September 28, 2016 | 10:30 AM – 6:00 PM
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mt Vernon Pl NW, Washington, DC 20001 

Agenda of the White House Open Data Innovation Summit.

Agenda by session:

Main Stage Document Link (ALL Day)
Solutions Showcase & Storytelling Stage (All Day)
Focus Area: Health and Wellness (3:30 – 5:30 p.m.)
Focus Area: Energy, Transportation and Community Resilience (3:30 – 5:30 p.m.)
Focus Area: Economic Growth, Innovation and Opportunity (3:30 – 5:30 p.m.)

On September 28 the White House Open Data Innovation Summit will highlight the Obama Administration’s work in opening U.S. government data and to discuss the path forward to continue this progress. This event is co-hosted by White House, the U.S. Small Business Administration, the General Services Administration, and the Data Foundation and will feature cutting-edge uses of government open data to promote government efficiency and effectiveness, drive innovation, economic opportunity, and improve the health and welfare of the American public.

During this free and open Summit we will hear from people on the front lines who are championing data-driven innovations. The Summit will explore the following questions:

1. Efficiency and effectiveness: How has open data made the government more efficient and effective?
2. Health and wellness: How has open data made us live better lives?
3. Innovation, job growth and economic opportunity: How has open data spurred innovative thinking, job growth and economic opportunity?

The Open Data Innovation Summit will bring together government trailblazers, entrepreneurs, companies, advocates, and civic innovators who are using Federal open data across all sectors. Innovations in open data will be featured in keynote presentations, lightning talks, and panels on the Main Stage and an exhibition hall in the Solutions Showcase.

______________________________________________________________________

The White House Open Data Innovation Summit will be held at the Washington Convention Center, concurrent with the Data Foundation’s fourth annual open data policy conference, Data Transparency 2016. Alongside the Summit, Data Transparency 2016 will include additional tracks focusing on the benefits of open data in government finance and in regulation. Last year’s open data policy conference, Data Transparency 2015, attracted over 500 registrants and featured nearly fifty speakers. The full recap of Data Transparency 2016 is at datacoalition.org.

Data Transparency 2016 website: http://www.datafoundation.org/dt-2016

______________________________________________________________________

SBA Co-sponsorship Authorization # 16-3010-173. SBA’s participation in the cosponsored activity is not an endorsement of the views, opinions, products or services of any cosponsors or other person or entity. All SBA programs and services are extended to the public on a nondiscriminatory basis.

The post The White House Open Data Innovation Summit appeared first on Data.gov.

Data in Action: Open Data for a Secure Retirement

One company compiles data about the retirement plan market from numerous sources, including Form 5500 data, and uses this data to rate 401(k) and 403(b) plans across quantitative metrics. The company also gathers data about financial advisors from FINRA and state insurance departments.

One investment advice company uses federal data to compare the investment offerings and fees charged by different retirement and investment plans.

One service offering financial advice to employees uses data from federal sources to provide financial guidance.

The post Open Retirement and Employee Benefit Plan Data appeared first on Data.gov.

Biodiversity Resource Hub

Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation

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Data.gov invites you to share your open data stories as you explore or download specific open government datasets. Doing so will provide feedback to government agencies about which datasets are in high demand and which ones need improvement. It will also help the Data.gov team curate open data topics and special features- including coverage of open data events and hackathons.

Share your open data story here

The post Your Open Data Story appeared first on Data.gov.

The information is collected directly from each interconnected electric system on the EIA-930 survey, the first hourly data collection conducted by a federal statistical agency.  Although electric system balancing authorities covering most of the United States have released voluminous public, nearly real-time information on grid operations since the late 1990s, EIA’s U.S. Electric System Operating Data tool expands the availability of data to the entire contiguous 48 states, and makes it available in a consistent format from a single source.

Among other applications, the data can be used to provide timely information on electric system recovery after power interruptions and to help evaluate the effects of renewable energy, smart grid, and demand-response programs on power system operations.  The tool allows you to visualize and analyze:

• Total U.S. and regional electricity demand on an hourly basis
• The hourly flow of electricity between electric systems
• The wide variety in electric systems’ daily demand shapes and the seasonality of daily demand patterns
• The extent to which electric systems rely on internal and external sources of supply to meet their demand
• Potential stress on electric systems when actual demand significantly exceeds forecasted demand
• Total hourly flows of electricity with Canada and Mexico

To learn more, watch the U.S. Electric System Operating data tool promotional video, along with a set of four video tutorials.

And have fun exploring!

The post Hourly information on U.S. electricity supply, demand, and flows now available from the U.S. Energy Information Administration appeared first on Data.gov.

Click here for the data.

Mapping applications like PolicyMap are incorporating USDA’s rural housing data and overlaying them with other indicators.

The post Introducing New Rural Housing Data from USDA appeared first on Data.gov.

Source:

The post Measuring America: 30-Year-Olds [Then and Now] appeared first on Data.gov.

The 2016 Open Data Roundtables

The Open Data Roundtables are gatherings to identify
case studies, lessons learned, and best practices in open data across the Federal government.

PURPOSE

The Roundtables support the Federal goal to responsibly unleash government data for the benefit of the American public and maximize the nation’s return on its investment in data.

WHY OPEN DATA?

Open data from government is free, publicly-available data that anyone can use and republish. This important public resource has helped Americans find better value for college, fair housing, and safer medicines. In addition, it helps government agencies operate more efficiently, share information, and engage the citizens they serve.

ABOUT THE 2016 OPEN DATA ROUNDTABLES.

Federal agencies face many obstacles in making their data as accessible and usable as possible. Agencies have been working on these goals and the Roundtables will help identify scalable solutions across the government.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Center for Open Data Enterprise will co-host four Open Data Roundtables in 2016. The Roundtables are designed to achieve the following goals:

• Identify open data case studies, learned lessons, and best practices across the Federal government;
• Strengthen a community of technical, legal, and policy experts in support of open data; and
• Support continuity and accelerate the progress of open data work.

These Roundtables will bring together participants from Federal agencies, academia, the private sector, and nonprofit organizations. The Roundtables will include experts on all aspects of open data with technical, policy, and legal backgrounds to identify case studies, lessons learned, and best practices.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

You can help improve the use of open data. While attendance at the Roundtables will be limited, participation is open and accessible to everyone. Just click on the “Get Involved” button below the topic that interests you. We look forward to hearing from you!

ROUNDTABLE TOPICS

CONTACT

Contact The Center for Open Data Enterprise for more information about the 2016 Open Data Roundtables.

The post Open Data Roundtables appeared first on Data.gov.

Data USA, an online application developed by a team of data scientists at MIT Media Lab and Datawheel, backed by Deloitte is helping Americans visualize demographic and economic data using an open source platform. Where are the Jobs, another online application developed by SymSoft Solutions provides insights on employment trends and salary information by geographic data. The application won first place at the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2011 Occupational Employment Statistics Challenge. Data.gov was the subject of researchers Rashmi Krishnamurthy and Yukika Awazu in their paper, “Liberating data for public value: The case of Data.gov,” International Journal of Information Management (2016). FarmPlenty, recipient of the USDA-Microsoft Innovation Challenge Grand Prize award, uses open government data to helps farmers better analyze U.S. Department of Agriculture data on crops grown within a five mile radius of their farms.

Data.gov’s influence reaches across borders. The Data.gov Help Desk receives numerous requests from U.S. and foreign residents seeking open data insights, technical information, and advice on how to encourage their governments (national, state, local, and tribal) to introduce and improve their open data platforms.

The future of open data is promising because of the collaborative efforts of partners in the private and public sectors. This year, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Center for Open Data Enterprise launched the Open Data Roundtables to identify open data case studies, learned lessons, and best practices across the Federal government; strengthen a community of technical, legal, and policy experts in support of open data; and support continuity and accelerate the progress of open data work.

Open government data is a team effort, so we ask you to join us and help improve the next year of Data.gov!

Explore

Request

Share

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Surging Seas uses government data to project sea level rise scenarios for the coastal United States.

The post Climate Data in Action appeared first on Data.gov.

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Using the data, tools, and maps tabs, you can find more datasets related to coastal flooding risks to communities. If you are an entrepreneur or innovator looking for a problem to solve, visit the challenges.

Here you can find datasets related to coastal flooding risks to communities. In the coming months, we’ll feature datasets, services, and tools related to:

• Climate change and human health
• Vulnerability of food systems to climate change
• Vulnerability of the energy supply to climate change
• Vulnerability of ecosystems
• …and more

Your input will help make Climate.Data.gov as useful as possible—please share your feedback.

The post What Kind of Climate Data Can I Find? appeared first on Data.gov.

Check out the data catalog to browse relevant datasets. If you are looking for a streamlined list, the resources page features datasets and services on coastal vulnerability.

Looking for information to help you and your community plan for coastal flooding and sea level rise? Please review our list of tools, which will grow over time.

If you are a problem-solver or entrepreneur who wants to take on a big challenge to help communities and citizens be more aware and prepared for climate change, check out the challenges.

The post Welcome to Climate.Data.gov! appeared first on Data.gov.

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These data are also being made available via mapping services on Geoplatform.gov. The resources provided here can be used to answer a number of relevant questions, such as:

FOOD PRODUCTION

1. How will crop yield and production of other food products be affected by changes in climate?
2. What types of food and locations will be most vulnerable to changes in climate?
3. How will changes in climate affect the types of food that can be grown in a location?
4. Under what conditions (i.e., for what types of food and in what locations) will indirect effects of climate change (e.g., pests, pathogens, invasive species, and fire) overwhelm direct effects of increasing temperature and/or changes in precipitation, surface water, or ground water?

FOOD DISTRIBUTION

1. What parts of the food supply chain will be most vulnerable to climate change?
2. How will processing, storage, and transportation need to be modified to continue to supply safe food products under a changing climate?

FOOD SAFETY AND NUTRITION

1. How will climate change impact foodborne illness that includes chemical as well as microbial sources?
2. How will climate change affect the nutrient content of staple foods?
3. How will the cost of a balanced diet be impacted under a changing climate?

INTERNATIONAL FOOD SECURITY

1. What countries are most vulnerable to climate change that affects food yield, quality, and availability?
2. What segment of the population will be most vulnerable to changes in food prices?

The post Launch of Food Resilience theme of Climate.Data.Gov appeared first on Data.gov.

A new Data.gov community (Ecosystems.data.gov) has been launched to serve as an entry point for access to the U.S. Ecoinformatics-based Open Resources and Machine Accessibility (EcoINFORMA) initiative, including the EcoINFORMA data resource hubs (Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services, and Land Cover Dynamics), the EcoINFORMA map viewer for visualizing and integrating geospatial data, and access to additional biodiversity, ecosystems, ecosystem services and environmental data resources for use by researchers, decision-makers and the public. EcoINFORMA is an initiative that responds to recommendations from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) 2011 report on “Sustaining Environmental Capital: Protecting Society and the Economy”.

The post Ecosystems.data.gov and EcoINFORMA appeared first on Data.gov.

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• Help communities and natural resource managers determine if they are currently at risk from wildfires and if they will be impacted in the future due to wildfires becoming more prevalent and severe;
• Provide information to the public on their sources of water and their sensitivities to climate change;
• Aid in the public understanding of the role that ecosystems play in mitigating rising carbon dioxide levels due to their absorbing and storing of carbon, as well as how land management activities may influence storage capabilities;
• Identify the potential impacts of climate change on rare and endangered species, iconic species, and ecosystems;
• Identify which invasive species may threaten specific locations and their impacts on local communities and their economies. This effort will contribute to early detection, rapid response activities.

The post Launch of Ecosystem-Vulnerability theme of Climate.Data.Gov appeared first on Data.gov.

In a continued effort to provide key datasets that support the process of developing resilience to climate change, eight additional datasets are now available in the Water theme.

Those include:

• NOAA Next Generation Radar (NEXRAD) Products

• Severe Weather Data Inventory (SWDI)

• State of the Climate Monthly Overview – National Snow and Ice

• U.S. 15 Minute Precipitation Data

• U.S. Hourly Precipitation Data

• United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN) Processed Data

• GLDAS Noah Land Surface Model L4 3 hourly 0.25 x 0.25 degree Version 2.0 V020

• GLDAS Noah Land Surface Model L4 monthly 0.25 x 0.25 degree Version 2.0 V020

The post Water Theme Adds Eight New Datasets appeared first on Data.gov.

(April 7th 2015) The U.S. Government has released a collection of datasets to help individuals and communities plan for the impacts of climate change on the public’s health. These resources can help answer a number of relevant questions, including:

• In what ways does the changing climate affect public health where I live?
• What risk factors make individuals or communities more vulnerable to climate-related health effects?
• How can public health agencies, communities, and individuals plan for uncertain future conditions?

