NASCIO Recommends State Data Transparency Sites

NASCIO Recommends State Data Transparency Sites

NASCIO.org | 09.30.09
URL: http://www.nascio.org/newsroom/pressrelease.cfm?id=46


(LEXINGTON, KY) - The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) is pleased to announce the release of its recommendation, "A Call to Action for State Government - Guidance for Opening the Doors to State Data".

NASCIO has published this report as initial guidance and recommendations to help state governments get started with data transparency portals. This guidance presents the value proposition along with principles and guidance on how states should move forward. This report is available at:www.nascio.org/publications.

"State government has already made much of its data public. We're providing guidance on how to make this data more accessible and available through a single state data portal," said Oregon CIO Dugan Petty, Co-Chair of the NASCIO Enterprise Architecture & Governance Committee. "We're encouraging state governments to pursue the democratization of state data by creating a formal initiative that includes the creation of a single portal. In July we published a recommendation to state CIOs to adopt a common domain naming standard. This latest recommendation continues to build on our vision for the democratization of state data. These recommendations support of the Obama administration's objective for open government. That objective is enabled at the state level by creating a single place to look for state data. Citizens shouldn't be expected to know what agency is responsible for creating publicly available data."

"We're continuing the work of a special sub committee on data transparency," said Steve Fletcher, CIO for the state of Utah. Steve Fletcher is Vice President of NASCIO and also Co-Chair of the NASCIO Enterprise Architecture & Governance Committee. "The main outcome sought is to make data available to the public through a single portal. Further, this is data in its most elemental form - unabridged, unsummarized - which allows secondary use and repurposing. We're making recommendations with regard to principles and how to proceed. We're also recommending state government employ a common metadata model which is based on the federal data.gov metadata model. We'd like to see a common approach across all states and more state data sites featured on the federal data.gov site. We're looking forward to seeing what the public does with this data."

NASCIO is the premier network and resource for state CIOs and a leading advocate for technology policy at all levels of government. NASCIO represents state chief information officers and information technology executives from the states, territories, and the District of Columbia. The primary state government members are senior officials who have executive level and statewide responsibility for information technology leadership. State officials who are involved in agency level information technology management may participate as state members. Representatives from other public sector and non-profit organizations may also participate as associate members. Private sector firms may join as corporate members and participate in the Corporate Leadership Council. For more information about NASCIO visit www.nascio.org.