look forward to what we can expect in the near future.  Concluding the week’s events will be a tri-panel webcast on March 19 sponsored by OpenTheGovernment.org and hosted by the Center for American Progress.  For more events during the week, see the Sunshine Week calendar here.

There are a number of activities going on at the regional, state, and local levels as well.  For more information about these events you can look up your local coordinator here and contact them.

Curious about the information government is tracking about your community’s health?  What about data on the wetlands in your area?  Or perhaps the federal contracts going to your community’s businesses?  Well, now is the time to let the government know what you want to see.  They're listening.

All agencies are currently soliciting public input into what federal information to release via Data.gov.  If you know what kinds of information would be useful to you, even in the broadest sense, then you can submit your request directly to the agency.  You can also view other items your fellow citizens have requested.

The best way to submit your ideas is to go to the OpenGov Open Feedback Firehose over at Intelletics.  The Firehose is a catalog of all the portals where you can submit requests to specific agencies.  Simply click on the link to the agency you want speak to, sign in, and leave your comment.  You can also vote on the requests made by others!

On Friday, the White House met another Open Government Directive deadline by issuing a framework for federal spending data quality.  The framework requires that agencies submit plans by April 14 for improving quality of their spending data, implementing internal controls and process changes.  

Current challenges that need to be addressed such as missing data, duplicate data, and inaccurate data.  The new policy is meant to meet some of these problems, but it doesn’t do so as completely or thoroughly as it might have.  For instance, it doesn’t allow for independent data quality verification whether from inspectors general or by comparing the data to the Treasury Department’s disbursements.

According to the policy, OMB is to monitor progress through “potential” dashboards that will be publicly available.  However, it doesn’t promise to make agency data quality plans public.  How can we know how well the data verification process is if we don’t have the plan?  Regardless, this is a positive step forward to ensuring consistency in data reporting.

Once the plans are received, OMB will provide initial feedback by April 30 and work with agencies to develop final plans which are due on May 14.  Although the framework states that portions of the plans will be used to monitor agency implementation, they do not mention any mechanism to be provided to the public to report data and implementation problems.

Yesterday, a group of organizations, including OMB Watch, submitted concerns with the high-value datasets published on Data.gov in compliance with the requirements of the Open Government Directive (OGD) issued on Dec. 8. The OGD required that agencies submit at least three high value datasets within 45 days through Data.gov.   These groups outlined the major problems with the site and its implementation thus far.  I have summarized these issues below.

Yesterday, a group of organizations, including OMB Watch, submitted concerns with the high-value datasets published on Data.gov in compliance with the requirements of the Open Government Directive (OGD) issued on Dec. 8. The OGD required that agencies submit at least three high value datasets within 45 days through Data.gov.   These groups outlined the major problems with the site and its implementation thus far.  I have summarized these issues below.

Format & Usability

A major concern of the community is that releasing data in specific formats may make it more usable to coders and the tech-savvy, but not to the general public writ large.  If data is solely released in formats such as XML or CSV leaving the majority of the public unable to decipher these raw formats then Data.gov’s attempt to make the government more transparent has failed.    What good is information if we can’t read it?

The solution?  We proposed that the administration strike a balance between releasing data in machine readable formats and presenting the data to the public through web-based interfaces.  Web-based interface can be designed in a user-friendly way that aggregates the raw data for quick and convenient access.

Definition of High Value

The OGD mandated that agencies release three “high-value” datasets on Data.gov.  However, the Sunlight Foundation noted that only 16 of the 58 datasets posted by major agencies were previously unavailable.  The vast majority of released datasets were already online but not in machine readable format.  This meant that the administration only picked the low-hanging fruit in its first data release.  On the other hand, the data was now available in a central location and in a better format.

Still, this leaves open the question of how the government is defining “high value.”  According to the Open Government Directive, high value data is information that can be used to increase agency accountability and responsiveness; improve public knowledge of the agency and its operations; further the core mission of the agency; create economic opportunity; or respond to need and demand as identified through public consultation.  Yet, the agencies do not have to demonstrate how the releases they submit qualify under these categories.  To resolve this issue we expressed the need for such a requirement.  Other things we asked for:  notations that indicate which datasets are already available and unavailable as well as datasets that help hold agencies accountable for their policies and spending decisions.

Data Quality

This third issue mainly centers on the fact that some datasets could not be opened, were missing portions, or missing headers.  Missing headers, of course, means the data cannot be used even by coders.  Moreover, it was discovered that some of the datasets were being quietly removed from the site without public notification.

Here, we stressed the need for a better feedback mechanism than what exists on the site.  We made the point that there needs to be a system to report problems with specific datasets.  Further, we asked that all datasets on Data.gov be directly associated with their code sheets.
Ultimately, this is a great first step in showing the amount of data the agencies are capable of putting out in machine readable format.  Never before have we been able to access so much raw data in one place.  Despite the short deadline for this disclosure, several executive agencies released more than the required three datasets.  The implementation, however, needs to be improved through  creating public facing interfaces, requiring agencies to demonstrate the value of the data, and by providing a means of user feedback.

In order to improve Data.gov and the range of data included on the site, the administration is welcoming comments on its blog, Join the Dialogue. Additionally, Data.gov allows users to rate each dataset for ease of access, usefulness, data utility, and an overall ranking.

To read the group’s arguments and other points of contention in full, see the letter we sent here.  Feel free to give us your feedback.