The post Launch of Health theme of Climate.Data.Gov appeared first on Data.gov.

In a continued effort to provide key datasets that support the process of developing resilience to climate change, five additional datasets are now available in the Ecosystem Vulnerability theme.

Those include:

• California Ocean Uses Atlas

• Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) Threatened and Endangered Species REST Services

• US Forest Service Forests To Faucets

• National Wildlife Chemical Effects Database

• Threatened and Endangered Terrestrial Animal Species Richness

The post Ecosystem Vulnerability Theme Adds Five New Datasets appeared first on Data.gov.

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U2U is composed of 50 faculty, staff and students from nine universities who specialize in applied climatology, crop modeling, agronomy, cybertechnology, agricultural economics and other social sciences. It is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The post A multi-university initiative makes global climate information more accesible to farmers appeared first on Data.gov.

These data are also being made available via mapping services on Geoplatform.gov. The resources provided here can be used to explore and develop insights for a number of relevant questions, such as:

1) How are fundamental energy resources impacted by climate?

2) How might changes in climate and natural resource availability impact energy conversion infrastructure and processes?

3) How might climate impact energy transmission and distribution systems?

4) How might energy demands be impacted by climate change, including heating and cooling but also energy losses and energy used for adaptation by other sectors?

5) What capacity do we currently have to adapt energy systems, and how might technology solutions, systems designs, and operational changes improve energy system resilience for climate change?

6) How might climate change impact energy infrastructure and its interactions with networked and interconnected infrastructure systems?

The post Launch of Energy & Infrastructure Resilience theme of Climate.Data.Gov appeared first on Data.gov.

The Innovation Challenge was formally launched on July 27^th at a conference of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association in San Francisco. Challenge participants have 3 months to create their applications, with a top prize of $25,000 going to the most creative application that best exploits USDA data sets that are now being hosted on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform.

Entrants are invited to develop and publish new applications and tools that can help users analyze multiple sources of information, including key USDA data sets. In addition, Microsoft is granting cloud computing awards to aid university researchers and students that are looking to take part in the challenge.  Challenge winners will be announced in December 2015.

Full details of the challenge can be found at >http://usdaapps.challengepost.com<.

The post Microsoft Launches “Innovation Challenge” around Food Resilience appeared first on Data.gov.

The National Academy of Sciences Building
Washington, DC

The Transportation Research Board will host a conference September 16-18, 2015 to provide transportation professionals with information about emerging best practices and research results on how to adapt surface transportation networks to the potential impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. The conference will examine efforts to mainstream consideration of climate change and extreme weather resilience in all aspects of the transportation sector, including planning and programming, capital improvements, and operations and maintenance.

The post First International Conference on Surface Transportation System Resilience to Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events appeared first on Data.gov.

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More info: www.fema.gov/mobile-app

FEMA App on the App Store

FEMA App on Google Play

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Explore Data USA: http://datausa.io

More from Data USA: http://bcove.me/80uv9you

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The post FarmPlenty: an #opendata impact appeared first on Data.gov.

Did you know that chiropractors make, on average, $164,980 in Alaska, the most of any state?

Open data provided by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau is the fuel behind where-are-the-jobs.com, an online app sharing insights on employment trends and salary information. Did you know that California employs 33,100 firefighters, the most of any state?

SymSoft Solutions, developer of where-are-the-jobs.com, has labeled the app a “graphic representation of occupation employment statistics.” Data visualization has become increasingly important for companies and governments exploring methods to communicate open data with the general public. According to Thomas Powell, CEO of ZingChart, “It is faster to recognize a result than to read a paragraph. When done well, visualizations explain complex ideas simply. Oftentimes charts tell the story much faster than a prose description or a table presentation.”

Explore Where Are The Jobs

Explore other Data.gov featured apps

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Work alongside open data enthusiasts from industry, academia, and government as federal agencies present their own green/sustainability challenges. Solutions will be judged by top agency officials and cash prizes will be awarded for the best solutions.

Participating agencies include: General Services Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other federal agencies. The government-wide Earth Day Hackathon is on Friday April 22nd from 8:30am to 4:30pm. The event will be held at the GSA Central Office Building, located at 1800 F Street, NW, Washington, DC. and is close to the Metro Orange Line at Farragut Square and the Red Line at Farragut North.

Join us, register @ http://open.gsa.gov/EarthDayHackathon/

#opendata

The post Join us @ the Earth Day Hackathon appeared first on Data.gov.

Below is an abstract of “Liberating data for public value: The case of Data.gov,” International Journal of Information Management (2016).

Abstract

Public agencies around the globe are liberating their data. Drawing on a case of Data.gov, we outline the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the liberation of public data. Data.gov is an online portal that provides open access to datasets generated by US public agencies and countries around the world in a machine-readable format. By discussing the challenges and opportunities faced by Data.gov, we provide several lessons that can inform research and practice. We suggest that providing access to open data in itself does not spur innovation. Specifically, we claim that public agencies need to spend resources to improve the capacities of their organizations to move toward ‘open data by default’; develop capacities of community to use data to solve problems; and think critically about the unintended consequences of providing access to public data. We also suggest that public agencies need better metrics to evaluate the success of open-data efforts in achieving its goals.

Rashmi Krishnamurthy, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ,USA

Yukika Awazu, The Institute for Knowledge and Innovation South-East Asia, Bangkok University, Bangkok, Thailand

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401216301098

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FarmPlenty helps farmers better analyze U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) open data on crops grown within a five mile radius of their farms. Inspired by his conversations with farmers on the challenges faced in predicting crop yields and consumer demand, founder George Lee built his application as part of the USDA-Microsoft Innovation Challenge. His Grand Prize-awarded application is supported by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) CropScape and Quickstats APIs.

Application

FlockPlenty – Chicken Egg Tracker

The post FarmPlenty appeared first on Data.gov.

Invasive species are plants, animals, or pathogens that are non-native (or alien) to an ecosystem and whose introduction causes or is likely to cause harm. Invasive species are considered the second greatest cause of biodiversity loss. Recognizing the threat that invasive species pose to native plants and animals, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning, we highlight during National Invasive Species Awareness Week (February 21-27, 2016) the importance of having access to data and information on invasive species in order to identify and control their spread. Data.gov lists a variety of information and data resources on invasive species, including the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Nonindigenous Aquatic Species (NAS) information resource, which provides alerts, occurrences and factsheets of aquatic invasive species, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service’s PLANTS Database, which provides lists of invasive plants in the U.S., and the USGS Biodiversity Information Serving our Nation (BISON), which provides occurrence records for most terrestrial and aquatic species that are considered invasive. For general information about invasive species visit the USDA National Agricultural Library’s National Invasive Species Information Center.

The post Invasive Species Data and National Invasive Species Awareness Week appeared first on Data.gov.

Open data from the U.S. Government is an important national resource, serving as fuel for innovation and scientific discovery. It is central to a more efficient, transparent, and collaborative democracy. Since President Obama’s first day in office, his commitment to ensuring all Americans reap the benefits of public open data has been unwavering. Throughout the Administration, the U.S. Government has implemented policies to open its data, including:

• Presidential Memorandum on “Transparency and Open Government”
• Open Government Directive
• Executive Order 13642 “Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information”
• OMB Memorandum M-13-13: “Open Data Policy—Managing Information as an Asset.”

2015 was a year of great advancement in open data initiatives. Progress on Project Open Data has been growing each year, and is expected to continue as the Administration continues to prioritize open data because of the value returned to society. Federal agencies continue to release and improve their open data for more citizens, non-profits, and companies. You can see how agencies are doing over time, with quarterly evaluations by agency on the Project Open Data Dashboard.

As we look towards the work to be done in 2016, we also celebrate open data milestones and successes over the past year:

• Chief Data Roles. Central to a data-driven government is committed leadership dedicated to data improvements and comprehensive information management. In 2015 the White House welcomed the first-ever U.S. Chief Data Scientist and Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy, DJ Patil. In 2015, several Federal Agencies, including the Department of Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency, and General Services Administration, followed suit, adding Chief Data Officers and Chief Data Scientists to their rosters.

• Open Data Making a Difference. Open data was a key ingredient to addressing pressing policy issues in 2015, including: helping students and families better evaluate college choices with a new College Scorecard; making it easier for communities to implement the Fair Housing Act with the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Assessment Tool; and enhancing trust between communities and law enforcement with the White House Police Data Initiative.

• Open Data Updates and Improvements. 2015 also saw many expansions on pivotal open governmental datasets, such as: new U.S. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative federal production and federal revenue by company data; new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Consumer Complaint Database tools (API); and various OpenFDA updates, including direct downloads that enable citizens to use data on food, drug, and medical device safety. The Federal Government also provided new platforms for exploring government data, including: Open.nasa.gov, USPTO’s PatentsView, and Landsat on AWS.

President Obama with Chief Technology Officer team members Ryan Panchadsaram and Corinna Zarek, and U.S. Chief Information Officer Tony Scott viewing Analytics.usa.gov

• Website Dashboards. Last year two new dashboards were also created to better evaluate the health of our Federal government websites: Analytics.usa.gov tracks how people are interacting with the government online and Pulse.cio.gov helps the government and public observe progress on HTTPS and Web Analytics.

• Public Engagement around Open Data. Federal agencies featured open data efforts at dozens of hackathons, data jams, and conferences including the 2015 Health Datapalooza,Transportation Datapalooza, Third Annual Safety Datapalooza, Mental Health Hackathons, an Accessibility Hackathon, a White House Mapathon, and eight Open Data Roundtables.

One common denominator of these successes is that open data is a collaborative process, involving Federal government, state and local governments, academia, private sectors, and civil society. It takes a village to transform open data into actionable knowledge and societal value. Like data science, open data is a team sport, united by the shared purpose to responsibly unleash the power of data for the benefit of the American public and maximize the nation’s return on its investment in data. Together in 2016 and beyond, “Team Open Data” will continue transforming open data into knowledge, into action.

(Graphic credit: Radhika Bhatt, U.S. Department of Commerce Data Service)

Open data remains a priority in 2016, offering both government and citizens information to make better decisions and a way for Americans to interact with their government. For upcoming events related to open data, please check out the Data.gov/events calendar.

The post Open Data: Empowering Americans to Make Data-Driven Decisions appeared first on Data.gov.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), for instance, is an example of a Federal agency leading the charge on using open data to create real-world value. In just the past year, for instance, DOC established the Commerce Data Advisory Council, a group of up to 20 expert members helping to optimize the beneficial use of the full range of data that the DOC distributes, and the Commerce Data Service, a within-government start-up team forming partnerships with the twelve bureaus that make up the DOC to deliver products and services to help government agencies.

And in 2016, the DOC is committed to building on this momentum with new and expanded efforts to transform open data into knowledge into action.

Graphic Credit: Radhika Bhatt, Commerce Data Service

DOC has been in the business of open data for a long time. DOC’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) alone collects and disseminates huge amounts of data that fuel the global weather economy—and this information represents just a fraction of the tens of thousands of datasets that DOC collects and manages, on topics ranging from satellite imagery to material standards to demographic surveys.

Unfortunately, far too many DOC datasets are either hard to find, difficult to use, and/or not yet publicly available on Data.gov, the home of U.S. government’s open data. This challenge is not exclusive to DOC; and indeed, under Project Open Data, Federal agencies are working hard on various efforts to make tax-payer funded data more easily discoverable.

One of these efforts is DOC’s Commerce Data Usability Project (CDUP). To unlock the power of data, just making data open isn’t enough. It’s critical to make data easier to find and use—to provide information and tools that make data accessible and actionable for all users. That’s why DOC formed a public-private partnership to create CDUP, a collection of online data tutorials that provide students, developers, and entrepreneurs with the necessary context and code for them to start quickly extracting value from various datasets. Tutorials exist on topics such as:

• NOAA’s Severe Weather Data Inventory (SWDI), demonstrating how to use hail data to save life and property. The tutorial helps users see that hail events often occur in the summer (late night to early morning), and in midwestern and southern states.
• Security vulnerability data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The tutorial helps users see that spikes and dips in security incidents consistently occur in the same set of weeks each year.
• Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The tutorial helps users understand how to use satellite imagery to estimate populations.
• American Community Survey (ACS) data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The tutorial helps users understand how nonprofits can identify communities that they want to serve based on demographic traits.

In the coming months, CDUP will continue to expand with a rich, diverse set of additional tutorials. DOC also welcomes additional data tutorials from contributors who want to demonstrate how to take advantage of the powerful applications of data managed by DOC.

You can help make CDUP better by:

1. Joining in! Read the Usability Project Guidelines and submit your CDUP tutorial idea.
2. Clicking here to provide feedback on the CDUP website.
3. Telling us how you are using these tutorials and what improvements we could make.

Thank you for your contributions!

Jeffrey Chen is Chief Data Scientist at the Department of Commerce.

Tyrone Grandison is Deputy Chief Data Officer at the Department of Commerce.

Kristen Honey is a Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The post Moving from Open Data to Open Knowledge: Announcing the Commerce Data Usability Project appeared first on Data.gov.

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These datasets include:

• NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of Sea Surface Temperature -WHOI, Version 1.0
• U.S. Monthly Extremes
• Global Historical Climatology Network – Monthly (GHCN-M) Version 3
• African Easterly Wave Climatology Version 1
• NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of Daily Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR), Version 1.2
• NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of Monthly Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR), Version 2.2-1
• Global Surface Summary of the Day – GSOD
• Monthly Summaries of the Global Historical Climatology Network – Daily (GHCN-D)
• International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) Global Land Surface Temperature Databank – Stage 1 Monthly
• International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) Global Land Surface Temperature Databank – Stage 2 Monthly
• International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) Global Land Surface Temperature Databank – Stage 3 Monthly
• International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) Global Land Surface Temperature Databank – Stage 1 Daily
• International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) Global Land Surface Temperature Databank – Stage 2 Daily

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Those include:

• USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
• Germplasm Resources Information Network
• Farm Program Atlas
• Climate Prediction Center (CPC) U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook (SDO)
• 2012 Census of Agriculture
• World Agricultural Production
• National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS)

The post Food Resilience Theme Adds Seven Datasets appeared first on Data.gov.

• How are human and natural components of the hydrologic cycle changing?
• How can communities and water managers plan for uncertain future conditions?
• How will changing water resources affect food, energy, ecosystems, and human health?

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Those include:

• Global Lake Temperature Collaboration
• Forced Evaporation from Water Surface
• Groundwater depletion in the United States (1900−2008)
• California drought, visualized with open data
• Federal Support Toolbox

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These datasets include:

• Quality Controlled Local Climatological Data (QCLCD) Publication
• U.S. Hourly Climate Normals (1981-2010)
• U.S. Daily Climate Normals (1981-2010)
• U.S. Monthly Climate Normals (1981-2010)
• U.S. Annual/Seasonal Climate Normals (1981-2010)
• NCDC Storm Events Database
• Annual Climatological Summaries
• NOAA’s Climate Divisional Database
• U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) Hourly Products
• U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) Daily Products
• U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) Monthly Products

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These datasets include:

• NOAA Optimum Interpolation 1/4 Degree Daily Sea Surface Temperature (OISST) Analysis, Version 2
• AVHRR Pathfinder Version 5.2 Level 3 Collated (L3C) Global 4km Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Climate Data
  Record (CDR) for 1981-2010
• NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of Gridded Satellite Data from ISCCP B1 (GridSat-B1) 11 micron Brightness Temperature, Version 2
• NCDC Storm Events Database
• Coastal Economic Trends for Coastal Geographies
• Demographic Trends (1970-2010) for Coastal Geographies
• FEMA HAZUS Critical Facilities for Coastal Geographies
• Time-Series Data for Self-Employed Economic Activity Dependent on the Ocean and Great Lakes Economy for Counties, States, and the Nation between 2005 and 2012
• Time-Series Data on the Ocean and Great Lakes Economy for Counties, States, and the Nation between 2005 and 2012 (Sector and Industry Level)
• Time-Series Data on the Ocean and Great Lakes Economy for Counties, States, and the Nation between 2005 and 2012 (Sector Level)
• Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) for the U.S. Coastal States based on the 2010 Census Tracts

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From 10:50 – 11:30 AM ET, the Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative will be featured during a panel moderated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Panelists from the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Geological Survey, and the Data.gov team will discuss recent technology and innovation milestones, #opendata efforts, and opportunities for public engagement.

This year’s Safety Datapalooza will provide an overview of ongoing programs as well as new commitments. Senior government representatives will join innovators from private, nonprofit, and academic organizations, sharing examples of projects that have used freely available government data to build products, services, and apps that advance public safety in creative and powerful ways.

The event will include new safety data resources in the areas of transportation, food, occupational, and consumer product safety, as well as tools to improve disaster preparedness and emergency response.

Follow @SafetyDataGov on Twitter and #SafetyData #DisasterTech for the latest information about the event and ongoing efforts.

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Under the third National Action Plan, the United States is committed to more than 40 new or enhanced open government initiatives. Open data is a core component of open government, and Data.gov is excited to be part of the U.S. National Action Plan commitment for the third time.

For the third NAP, Data.gov will focus on continuing efforts to improve the use of public feedback on what federal data needs to be released or made more accessible, as part of its work with agencies to implement the federal Open Data Policy. On a daily basis, Data.gov receives user feedback from Americans who rely on federal open data to advance their interests in commerce, health care, education, safety, and much more. Under the third NAP, Data.gov will work with the Office of Management and Budget to establish user-friendly feedback mechanisms to connect data users directly to agencies, in order to ensure that agencies receive and act promptly on public requests and suggestions. In addition, Data.gov will support NAP commitments on developing national open data guidelines and making municipal data more accessible to citizens as part of the Municipal Data Network. We look forward to continuing our role in expanding access to government data and delivering on an international commitment for open government on behalf of the United States.

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Each year, our nation faces diverse threats and hazards reinforcing the need to strengthen national preparedness and resilience. On August 31st, 2015, President Obama issued a proclamation declaring September as National Preparedness Month with the theme: “Don’t Wait. Communicate. Make Your Emergency Plan Today.” National Preparedness Month serves as a reminder to prepare, now and throughout the year, for a wide range of emergencies.

Over 20 million registered participants will take part in the 2015 America’s PrepareAthon! This isn’t just about making a plan for your home; encouraging your workplace to be more prepared for a disaster can have a significant impact. Studies show that when employers urge their staff to prepare for disasters, employees are 75 percent more likely to take preparedness actions. The workplace can be one of the most effective environments for educating and encouraging people to take steps to be ready for disasters. There are plenty of resources available at ready.gov/prepare.

Here are 10 simple things you can do right now to become more prepared and resilient:

1. Sign up for local alerts and warnings, download apps, and/or check access for wireless emergency alerts;
2. Create and test emergency communications plans;
3. Assemble or update emergency supplies;
4. Conduct a drill to practice emergency response actions for local hazards;
5. Participate in a preparedness training or class;
6. Collect and safeguard critical documents;
7. Document property and obtain appropriate insurance for relevant hazards;
8. Make property improvements to reduce potential injury and property damage;
9. Conduct an exercise or test your emergency plan; and,
10. Plan with neighbors to help each other and share resources.

If you’d like to learn more about how to take any of these actions, download the free guide from FEMA.

Also, take a look at the Public Service Announcement prepared by the Ready Campaign and Ad Council. It provides helpful tips about how preparedness actions now can keep us and those we care for safe during an emergency.

Finally, you can participate in National PrepareAthon! Day on September 30 by visiting ready.gov/prepare to register your activities.

Lisa Monaco is the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

(originally posted at whitehouse.gov)

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(originally posted at whitehouse.gov)

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(Mar 21, 2015) Today I was honored to represent NASA at the Climate Data Initiative launch at the White House. Along with NOAA, Google, and many partners from other government agencies and the private sector, we opened the climate.data.gov gateway with more than 100 curated, high-quality datasets, web services, and tools that can be used by local officials, emergency management personnel and innovators to help communities prepare for the effects of our changing climate change.

For decades, NASA has shown great leadership in assembling a one-stop-shop of space-based Earth science and climate change data. across all disciplines of Earth Systems Science. Given our experience with this type of large-scale data integration, we welcomed the challenge to take on a leadership role in the first phase of the Climate Data Initiative, which integrates government-wide federal datasets across all disciplines that may have an impact on coastal flooding, and to make these datasets easily available.

At NASA, we are working proactively to protect our own national assets along the coasts from the potential impacts of climate change. From Wallops Island, Virginia, to the Space Coast of Florida, we are bringing together our Earth science researchers and our strategic infrastructure managers to provide climate-related decision support in the face of sea level rise and other serious coastal changes. The launch of climate.data.gov opens the door for citizen scientists to get involved in this type of work, in support of coastal communities around the nation.

NASA has a long history of engaging generations of global citizens to use publicly available data to design creative solutions to improve life on Earth, and enable humans to live and work in space. At the Climate Data Initiative launch event, I was delighted to announce that today, NASA and NOAA are together launching a new opportunity for citizens to work with us on this very important topic of coastal flooding.

This coastal flooding challenge is part of NASA’s third International Space Apps Challenge – a two-day global mass collaboration event on April 12-13, 2014. During these two days, citizens around the world are invited to engage directly with NASA to develop awe-inspiring software, hardware, and data visualizations. Last year’s event involved more than 9,000 global participants in 83 locations. This year will introduce more than 60 robust challenges clustered in five themes: asteroids, Earth watch, human spaceflight, robotics, and space technology.

The Coastal Inundation In Your Community challenge is one of four climate-related challenges using data provided by NASA, NOAA and EPA. It invites citizens, students, and all others to create data visualizations and simulations to help people understand their exposure to coastal-inundation hazards. Solutions developed through this challenge could have many potential impacts, including helping coastal businesses determine if they are currently at risk from coastal inundation, and if they will be impacted in the future due to sea level rise and coastal erosion.

I encourage you to roll up your sleeves and get involved in this challenging and energizing event by visiting spaceappschallenge.org.

The Coastal Inundation in Your Community challenge and today’s rollout of coastal flooding data sets are just the beginning. I look forward to the rollout of additional data sets in climate.data.gov, and the opportunity to continue working with this esteemed community of my colleagues at every level of government, our public and private-sector partners and the world’s citizen scientists. And I’m even more also excited about NASA’s upcoming year of major Earth science milestones, including the launch of five missions to study the most important planet in our solar system — ours.

At NASA, we are known for exploring new worlds with rovers on Mars, scientific experiments on the International Space Station, and a vast array of missions exploring our Sun, our neighboring planets and the distant universe. Of all the planets we have explored, none yet have matched the dynamic complexity of our own Earth.

We have a long history of exploring our home planet. For decades we have designed, built, and launched Earth-observing missions to return valuable information about this complex planet we call home. In 2014, we are building on this legacy with five new Earth-observing missions – more than NASA has conducted in a single year in over a decade. These missions will provide global measurements of precipitation, soil moisture, atmospheric carbon dioxide, winds, clouds and aerosols. Your planet is changing. We’re on it.

The author is NASA’s Chief Scientist.

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City of Ammon, school emergency screencast application, First Prize, $75,000

The school emergency screencast application works with a school’s existing camera systems, UHS bandwidth and gunshot detection hardware to report gunshot fire and provide live video feed to first responders in real time. This allows for a more rapid, effective, and coordinated response.

City of Torrance, UHS mapping application, Second Prize, $50,000

The UHS Mapping application empowers individual businesses, schools and other building owners to share their location and other data, such as maps, floor plans, parking structures, or dangerous chemicals lists, with first responders. This information can be made available to first responders in real time via mobile device, providing critical information during emergency situations.

Forensic Logic, Inc., LEAP Network video application, Third Prize, $25,000

The LEAP network connects public CCTV with crime records and open-source GIS platforms. This allows law enforcement to search video feeds from a range of video management software live on-site, or after a crime is reported.

Learn more about the winning UHS apps. http://go.usa.gov/3ftew

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Earlier this summer, the U.S. Census Bureau announced the “City SDK Open Data Solutions Challenge.” This challenge is now in the homestretch with submissions accepted through the end of July, encouraging developers to use the Census Bureau’s new City Software Development Kit (SDK). Challenge finalists will have the opportunity to demo their apps to the U.S. Department of Commerce Chief Data Officer, Ian Kalin.

Since the CitySDK’s initial launch during the National Day of Civic Hacking on June 6^th, momentum has been building with new and compelling uses of open data rolling in on a weekly basis.  Teams in cities across the country used the CitySDK to deliver software that produces social good in their respective communities.

For example, at the Chicago location of the National Day of Civic Hacking, teams were hosted by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and focused on sustainability issues.  Participants were able to demo their apps to U.S. Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil, followed by a pitch session in the afternoon to a panel of judges.  The top two finishers in Chicago are highlighted below.

1^st Place

Purshable is a social good start-up that wants to revolutionize how grocery stores connect with consumers.  They used the CitySDK and Census geocoding features to help match stores with consumers to get access to perishable goods at discounted prices.

2^nd Place

The University of Chicago’s Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) Fellows program brings data scientists together for a summer design sprint, aimed at solving some of the hairiest technical problems using data-driven methodologies.  The DSSG team used the CitySDK to help community organizers  find available business space to inspire tech skills training.  This app prototype included publicly available data sources from the U.S. Census as well as Google and Meetup.com.

One of the key capabilities that the CitySDK offers software developers is the ability to prototype web applications in a matter of hours instead of days.  Coders can leverage  open data assets from federal and local sources to create applications for social good and also to explore new business opportunities.

The current set of CitySDK integrations include participation from Census, HUD, USDA, Department of Energy, Socrata, ESRI, Leaflet JS, Microsoft and others, and is completely open for any organization to scrub into the project and help make data easier to use.     Finally, be sure to explore the local data sets available on your city’s open data portal as well as Data.gov.  If your city is not already listed on Data.gov, be sure to reach out to your city’s open data contacts and request it be added.

How to Get Involved

Teams across the nation are invited to participate in the “City SDK Open Data Solutions Challenge.” To get started, visit Github and walk through a series of interactive examples that use the CitySDK, or attend an upcoming City SDK webinar.   Finalists of the CitySDK Open Data Solutions Challenge will have the chance to demo their app to Department of Commerce Chief Data Officer Ian Kalin.

The post Get Local Data. Build Apps. Win the National Challenge. appeared first on Data.gov.

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Since the United States joined the Open Government Partnership in 2011, U.S. agencies have been working alongside civil society to develop and implement commitments to increase transparency, improve participation, and curb corruption. From making it easier to track how taxpayer dollars are spent by opening Federal spending data, to offering the We the People online petition where the public can propose U.S. policy changes, to strengthening efforts to deny safe haven in the U.S. to corrupt individuals, our efforts to advance open government are making an impact.

Consistent with the commitment to the Open Government Partnership, later this year the United States plans to publish a third Open Government National Action Plan (NAP) that will include new and expanded open government initiatives to pursue in the next two years. The first U.S. NAP was published in 2011, and in 2013, the second NAP was published and is still being implemented through the end of 2015.

These plans are a true team effort as governments from all 65 OGP countries work alongside civil society to develop and implement the efforts within the plans. Over the next several months, we encourage you to contribute your ideas and work with us to build an ambitious third National Action Plan!

How can you contribute?

Please share any NAP suggestions with us via email at opengov@ostp.gov or tweet us @OpenGov. You can also contribute ideas to a publicly available Hackpad (an open, collaborative platform) that the General Services Administration is helping to coordinate. (You will need to create an account on the Hackpad site before you are able to view or contribute content.)

You may wish to suggest expanded commitments on topic areas from the first two plans such as public participation, open data, records management, natural resource revenue transparency, the Freedom of Information Act, open innovation, or open educational resources, among others. You may also wish to suggest entirely new initiatives — and we hope you do!

The OGP provides guidance on creating NAPs and outlines that commitments should be:

• Ambitious: pushing government beyond current practice by strengthening transparency, accountability, and public participation;
• Relevant: advancing one of the four open government principles of (1) transparency, (2) accountability, (3) participation, and/or (4) technology and innovation;
• Specific: describing the problem to be solved and expected outcomes; and
• Measurable: allowing independent observers to gauge whether the commitment has been completed.

As you suggest possible initiatives for the next NAP to help ensure the United States pursues bold, ambitious efforts, please tell us how those suggestions would achieve these criteria.

We look forward to working together as we update our roadmap for open government in the United States. Join us!

Corinna Zarek is the Senior Advisor for Open Government to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer in the Office of Science and Technology Policy

The post Help Us Strengthen Open Government appeared first on Data.gov.

In the spirit of the National Day of Civic Hacking, over 30 federal agencies have also released new datasets and challenges to hack. Each agency has a mission that impacts citizens and the lives of millions. These challenges allow for federal agencies to connect with U.S. citizens, gaining insight and contributions from all participants. Below, we have listed a few:

• Innovative Access to Scientific Reference Data: Improve access to NIST Standard Reference Data (SRD) by developing mobile apps that allows scientists and students to find and download data quickly.
• International Travel Guide: Develop a guide that integrates the State Department’s travel advisory API to display safe travel tips.
• Open Data City Sustainability Solutions: Create an application leveraging the U.S. Census Bureau’s City SDK that addresses an integrated sustainability problem in your city.
• WorldWise Schools Redesign: Create a tool to connect Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) serving abroad, and Returned PCVs with interested Educators and classrooms back in the US.  View all Hack for Change challenges.

Civic hacking is the act of engaging citizens to use open government data, code and technology to discover one or many solutions to community issues. Civic hackers can be programmers, designers, data scientists, communicators, civic organizers, entrepreneurs, government employees or anyone who wants to collaborate in order to solve problems that affect the community. The more diverse group of minds and backgrounds, the more ways a civic problem can be observed and resolved. You don’t need to know how to code to attend an event and get involved.

Extraordinary ideas have spurred from these events that one may have never expected from just an initial look at the data at hand. There are now mobile applications that assist with finding a home, riding a bus or navigating traffic using such data. There is no limit to the innovation that can be ignited, so join in the effort on Saturday!

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• USGS report: “Data Categories for Marine Planning” http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/ofr20151046
• USGS Information for Marine Planners and Resource Managers http://marine.usgs.gov/marineresourceinfo/

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To make FEMA data easier to understand, a small project team and I have been working on an innovative data visualization tool designed to help you better understand how we support communities and help visualize it in a way that tells a story.

Our project team is really excited about bringing the visualization from concept to reality, and we’d love to know what you think. Interact with it, learn more about your community, and let us know what you think. (The email address is on the visualization page.)

Transparency, participation, and collaboration form the cornerstone of an open government. That’s why we’ve worked hard to make our data free and open to everyone through OpenFEMA, our open government initiative.

To learn more, watch a short video about the visualization.

For developers and other techie folks, check out our Developer’s Resource page for info on our API’s and more.

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Many of the Task Force’s recommendations emphasize the opportunity for departments to better use data and technology to build community trust. As a response, the White House has launched the Police Data Initiative, which has mobilized 21 leading jurisdictions across the country to take fast action on concrete deliverables responding to these Task Force recommendations in the area of data and technology. Camden is one such jurisdiction.

By finding innovative work already underway in these diverse communities and bringing their leaders together with top technologists, researchers, data scientists and design experts, the Police Data Initiative is helping accelerate progress around data transparency and analysis, toward the goal of increased trust and impact. Through the Initiative, key stakeholders are establishing a community of practice that will allow for knowledge sharing, community-sourced problem solving, and the establishment of documented best practices that can serve as examples for police departments nationwide.

Like many police departments, Camden wants to use smarter, more data-driven ways of improving community policing efforts and reducing uses of force. However, challenges with technology systems often get in the way. For instance, the Camden County PD cobbles together 41 systems that have individual value but are not designed to work together, requiring their beat officers to enter the same data multiple times. In this environment, meaningful data analysis ends up being extremely difficult to conduct, requiring analysts to spend more time on extracting the data than on critical analysis.

The President’s Police Data Initiative has assembled a volunteer team of technology experts who are also in Camden today. The team will spend two days in Camden on a design sprint, engaging directly with front line officers, detectives, crime analysts and department leadership to help envision what a truly effective technology system could look like. The two-day deployment will help the team consider best practices and address specific technology questions as they arise, enabling departments like Camden to find the solutions that most fit their needs.

By upgrading its technology practices, the Camden County PD will have more efficient data supply chains, and will be better positioned to use that data to improve its internal operations and to identify and solve policing problems in a more timely manner. The lessons learned in Camden can help law enforcement around the country both by example and also directly since some of the development work can be shared though open source best practice.

Camden is just one of 21 communities currently participating in our Police Data Initiative. Through this effort, local police departments and other participants are responding first to Task Force recommendations within two streams of work:

• Using open data to increase transparency, build community trust, and support innovation
• Better using technology, such as early warning systems, to identify problems, increase internal accountability, and decrease inappropriate uses of force

The effort has focused on specific actions law enforcement agencies can take to make progress in these two areas. The collaboration has generated multiple commitments to action and the White House is working with agencies and key enabling partners now to drive quick implementation.

Police departments participating in the White House Police Data Initiative:

Graphic created by Presidential Innovation Fellow Christopher Wong

Commitment highlights include:

1. Use open data to build transparency and increase community trust.

• All 21 police departments have committed to release a combined total of 101 data sets that have not been released to the public. The types of data include uses of force, police pedestrian and vehicle stops, officer involved shootings and more, helping the communities gain visibility into key information on police/citizen encounters.
  • Code for America and others are helping on this. For information on how Police Departments can jumpstart their open police data efforts, click here.
• To make police open data easy to find and use, the Police Foundation and ESRI are building a public safety open data portal to serve, in part, as a central clearinghouse option for police open data, making it easily accessible to law enforcement agencies, community groups and researchers.
• Code for America and CI Technologies will work together to build an open source software tool to make it easier for the 500+ U.S. law enforcement agencies using IA Pro police integrity software to extract and open up data.
• To make it easier for agencies to share data with the public about policing, Socrata will provide technical assistance to cities and agencies who are working toward increased transparency.
• To help this newly released data come alive for communities through mapping, visualizations and other tools, city leaders, non-profit organizations, and private sector partners will host open data hackathons in cities around the country. In New Orleans, Operation Spark, a non-profit organization that teaches at-risk New Orleans youth software development skills, will work with data opened by the New Orleans Police Department at a weeklong code academy.
• Presidential Innovation Fellows working with the U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Scientist will work collaboratively with key stakeholders, such as Code for America and the Sunlight Foundation, to develop and release an Open Data Playbook for police departments that they can use as a reference for open data best practices and case studies.
• The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is working with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice to use open data to provide a full picture of key policing activities, including stops, searches and use-of-force trends, information and demographics on neighborhoods patrolled, and more. This partnership will build on a website and tools already developed by the Southern Coalition for Justice which provide visualization and search functions to make this data easily accessible and understandable.
• The International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Police Foundation, and Code for America have committed to helping grow a community of practice for law enforcement agencies and technologists around open data and transparency in police community interactions.

2. Internal accountability and effective data analysis.

• While many police departments have systems in place, often called “early warning systems,” to identify officers who may be having challenges in their interactions with the public and link them with training and other assistance, there has been little to no research to determine which indicators are most closely linked to bad outcomes. To tackle this issue, twelve police departments committed to sharing data on police/citizen encounters with data scientists for in-depth data analysis, strengthening the ability of police to intervene early and effectively: Austin, TX; Camden, NJ; Charlotte, NC; Dallas, TX; Indianapolis, IN; Knoxville, TN; LA City; LA County; Louisville, KY; New Orleans, LA; Philadelphia, PA; and Richmond, CA.
• The University of Chicago will provide a team of five data science fellows from the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Data Science for Social Good program to work with 3-4 police departments over a 14 week engagement, starting in late May, to begin to prototype data analysis tools that will help police departments identify the behaviors most indicative of later problems.
• The Oakland Police Department, which has deployed body worn cameras for over four years, has partnered with a team of researchers at Stanford University to build automated tools to comb through the audio to surface police/citizen encounters that either went particularly poorly or went particularly well. This will allow the Oakland PD to quickly identify problems and also to lift up real world examples of the great police work that happens every day. The Stanford team is also researching ways that body worn camera data can be used to track and inform the effectiveness of training in the field, using the camera data to see whether the classroom experience translated effectively to encounters on the street.
• The Department of Justice and the Police Data Initiative stakeholders will work with universities and other research partners to identify opportunities to coordinate body worn camera research to help avoid unintended overlap, maximize the coverage of research topics and increase cross-learning. Additionally, the Police Data Initiative will work with cutting-edge leaders in advanced video analysis to identify opportunities to help police departments maximize the value of the thousands of hours of video body worn cameras will produce.

We are excited about the Police Data Initiative as a fast, tangible, collaborative response to recommendations of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing and we are glad that so many cities have stepped forward to work towards better use of data and technology in ways that will build community trust and impact.

Megan Smith is the United States Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Roy L. Austin, Jr. is Deputy Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs, Justice and Opportunity in the Domestic Policy Council.

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Lots of communities have existing frameworks for civic hacking events: events that provide opportunities for anyone who’s interested to collaborate to create services, apps, and websites that address social and civic issues that run the gamut from the environment to public accessibility to transit and housing. The National Day of Civic Hacking is a chance to connect and lift up these efforts to acknowledge the incredible impact that community collaboration, engagement, and volunteerism can have in our towns and cities.

Participants gather at a civic hacking event in Asheville, NC last year. (Photo credit: Nick Skytland/NASA).

I have to admit: this is one of those events that I just love. It brings together thousands of technologists, entrepreneurs, developers, designers, makers, organizers, scientists, and other citizens to improve their communities and the governments that represent them.

Last year’s National Day of Civic Hacking produced an array of amazing projects using open government data, including an app to alert Boston commuters about transit delays and an app to share information about adoptable pets in Palo Alto. This year’s National Day of Civic Hacking is focused on making government work more effectively for everyone using Code for America’s Principles for 21st Century Government. There are six core themes:

• Climate. Bringing together extensive open data and design to develop data-driven planning and resilience tools for local communities.
• Disaster response. Leveraging government data and digital networks in support of disaster response and relief.
• Economic Development. Redesigning how workers, entrepreneurs, and businesses interacting with local government can foster the kind of growth that a whole community can participate in.
• Health. Building technology that puts the user first to make it easier and more affordable to feed, shelter, and treat those in need.
• Oceans. Providing real-time information to work smarter and more safely as we commit to address the challenges facing our oceans.
• Safety and Justice. Getting the right information to the right person at the right time in the right way to make our communities safer and more just.

The National Day of Civic Hacking is organized by Code for America with coordination from NASA and SecondMuse, as well as additional support from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and other Federal, state, and local agencies.

I encourage you to pencil in June 6 as the day that you’re going to roll up your sleeves and get involved to move us from data and ideas to action, developing technology that will make the world a better place. Make sure to tell your friends, colleagues, and neighbors. I can’t wait to see the impact that we will have together!

-dj

P.S. And don’t forget to share your thoughts, stories, and ideas at #HackForChange!

DJ Patil is Chief Data Scientist and Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

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In February 2015, Data.gov was recognized for its technological innovations by placing in the top eight of more than 100 submissions at the ACT-IAC Innovation Awards. Data.gov was honored for its innovative transformation in the last year from a central metadata catalog (to which agencies submitted datasets one-by-one) to a data harvesting hub (where agency datasets are now automatically gathered on a daily basis). This provides a more structured and efficient way to share and discover federal open data and ensures that users can count on Data.gov as an up-to-date source for such data.

Data.gov uses open source technology to power the website (WordPress) and the data catalog is developed using CKAN (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network). Using open source technology allows developers from around the globe to give input, and for others to re-use the code. This technology also results in greater integration with state, city, and county catalogs. Data.gov currently syndicates 37 local government data catalogs and more are added every month.

Data.gov is bringing transparency to the Federal Government’s open data efforts. Through the Project Open Data dashboard, anyone can see the performance of federal agencies in meeting the Open Data Policy requirements. The public can also weigh in on issues, and see how agencies are responding to recommendations, creating greater accountability as well.

Data.gov has launched several new features this year. To improve public engagement on open data, Data.gov launched its open, API-driven, customer service platform, the Data.gov Help Desk, which allows for the public to submit issues, improvements, and requests for government data. The status of all data issues can be publicly tracked.

Another new feature is the integration of data visualization tools, giving Data.gov users the option to open datasets using third party tools like plot.ly and CartoDB.

In the year ahead, Data.gov will continue to work with agency partners to take open data to another level. We will expand the scope of the catalog and improve the quality of metadata. We will develop and launch additional tools to enable agencies to release even more of their data, so that government data can continue to inform citizens and improve their daily lives.

From the example set by the U.S. and Data.gov in 2009, there are now over 75 national open data sites. Data.gov will continue to set the lead unleashing the power of open data around the world.

1 – A note on metrics: There are many nuances associated with the number of datasets on Data.gov since it syndicates many types of data from many different sources. Some datasets are grouped into collections and each dataset can include multiple resources. In total, there are currently over 4 million resources (such as individual download links) cataloged on Data.gov.  Since the first milestone of the Federal open data policy, there have been over 50,000 Federal datasets updated on the site using the metadata management process established by the policy, but many local governments have used the same metadata standard to syndicate to Data.gov as well. In total there are currently over 98,000 Federal datasets currently on Data.gov and over 30,000 from local government sources including over 10,000 using the same metadata standard as the Federal government.

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According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics latest School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey, in 2013, the reported prevalence of bullying among students ages 12 to 18 dropped to 22 percent after remaining stubbornly around 28 percent since 2005.

“The report brings welcome news,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell said.  “Parents, teachers, health providers, community members and young people are clearly making a difference by taking action and sending the message that bullying is not acceptable. We will continue to do our part at HHS to help ensure every child has the opportunity to live, learn and grow in a community free of bullying.”

Bullying can occur anywhere and to any student. There are three types of bullying: physical, relational (or social) and verbal. Research shows that students who are bullied are more likely to struggle in school and skip class. They are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, be depressed, and are at higher risk of suicide.

Since 2010, the Department of Education along with the Departments of Health and Human Services and Justice, have acted to combat bullying and cyberbullying through work such as StopBullying.gov. However, it is the work of educators, bus drivers, parents, and students, that have taken a stand to put an end to bullying. Your hard work and dedication is making a difference!

To learn about bullying and how to take action to end bullying, please visit StopBullying.gov and join the conversation on the StopBullying.gov Facebook page!

This post originally appeared on Homeroom Blog.

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Whether it is using quick warm-ups like Game of Phones or highly immersive experiences with Mario Kart and Minecraft, digital games can be powerful motivators for learning. It is with this in mind that we are eager to expand the conversation between teachers and game developers.

The U.S. Department of Education and Games for Change, with support from the Entertainment Software Association, will host the Games for Learning Summit April 21 at the 2015 Games for Change (G4C) Festival. With more than 250 participants, including nationally recognized educators, the designers of some of today’s most popular video games, and members of the U.S. Department of Education, we are hopeful that this event will encourage collaboration focused on the learning needs and interests of young people in the U.S.

Collaborating and designing with the learning interests of young people in mind requires a shift in thinking from all stakeholders. Based on the conversations we’ve had with teachers and students, there is a hunger for better games that support better learning today. With the recent release of The Ed Tech Developer’s Guide, the pathways for developing for impact are clearer than ever.

At the beginning of the school year, the two of us (along with a handful of amazing teachers) spent a weekend enmeshed with teams of game designers at the White House Education Game Jam. Focused on games that could provide powerful learning resources for schools, we have continued to be optimistic about the results that such collaboration can yield.

The project helped students develop media literacy, soft skills like collaboration, and technical skills like managing an online repository of A/V assets, to say nothing of the logic, math, reading, and writing skills they demonstrated in navigating tutorials, communicating online, and building their games. Students even discussed gender norms in character design and traditional gaming narratives. Game-based learning isn’t about consuming a product to pick up a fact or two; it’s about learning to analyze or produce pieces of interactive media that require critical thinking, persistence, and problem-solving to master, critique, play, and make.

Now, with several White House Education Game Jam alumni and friends coming to the Games for Learning Summit, we are excited about focusing on articulating the thinking, dialogue, and spaces for collaboration between developers and educators.

We’re looking forward to continuing conversation far beyond the Games and Learning Summit. We need to work together to answer questions like: How can we help one another make and use games to fulfill educational needs in the classroom? How can we put the best interactive content in the hands of students for the most meaningful educational experiences — those focused on discovery and decision-making? Let’s figure out game-changing ways to harness the power of play for the work of learning in schools.

Join the conversation on Tuesday by watching the live stream and Tweeting your contributions with #G4L15.

Antero Garcia (@anterobot) is a Teaching Ambassador Fellow at the U.S. Department of Education and teaches pre-service teachers as an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University.

Chad Sansing (@chadsansing) teaches technology and project-based learning at the BETA Academy in Staunton, Virginia.

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That’s the idea behind America’s PrepareAthon! National Day of Action. As a nation, we’ve made great progress building and sustaining national preparedness, but we still face diverse threats that challenge our collective security and resilience. And today, individuals, families, and communities across the country are coming together to take action to prepare for some of those threats, including tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, wildfires, and winter storms.

These kinds of disasters have major implications for our national security, our economy, and our public health. And with climate change exacerbating many of these threats, preparedness is more important than ever. Droughts and wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe in some regions of the country. And climate-related impacts like rising sea levels, increasingly powerful storms, and heavier downpours are contributing to an increased risk of flooding.

Through the PrepareAthon, Americans will participate in discussions, drills, and exercises focused on making sure they’re ready for these challenges. For example, local officials are hosting trainings for their communities, businesses are testing their emergency communication plans, and schools are practicing emergency response activities.

And the federal government is stepping up, too. Agencies are taking various PrepareAthon actions – from hosting shelter-in-place drills in federal facilities to running hurricane recovery exercises on military bases. And today, the Administration is launching an innovative partnership with utility companies to make sure our electric grid can stand up to disasters. This Partnership for Energy Sector Climate Resilience, led by the Department of Energy, is bringing together the leaders of 17 utility companies from across the country to engage leading providers of electricity services in an effort to address the vulnerabilities of the grid to extreme weather and other climate change impacts.

We are also taking other steps to spread the word about the importance of preparedness and resilience. For example, Dr. Kathy Sullivan, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will participate in a discussion at the Center for American Progress to highlight the Administration’s progress in unlocking new data sources and building new tools to help communities prepare for the impacts of climate change. You can watch the event – “From Risk to Resilience: Fortifying U.S. Communities in the Face of Climate Change” – live here at 12:00 p.m. ET. And all day, Administration officials will highlight this day of action on Twitter, using the hashtag #PrepareAthon. To see what’s happening in your community, or to register your own PrepareAthon activity, visit ready.gov/prepare. And remember to keep these important conversations going in your communities all year long.

President Obama is committed to supporting communities working to prepare for the impacts of climate change and other hazards. Together, we can ensure that our nation is safer, healthier, and more resilient.

Amy Pope is Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Homeland Security Advisor

Christy Goldfuss is Managing Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality

John Holdren is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology

(originally posted at whitehouse.gov)

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Today, in line with the Administration’s goal of better preparing and supporting survivors and communities following a disaster, public and private entities are releasing a host of new tools, services, and initiatives as part of America’s PrepareAthon! and the National Day of Action.

Highlights from Federal departments and agencies being announced today include:

• DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) to provide interactive disaster resilience exhibits at the first-ever National Maker Faire this June. The exhibits will focus on technologies designed for survivors and the first responder community, such as a Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response (FINDER) prototype, Improved Structure Firefighting Gloves, a Smart Electrochlorinator, and the X-Ray Scanning Rover.

• The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) launches a new feature to its free iOS and Android app to provide National Weather Service alerts for up to five locations across the nation. The new feature added this month allows users to receive alerts on severe weather happening anywhere they select in the country, even if the phone is not located in the area, making it easier to follow severe weather that may be threatening family and friends.

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) announces the new GeoHEALTH platform. GeoHEALTH features interactive mapping to support government agencies at all levels and community organizations in preparing for the health impacts of emergencies. The system pulls information from numerous sources including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and generalized data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Additional information can be found at https://GeoHealth.hhs.gov.

• The National Library of Medicine (NLM) Disaster Information Management Research Center (DIMRC) launches new email service to provide disaster health updates. The new email service released this month allows subscriptions to Disaster Lit, NLM’s Twitter feed, and resources including the Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders and Chemical Emergency Medical Management Disaster Lit provides access to over 8,000 disaster medicine and public health resources and was recently redesigned to allow for viewing on mobile devices. In response to the Ebola outbreak, Disaster Lit added over 750 items, including 350 guidelines and assessment tools.

• Peace Corps responds to Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu with open data mapping event. On March 23, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) and the Peace Corps’ Office of Innovation hosted a two-hour mapping event, with 47 participants mapping the nations of Tuvalu and Kiribati and making contributions to a digital map of Vanuatu. RPCVs who served in Vanuatu shared their experiences and post-disaster updates, joining current Vanuatu volunteers and trainees via Google Hangout to help identify potential shelters and communication towers.

• The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance and the U.S. Department of State are collaborating with partner organizations to build tools and platforms for creating and sharing Open Data. The U.S. Department of State reports that after the launch of MapGive, the largest and most complex mapping activation to date began in response to the Ebola outbreak. MapGive provided web based imagery services to support mapping in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and hosted two map-a-thons with the American Red Cross to mobilize hundreds of volunteers.  To date, over 3,000 volunteers have made over 14 million changes and additions to OpenStreetMap data in the Ebola-affected region. Building off of these milestones, digital volunteers are actively mapping the region affected by the recent earthquake in Nepal with support from the Department and USAID.

In addition to these efforts, many private sector entities continue to respond to the Administration’s call to action to improve disaster preparedness. Private sector responses being announced today include:

• Nextdoor Assists Local Agencies and Residents to Build Safer Communities Together. Today, nextdoor.com, the free and private social network for neighborhoods, is announcing enhancements to Nextdoor for Public Agencies and opening its doors to welcome new local utility agencies onto the platform. The new and updated product features will give agencies across the country the ability to connect and communicate with residents. Nextdoor is being used by more than 59,000 neighborhoods and more than 750 local agencies across the country. Local agencies interested in partnering with Nextdoor can visit www.nextdoor.com/agency.

• Civic Ninjas’ new Citizen Power Brigade Field Power Kit design to be published on GitHub. Since launching the Citizen Power Brigade project at the inaugural Civic Hardware Hackathon for Disaster Preparedness, Civic Ninjas has demonstrated their mobile emergency power solution to disaster responders and government agencies that have also helped with field-testing. The interest has prompted Civic Ninjas to redesign their Field Power Kit using low-cost, more commonly-sourced parts; the new open-source design will be published on GitHub this summer.

• The Go Game hosts free, interactive Zombies vs. Superheroes disaster preparedness game for families. Working with the New York Police Department, American Red Cross, Tribeca Film Festival, and Games For Change, The Go Game produced a disaster preparedness game to share local resources and build community resilience. The game hosted this month coinciding with America’s PrepareAthon! guided participants to complete missions, interpret clues, and compete in relays and skill-building workshops.

• The University of Oklahoma, Norman Public Schools, and Oklahoma Climatological Survey demonstrate middle school maker projects addressing severe weather. Supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the University of Oklahoma and partners are challenging 6^th– 8^th graders to become makers in the context of severe weather. Students have joined an after school maker club to work on projects including a daily forecast display in the school library, 3D models of hail, and storm shelter prototypes adapted to the needs of individuals with disabilities.

Through ongoing dialog and action, the White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative is constantly seeking new ways to build upon these commitments, the innovations highlighted at our July 2014 Demo Day, and the launch disasters.data.gov. Formed by the Administration in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the Initiative strives to find the most effective ways technology can empower disaster survivors, first responders, communities, and all levels of government with critical information and resources.

We encourage you to continue sharing your contributions and progress by emailing disastertech@ostp.gov and joining the millions of individuals and organizations taking action to strengthen preparedness on this Day of Action and every day.

Meredith Lee is AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Philip Ashlock is Chief Architect of Data.gov

Clarence Wardell III is Presidential Innovation Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy

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Each year, emergencies and natural disasters challenge our communities and test our readiness.  Strengthening our Nation’s resilience is critical — our best work is done collaboratively as a shared responsibility with all community members contributing their talents, unique skills, perspectives, and needs.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the Administration established The White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative to find effective ways to use technology to empower disaster survivors, first responders, communities, and all levels of government with critical information and collaboration resources.

Over the past two years through ongoing dialog and action, our capacity for innovative disaster response and recovery has continued to grow. Results include major commitments from the public and private sector, the first hardware hackathon for disaster preparedness held in support of the Initiative, numerous workshops, and the launch of disasters.data.gov as the Initiative’s first major online presence.

This innovative community is constantly seeking new ways to collaborate and leverage the creativity, social entrepreneurship, resourcefulness, and ingenuity of individuals and organizations to advance and strengthen national preparedness.  Whether you’re a data steward who can unlock information and foster a culture of open data, an innovator who can address disaster preparedness challenges, or someone ready to join the “Innovation for Disasters” movement, we welcome everyone to our combined team.

With America’s PrepareAthon! fast approaching next month, we encourage you to share how you are using technology and innovation to strengthen preparedness by emailing disastertech@ostp.gov. We look forward to highlighting some of your stories on the April 30 National Day of Action where governments, businesses, and individuals are encouraged to take some action on that day to prepare themselves to respond to emergency situations.

Together, let’s continue to take action to prepare ourselves, our neighbors, our communities, our schools, and our workplaces before disaster strikes.  Thank you for your continued energy, ingenuity, and collaborative spirit.

Rand Beers is Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security

Megan Smith is the U.S. Chief Technology Officer

(originally posted at whitehouse.gov)

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At the event, top officials from across the Administration discussed how Federal agencies are working to tap into the power of open data to advance public safety in creative and powerful ways. Announcements and new commitments from the public and private sector included:

• The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs highlighted a new Application Programming Interface (API) that allows developers to integrate Travel Warning and Travel Alert datasets into websites and mobile applications, including tourism guides and online travel websites, so that U.S. citizens have information about international travel risks—such as health alerts, ongoing crime and violence, or frequent terrorist attacks.
• The White House, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Department of Energy launched standardized hashtags (#PowerLineDown #NoFuel and #GotFuel ) to enable citizens to report important emergency information, such as downed power lines or whether a gas station has fuel, across social media platforms during a disaster. The Weather Channel has committed to publicizing these hashtags to its 100 million+ web visitors and TV viewers. Geofeedia, a social media monitoring service, committed to offering a free version of their service to first responders, disaster survivors, utility companies, and Federal, state, and local governments.

• The Food and Drug Administration announced openFDA, a new initiative that will provide easy access to FDA datasets that support the agency’s regulatory mission, help educate the public, and save lives.
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency Presidential Innovation Fellow and The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency highlighted the development of “GeoQ”, a tool that crowdsources geo-tagged photos of disaster-affected areas to assess damage over large regions.
• TaskRabbit, a company which includes a network of over 20,000 vetted workers across the country, announced it will provide a dedicated portal for crisis-recovery efforts that can serve as an interface for relief organizations to request help during a disaster and connect with high-skilled workers that are willing to volunteer their time.
• The U.S. Department of Energy Presidential Innovation Fellow previewed “Lantern”, a mobile app that provides helpful information and assistance during a disaster. The mobile app is designed to provide consumers timely disaster preparedness tips and recommendations, allow consumers to report and access information on power outages and fallen power lines, and help users find fuel and report the status of gas stations.
• The National Institute of Justice highlighted its Ultra High-Speed Apps Challenge to promote the development, use, and evaluation of criminal justice software applications that are compatible with ultra-high-speed networks to help support criminal justice and public safety practitioners in emergency situations.
• The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a “Safer Products App Challenge”, calling on innovators to create applications and tools that help raise awareness of consumer product recalls and of the more than 17,000 consumer product reports submitted through SaferProducts.gov.

You can view all the announcements HERE.

Building on this momentum, in the afternoon, agencies hosted a series of “Safety Datajams” aimed at encouraging participants to build out the public safety tools of tomorrow. Participants brainstormed ideas for building next-generation ultra-high speed apps for law enforcement officers; leveraging USDA data to protect against salmonella illness; developing innovative ways to improve disaster response and recovery; protecting against hearing loss in the workplace; and increasing awareness of recalled consumer products. We are excited to see how these datajams materialize into impactful projects. Our sincere thanks to all of the participants!

Congratulations to every entrepreneur, developer, researcher, and public servant who presented their incredible innovations at the Second Annual White House Safety Datapalooza. We look forward to collaborating further with the safety data community and can’t wait to see what new products, services, and tools get created!

Brian Forde is Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer 

Francisco Reinoso is the Director of IT Strategy at the U.S. Department of Transportation

(originally posted at whitehouse.gov)

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In coordination with The White House Climate Data Initiative,
the Federal Geographic Data Committee, and the National Food Interoperability Experiment,
the AWRA Technology Committee is supporting a national discussion titled
“The Open Water Data Initiative – Unifying Water Data for the Nation.”

For more information visit http://awra.org/meetings/Annual2014/lightning.html

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New tools are making it easier to submit complaints, comments, and petitions to your government online and through mobile applications. Data.gov is proud to announce the launch of the Data.gov Help Desk, a new customer service platform powered by Open311 that will let the public submit issues, improvements, and requests for government data. You’ll now find these options on our Contact page, but soon they will be integrated throughout the site. This is an open, API-driven platform for the public to voice their needs and track the status of data issues. This initial release is just the beginning, but we look forward to hearing your feedback here and on GitHub to make the Help Desk feature even better.

Background

Since the beginning, Data.gov has striven to engage with the public to help software developers, researchers, and other data users find and understand the data they need. Because Data.gov is a small team, we can’t always answer questions as quickly as we would like to. Additionally, these questions are often best answered by specific government agencies and domain experts. A few years ago, we helped establish the Open Data Stack Exchange as a community-run resource for questions and answers about all kinds of open data, not even just government data. The Open Data Stack Exchange is a great resource which we continue to support, but there are many instances when it would be better to integrate these interactions more tightly with data publishers and specific datasets. For example, when someone is looking for a specific government dataset or wants to report a problem or suggest an improvement with an existing dataset, we’d like to make sure that the request makes it to the right agency and that data issues and improvements are tied to their dataset listings on Data.gov.

As part of the Federal Open Data Policy, agencies have been asked to provide a feedback mechanism to engage with their users and prioritize datasets for release. While some agencies like the U.S. Census have well established platforms for engaging with their users, many agencies have been limited in providing more than a basic contact form to facilitate feedback. Similarly, Data.gov hasn’t had a sophisticated process for responding to data inquiries. In the past year, Data.gov has made heavy use of GitHub issues for publicly tracking problems and feature requests for the Data.gov website and occasionally data-specific issues come through as well, but we’ve been in need of a separate process oriented around data to properly delegate to the right folks in government.

Open Feedback for Open Data

Fortunately, there’s already a great model for managing citizen requests in a simple way across the complexity of government. The model of a consolidated contact center and the 311 phone number in many cities has had a significant impact on the ability for people to request services and information from their government and track the progress of their request. More recently the Open311 specification has made those interactions into more of a public forum and standardized the process with a common API that can be used across many different applications and governments. To date, Open311 has mostly been limited to local government, but the White House has taken note in the past.

Since the Open311 standard already provides the foundation for a common data driven customer service platform, the Data.gov Help Desk has been built on top of it.

Open for Integration

Working with the Open311 standard has meant that the the Data.gov Help Desk has taken an API-first approach which means that all of our tools have been developed around the same API that’s available to outside developers (also known as “dogfooding”). In the near future we will make this API available to a wider audience outside of government, following the same precedent as the White House We The People Petitions API, but we will also be working closely with agencies across government so that we can use standardized APIs to integrate with their own customer service platforms and build on top of initiatives like Demand Driven Open Data from HHS. Hopefully we can establish a precedent for a federated standardized API across government in much the same way the Project Open Data schema has standardized metadata across both Federal agencies and local governments.

This initial release of the Help Desk is just a starting point and there will be many opportunities to integrate it across Data.gov and expand its functionality. The most immediate next step will be to incorporate a Help Desk button and list existing issues around a dataset directly on the dataset page. That integration will come very soon. We’re also excited about the potential for using this along with more unstructured conversations such as those using tools like Discourse.

The Data.gov Help Desk is being developed in the open on Github. The primary place where you can provide feedback on the feature is issue #422 in the main Data.gov repository, but other components have their own repositories: Open311 Simple CRM, and Open311-WP. With the GitHub Open311 Adapter, we’re also looking at the possibility of using GitHub Issues itself as a backend that can be served with this same API standard. We’re excited to build this not just as a platform, but as part of a broader ecosystem for engagement around data. We look forward to your participation.

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New tools are making it easier to visualize and analyze data at the click of a button. Data.gov is proud to announce integration with two of these tools — Plotly and CartoDB — making it possible to create graphs and dynamic maps with open government data in one click.

On supported datasets, a new “Open With” menu will appear giving you the option to open the dataset directly with these third party services. No need to download and upload, just click the link and go.

Plotly

Plotly converts datasets into collaborative graphs and data visualizations for the web. With Plotly you can create and customize a variety of interactive visualizations: bar, line, and scatter graphs, heat maps, area graphs, bubble chart, histograms, linear regressions, box plots, 3D graphs, and more. More advanced users can crunch data with any custom function, (including derivatives, integrals, inferential or descriptive basic statistics, chi-squared test, T-test, and ANOVA) and create simulations with Python scripts. To view existing data visualizations with Plotly, you can explore their graphing news feed.

CartoDB

CartoDB converts geospatial datasets into dynamic customizable maps for the web in seconds. Once the map is automatically created users can filter and refine the visualized data to gain insights and tell stories. Users can customize the appearance of the maps through a variety of beautiful themes and advanced users can leverage CartoCSS, a cascading style sheet language for maps. To see the potential of CartoDB, their website has a gallery of maps using government data.

Both Plotly and CartoDB make it easy to share and edit your work privately, with your co-workers, or the world. There is so much to learn from open government data and we are happy to feature tools like Plotly and CartoDB that make it easier for everyone to become a data scientist. If you create a great data visualization with Data.gov data please let us know!

With More to Come

The integration with Plotly and CartoDB is made possible with nothing more than simple website links and Data.gov will be expanding these options to include other third party services in the future.

The “Open With” menu is currently made available for smaller CSV and XLS files and will not appear when these files are not verified as a functioning CSV or XLS file. Other file formats are also supported, such as KML and zipped Shapefiles for use with CartoDB, but currently Data.gov does not validate these file formats before providing the link. In some cases, the format specified in dataset metadata on Data.gov does not accurately reflect the linked file. If you come across a dataset that is labeled as a CSV or XLS file and the “Open With” menu is not present it is either because the file is too large or because the link does not point directly to the CSV or XLS file.

Data.gov will continue to work with data publishers to update these listings and ensure that the “Open With” menu works for more datasets and connects with even more services.

If you have feedback about the “Open With” menu, please contact us or leave a comment here or on GitHub. We look forward to seeing what you create as you open data with new insight.

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In May 2009, Data.gov was an experiment. There were questions: would people use the data? would agencies share the data? and would it make a difference? We’ve all come a long way to answering those questions, starting with only 47 datasets and having 105,000 datasets today.  We realized that this was never simply about opening up government data, but rather about growing and nurturing an open data ecosystem to improve the lives of citizens.

Putting the Data to Work

Hundreds of companies, like those featured at the Open Data 500, are using data to create services and products.  From agriculture to housing—businesses of all shapes and sizes are reliant on government data. During the last five years, there have been moments when someone was poised to use open data at a moment of crisis or opportunity. Some of these highlights include:

• The Red Cross, working with the Department of Transportation, released a Hurricane App just as Hurricane Sandy touched ground—helping 700,000 people be safer that first day alone
• Organizations have come to life around helping others and getting them data to inform their consumer decisions
• A new level of digital democracy was reached when India and the United States, and later Canada and Ghana, created the Open Government Platform, a shared, open source system for open data portals
• City, county, and state data was integrated with federal data to make Data.gov a truly a national open data portal

People today are using open data in even more creative ways. Civic hackers, designers, and developers, young and old, are being educated and connected through Code for America, Code Academy, and others that give them the tools to put the data to work and growing that ecosystem of developers and consumers of the data.

Making More Data Available

Much of the first year of Data.gov was spent on gathering the fuel for the ecosystem—open data. Open data teams at each agency and Data.gov worked together to change the culture from a “how will we release this data” to “what is the impact on Americans when we release this data.” With clear direction from the White House in the Presidential Transparency and Open Government memo, the Digital Government strategy, and the Executive Order for Open Data, people at 175 agencies and 77 other organizations today continue to release more data, more accessible data, and new web services and APIs.2 In using social media, sponsoring data jams and paloozas, creating and moderating the Open Data Stack Exchange, and transparently sharing code and issues on Github, Data.gov and data publishers are listening to and working directly with researchers, innovators, data scientists, and data journalists to create a better platform with more data every day.

Making a Difference

So, has the release of government data helped to improve the lives of Americans?  In just the last three years, Data.gov has grown to include:

• 4.5 million unique visitors
• 105,000 data collections
• 447,000 data resources
• 227 organizations publishing data
• 4700 people attending the International Open Government Data Conference online and in person
• 21 topics
• Citizens from 195 countries have visited the site

Clearly, the answer is that people are working with open data, but there is still much more to do. Groups like the Sunlight Foundation and data journalists help to advocate for the release of new data in machine-readable formats, and citizen groups create activities and initiatives around the data. As one example, behind the topics highlighted on Data.gov (such as climate, health, safety, and ocean), are communities of people from around the country and around the world who strive together to get specific data released to help solve humanity’s challenges. The community behind Agriculture.Data.gov hosted an event last year that led to the formation of the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative that focuses on food security and mitigating hunger in developed and developing nations.

What Is Your Story?

You’ve heard here about some of the open data stories powered by data on Data.gov.  Now, we are issuing a call for YOUR story. Tell the world what open data means to you.  What have you built? How have you made a difference? What still needs to be accomplished?  Answer the call for Open Data Stories: what we’ve accomplished, understood, and are still exploring after five years. Post a video, write a blog, or send a tweet (#OpenDataStory) and let us know.  We will connect the stories and highlight what you are doing. Be creative, be innovative, and let all of us celebrate your story.

Each person makes a difference—whether you are a researcher, developer, data scientist, business owner, innovator, data publisher, or citizen—each part of the ecosystem is important in our shared vision of making the world a better place through transparency, openness, and knowledge. Be part of the future and celebrate how far we’ve come—share your story, share your vision.

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Each facility has its own set of use policies, so a contact person is included in the data wherever possible. For example, some entrepreneurs may be able to access NASA’s National Center for Advanced Manufacturing to produce the high-strength, defect-free joints required for cutting-edge aeronautics, or DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for collaborative projects in additive manufacturing, composites and carbon fiber, and other leading clean energy technologies. Learn more…

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Data.gov is the central clearinghouse for federal open data, including hosting the Public Data Listings required under the 2013 Federal Open Data Policy, but Data.gov also hosts state, local, and tribal government sources voluntarily. As of this writing Data.gov has the open data catalogs of 10 cities, 3 counties, and 8 states open data catalogs piped to Data.gov, in addition to many local geospatial data sources, but we know there are many more open data catalogs out there!

Getting your local government open data plugged into Data.gov is likely easier than you think. We recently outlined the technical process of how data gets harvested onto Data.gov in detail with our “How to Get Your Open Data on Data.gov” guide. The gist of which is: Data.gov harvests standard metadata and there a slightly different requirements for federal data, federal geospatial data, and non-federal data. For state, county, and city data Data.gov simply needs two things from a government contact:

1. A data.json file (this is likely built into your open data catalog, but an open data catalog is not required, see www.data.gov/faq).
2. A link to your local open data catalog’s Terms of Use or Data Policy.

With those two items, Data.gov can set up nightly harvests that will automatically update Data.gov with your local data.

Local governments should get their data on Data.gov first and foremost because it will help make local open data more discoverable, but also because it supports a minimal metadata standard across local open data efforts, can help identify emergent data trends and standards (like the US City Open Data Census) across local governments, and because it shows the international open data community how active the United States is!

To all local government officials, we would love to hear from you and connect your government data to Data.gov as soon as possible. As always, If you have any questions, you can reach out to datagov@gsa.gov.

Add your local government open data today by visiting https://www.data.gov/local/add.

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The top 30 finalists demonstrated their latest achievements in a science fair-style exhibition as attendees voted for their top choices. Data.gov’s groundbreaking work to increase the public’s ability to easily find, download, and use open government datasets secured a place in the top eight.

Keynote speaker, Federal CTO Megan Smith, recognized and congratulated all of the Igniting Innovation finalists for effectively demonstrating how government and industry are employing technologies such as reuse, open data and agile development to help agencies meet their unique mission requirements.

Andy Robinson, ICF International and Institute for Innovation Chair stated, “Our finalists demonstrated some of the exciting results agencies are achieving, yet it’s only a sample of what can be accomplished by using technologies such as cloud services, big data and shared services to improve citizen services, speed governmental functions and protect our citizens and the homeland.”

Data.gov was one of three GSA programs recognized at the event, along with the Digital Analytics Program and the Building Information Modeling/Central Facilities Repository.

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First previewed at the White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative Demo Day, disasters.data.gov is designed to be a public resource to foster collaboration and the continual improvement of disaster-related open data, free tools, and new ways to empower first responders, survivors, and government officials with the information needed in the wake of a disaster.

Today, the Administration is unveiling the first in a series of Innovator Challenges that highlight pressing needs from the disaster preparedness community. The inaugural Innovator Challenge focuses on a need identified from firsthand experience of local emergency management, responders, survivors, and Federal departments and agencies. The challenge asks innovators across the nation: “How might we leverage real-time sensors, open data, social media, and other tools to help reduce the number of fatalities from flooding?”

In addition to this first Innovator Challenge, here are some highlights from disasters.data.gov:

• “Types of Disasters” Landing Pages: Disasters take many forms. The data.gov portal brings together and categorizes open data sets, apps, and tools to make relevant resources easier to find. Today, the site includes landing pages for Earthquakes, Floods, Hurricanes, Severe Winter Weather, Tornadoes, and Wildfires. More categories and content will be added as the website expands.

• Apps & Tools: The portal includes an initial set of apps and tools that can be deployed at minimal cost by first responders, emergency managers, volunteer organizations, survivors, and other stakeholders. The apps and tools featured were presented at the White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Demo Day and include sharing economy platforms, crowdsourcing options, and services to enable communications, contribute to a culture of preparedness, and alert the public.

• Get Involved – Call to Data Stewards: Datasets relevant to disaster preparedness (including prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery) have traditionally been closed by default to the public. To help empower the community with information that can improve community resilience, the Administration is working with stakeholders to open a series of disaster-related datasets from all levels of government and the private sector. Learn more here.

• Get Involved – Join the “Innovation for Disasters” Movement: Whether you visit the portal as a tech entrepreneur, developer, hardware tinkerer, journalist, researcher, government official, first responder, or potential volunteer, there are numerous ways to join the Innovation for Disasters movement and get involved. Learn more here.

The White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative was launched by the Administration in response to Hurricane Sandy to find the most effective ways for technology to empower survivors, first responders, and all levels of government with critical information and resources. After over two years of continued dialogue and major commitments from the public and private sector, the first hardware hackathon for disaster preparedness held in support of the Initiative, and numerous workshops, we are thrilled to launch disasters.data.gov as the Initiative’s first major online presence.

Disasters.data.gov seeks to leverage the creativity and social entrepreneurship of innovators everywhere to help strengthen national preparedness. The Administration will continue working to shape the portal into a useful “go-to” resource that captures a diverse range of contributions in disaster preparedness technology and innovation. We invite you to take the site for a spin, email disastertech@ostp.gov with your feedback, and get involved to help build a more resilient community.

Meredith Lee is AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Heather King is Director for Preparedness Policy at the National Security Council

Brian Forde is Senior Advisor for Mobile and Data Innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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Students at Jones Elementary School in Springdale, Arkansas face many potential obstacles to learning, including poverty, hunger, and trouble speaking and reading English. Eight years ago, only 26 percent of students were reading on grade level. With effective use of data, and real collaboration, the principal and teachers at Jones raised that to 73 percent.

“Poverty isn’t destiny,” says Principal Melissa Fink. Her team is overcoming students’ challenges by believing that every child can succeed at very high levels and creating a culture of excellence.

Teachers across the nation come to school every day hoping to make a difference in their students’ lives, and they are making meaningful changes in their classrooms. At Jones, they are doing it with a whole new level of teamwork. As teacher Jennifer Mills put it, “I used to think about just my classroom. Now, I care about the collective whole of fourth grade.” With help from principals like Fink and other educators, teachers can collaborate and set goals to challenge themselves and their students.

Fink and the teachers at Jones Elementary School work as a team to receive feedback, and they listen to and learn from each other. They also put data to work for them.

“We make all decisions at our school based on what the data tell us. We’re not just talking about test score data,” says Fink. “We’re talking about the data that teachers are collecting on a day-to-day basis in their classroom.”

We will continue highlighting extraordinary educators doing remarkable things in classrooms nationwide in our video series. To learn more, visit our Partners in Progress page.

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Online toolkit provides resources for educators to boost completion rates, apply for aid and more.

In March 2012, the U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid (FSA) announced the release of an innovative FAFSA Completion Tool to help guidance professionals, school administrators, and practitioners both track and subsequently increase Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) completions at high schools across the country. Subsequent enhancements to the FAFSA Completion Tool provided not just the FAFSA submission and completion totals for any high school for the current year, but also totals for the same time the year before and other key benchmark dates.

Building on those enhancements, the 2015 version of the FAFSA Completion Tool provides updated information on a weekly basis during the peak FAFSA application period. By posting FAFSA submission and completion totals weekly, counselors and administrators will have access to current data to more accurately gauge the impact of outreach efforts and identify successful local strategies.

Prior to publishing this data, the only source of data on FAFSA completions that high schools had was from self-reported student surveys, which were highly unreliable. Through the FAFSA Completion Tool, educators have real-time access to reliable data to track FAFSA submission and completion and gauge their progress in increasing FAFSA completion. Key studies have indicated that FAFSA completion correlates strongly with college enrollment, particularly among low-income populations.

While FAFSA data is important, we encourage high schools to use this data as one component of a comprehensive college access and completion program within their school. To assist educators, counselors, and others with this and other aid awareness and loan repayment efforts, the Department created the Financial Aid Toolkit. The Toolkit consolidates financial aid resources and content into a searchable online database, making it easy for individuals to quickly access the information they need to support their students. The Toolkit provides counselors with access to valuable resources such as how to host a FAFSA completion workshop. For our social media savvy customers, it includes a host of FAFSA completion social media resources, including sample Tweets, Facebook posts, videos, blog posts, infographics, and other components which can be used to promote FAFSA completion. The Tool is a critical component of President Obama’s FAFSA Completion Initiative and this year, local completion efforts are getting a boost from Mrs. Obama’s “FAFSA Completion Challenge,” a video competition the First Lady recently launched to encourage more high school students to complete the FAFSA.

In addition to determining eligibility for federal student aid, which includes Pell grants, federal student loans, and work study opportunities, many states, institutions, and private organizations rely on the FAFSA to determine eligibility for non-federal sources of aid. Last year, over one million high school seniors did not submit the FAFSA, making them ineligible for federal grants and loans as well as most state-based and institutional aid. When students complete the FAFSA, they help themselves and make a positive contribution to their school, communities, and states.

The promise of the FAFSA Completion Tool lies in its simplicity and its use of current data to effectively measure the success of FAFSA completion efforts. Last year, the Tool provided FAFSA submission and completion data for the senior classes at over 25,000 high schools in all 50 states, Washington, DC, and all U.S. territories.

For more information on the Tool and to search updated FAFSA Completion Tool data by high school for the senior class of 2015, visit StudentAid.gov/FAFSA-HS-Data.

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About the Event

Zillow Inc. and the University of Washington are hosting “Hack Housing: Empowering Smarter Decisions,” Feb. 6-8 in Seattle. The winning team will receive a $10,000 prize. As part of the event, participants will have access to newly released government data sets on topics like federal housing programs; apartment buildings with accessible apartments; and transit information. In addition, Zillow will make available its data on home values and rents. The event is hosted in partnership with the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, and with the participation of the federal government.

How to Register for Hack Housing

To register for the hackathon or to get more information and schedule updates, visit the Hack Housing event registration page.

Have local data?

Hack Housing is a great example off open data collaboration across industry, academia, local government, and the federal government.  If you have local data that you’d like to share for the benefit of your city, here are two ways to help data users and civic innovators find out about it:

1. List it in the Local Government section of Data.gov.  This provides a searching capabilities so users can find multiple datasets in a single place.   To learn more about how to get local open data on to Data.gov, check out the resource How to Get your Open Data on Data.gov.
2. Follow and contribute to the open-source City SDK project from the US Census Bureau on Github. User stories and feedback are requested to help improve interoperability between local and federal data. The City SDK is scheduled for a beta release prior to the 2015 National Civic Day of Hacking.

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Open data is helping bring capital to Main Street businesses. For example, one fast-growing lender is combining data from a wide range of government sources to make working capital loans to small businesses. Using open data on industry-level economic trends, the company is able to build finer-tuned predictive models. Another data analytics startup is working with banks to unlock insights about businesses from new government sources. Critical data about businesses are buried in unexpected places. For example, it is possible to estimate the number of employees a given company has based on existing, publicly available data about participants its retirement plan.

Check out our extensive data, including the BLS Producer Price Index, Census data on manufacturing and trade inventories and sales, monthly and annual retail trade survey data, the NAICS business data classification system to start innovating to bring capital to America’s small businesses today!

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Data.gov Mash-A-Thon 1 builds Web 3.0 apps and enthusiasm A lecture by Professor Jim Hendler at the Data.gov Mash-a-Thon 2010 For two days in August, a classroom in Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle filled with Federal developers, students and semantic web experts. They shared one purpose: to create a new generation of “linked-data” applications called “mashups” that use Data.gov’s free public data in new and innovative ways. The U.S. government is in the vanguard of understanding and using the semantic web, which will transform the World Wide Web. Data will “talk” to one another, and make it possible for many activities we do manually today to be done for us automatically.

Conference organizers assembled many of the best in the field, including the semantic web’s co-inventor, to teach Federal developers how to create mashups with this advanced technology using Data.gov’s data. “What we have here today is a ‘Center of Brilliance,'” Data.gov Program Executive Sanjeev “Sonny” Bhagowalia, Deputy Associate Administrator in the U.S. General Services Administration’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, told the 30 agency representatives and semantic web experts who participated. Semantic web expert George Thomas, Enterprise Architect at the Department of Health and Human Services, and Alex Kern of Data.gov’s project management office brought in semantic web co-inventor Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Jim Hendler and his students, who are not only experts in the semantic web but who have created more than 40 apps using the free public data on Data.gov. Hendler and his team provided hands-on training to representatives from 12 Federal agencies. Participants split into teams, each devoted to building an application from two or more Data.gov datasets by “mashing them up” in thoughtful ways. A “mashup” is a type of application in which two or more datasets are combined to create a meaningful result. (For example, dividing the economic production of a country by its population is a simple mashup to demonstrate productivity per capita.)

In the Mash-A-Thon’s two action-packed days, participants developed four mashups, including the Energy Data Mashup highlighted below, which lets people know how much electricity costs in seven cities across the country, and gives them information that can help them save money. Until Data.gov’s birth last year as a single catalog for Federal data, datasets were spread across the Executive Branch, making it challenging to find and bring them together in applications. Data.gov is now a one-stop shop for many of those datasets. “This Mash-A-Thon is a good example of the potential of Data.gov,” said participant Susan Turnbull, Senior Program Advisor at the U.S. General Services Administration, which manages Data.gov. Mash-A-Thon 1 is only the beginning. “Whenever you provide the proper tools to creative and skilled professionals, no one should be surprised by incredible results. This is what the Data.gov Mash-A-Thon did and the results were indeed incredible,” said Data.gov Program Director Marion Royal. “I applaud all of the participants and thank them for being a part of this remarkable event. Let’s do it again!”

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Mashups are intriguing because you can create new stories from data that is accessible yet completely independent — multiple datasets merging in a way that was not expected,” said Ryan McKeel, Digital Assets Applications Developer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, whose Open Energy Initiative (OpenEI.org) team helped build the Energy Data Mashup. “For instance, if you combine U.S. Census data with crime and voting records, you start painting a unique story that none of the data providers could have anticipated.”

The team from the U.S. Department of Energy decided on this mashup because they knew that, especially these days, people want to save money, and utility bills are one way to do that. With free, open public data, they could pull together many datasets using the linked-data (“Semantic Web”) technology that puts everything in the same format. Linked data makes it easy to “zipper” databases together to give consumers new insight into “how to be smart about energy consumption and costs,” says McKeel.

The idea is, the more information the public has, the better decisions they will be able to make. The U.S. Department of Energy is investing in developing the Smart Grid across the country, which will make it possible for people to understand how much energy is being consumed and at what times. As a result, consumers and utilities will have more control over energy usage, which will help reduce the peak load and shift energy usage to off-peak time periods.

The team’s members included Greg Adel, Business Analyst on the International Trade Administration’s Enterprise Architecture Team; Chris Musialek of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA); and Susan Turnbull, Senior Program Advisor in the GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies. They knew they could accomplish such a mashup in the incredibly short time of less than two days because the databases were easily available. Also a best practice, says McKeel, is to start with an existing mashup so that you are not creating everything from scratch. They started with a mashup from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (one of the world leaders in linked data), added cities and changed the map’s layout. Here are a few steps that show how they did it:

A key lesson is that you will not get it right the first time. Here, the latitude and longitude coordinates of Atlanta, Georgia, were misidentified, placing Atlanta in Eastern Europe!

This is an example of starting with a mashup that has already been built (left), then focusing on the elements that are relevant to the mashup you’re developing. The Open EI team tweaked the RPI map to show only the continental United States, for instance (right).

The final screen shot shows the results for Portland, Oregon. People can go to this application and learn about state and city incentives to save money on electricity, local electric company rates according to time and season, and information on federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Smart Grid projects in their area.

This mashup is just the beginning, says McKeel. “What’s so cool about linked open data is that you can pull from all these different repositories. It’s a common format that you can use to easily create stories.

“This mashup could be expanded by anybody in the public,” he adds. “Anybody could take the source code and add another city or add other data sources. There’s no licensing fee because it’s open data and it’s free software.”

Mashups give people the power to see information in new ways, says McKeel, adding, “Part of my job is to find relevant stories. Mashups are empowering because the public can take open data and create new charts, maps and stories that may not exist yet in the media. When individuals can weave their own stories based on a good idea and several data sources, it further frees information and expands the public’s comprehension of what is happening in their city, state and country.”

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To help address this problem, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Monday announced the launch of Lantern Live – a mobile app that allows users in disaster-affected areas to report on the status of local gas stations, find fuel, and easily look up power outage maps from local utilities. Lantern Live is part of the White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative, and represents the ingenuity and ethos found across Initiative projects. An early beta version of Lantern Live was showcased at the White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Demo Day in July, and Lantern Live was included in the President’s briefing in advance of this year’s hurricane season.

A Lantern Live screenshot.

Lantern Live is one of the first crowdsourcing tools built by the Federal government. We’re thrilled about giving you a behind-the-scenes look at the process we used to develop the app.

THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

When the stakes are high – as they are in a disaster area – tools need to be especially easy to use and directly meet survivors’ immediate needs. The development team brought the best “plays,” or principals, out of private sector software development and applied them to building Lantern Live. These plays, outlined in the U.S. Digital Services Playbook, include employing an agile development process, using a modern development stack, and most importantly, open-sourcing the tool for the community to take to the next level.

Agile development process
Under an agile development process, software developers prototype early and iterate often, continuously focusing on end-users and the tasks they need to accomplish. In this case, developers had to take into account that Lantern Live needs to be usable by someone in a stressful, disaster-impacted area. The Lantern Live development team will continue incorporating user feedback and observations into later updates to the app to improve the tool to better address on-the-ground needs.

Modern development stack
An agile approach only works if you have the tools for rapid prototyping and iteration, and a technology stack – a collection of technology components and services – that can easily scale. This is especially important for an app serving disaster-impacted citizens where usage can spike rapidly. The team identified a software development kit built on a Federally pre-approved  cloud environment. Using a modern development stack allowed the team to keep their focus on disaster-impacted citizens rather than technology building blocks.

Open source
The innovative, practical features in the Lantern Live mobile app have the potential to apply well beyond the energy sector for disaster resilience. For example, the code for the crowdsourcing of gas station status could be applied to grocery stores, pharmacies and other crucial post-disaster assets. The code for future releases of Lantern Live will be open-sourced, meaning that anyone can reuse this code in their own app. The Lantern Live development team is looking for collaborators in the private and public sectors to reuse this code. Please contact Lanternlivebeta@hq.doe.gov to learn more.

Available now

Lantern Live is currently available free for Android devices.

For information on additional Administration resiliency efforts announced through the President’s State, Local and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, please click here. For information about additional resiliency efforts at the Department of Energy, please click here.

Brian Forde is the Senior Advisor for Mobile and Data Innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Denice Ross is a Round 3 Presidential Innovation Fellow at the Energy Department and Lantern Live co-developer.

Derek Frempong is a Lantern Live co-developer and a Round 2 Presidential Innovation Fellow at the Energy Department.

(originally posted at whitehouse.gov)

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More than six months after Hurricane Sandy, pockets of eastern seaboard residents remain displaced, even as they rebuild. There is still much to be done to return the region to normalcy. But as someone who was involved in some of the federal government’s efforts to speed that process—in particular to harness the power of technology and social media to overcome barriers to response and recovery—I believe Sandy marked a turning point in how we as a nation will respond to large-scale disasters in the years ahead.

In unprecedented fashion, tech companies, voluntary and faith-based organizations and federal agencies, including the White House, worked together to build tools and cut through administrative red tape. The process made one thing very clear: Tech expertise and crowdsourced data are revolutionizing disaster response and recovery.

Cutting the Red Tape

Finding housing for the thousands of displaced Sandy survivors was among the most immediate challenges.

When the president spoke at the Red Cross on Oct. 30, his instructions to federal agencies were clear: “Do not figure out why we can’t do something; I want you to figure out how we do something. I want you to cut through red tape. I want you to cut through bureaucracy. There’s no excuse for inaction at this point.”

We knew technology would play a big role in finding those solutions. However, the need was not simply a virtual one.

During the urgency of a disaster, suggesting there’s “an app for that” just doesn’t cut it. Tech-based sharing economy platforms, like Airbnb, seemed to have great potential. But there was a problem when it came to working with these services: Documentation needed for receiving federal disaster assistance was not designed to account for these new platforms.

Traditionally a FEMA disaster applicant needs to show a signed lease agreement to receive continued financial assistance for housing in order to prevent fraudulent claims, but it effectively disqualified the use of sharing economy platforms. So, we had to make a change — and quickly.

Working closely with FEMA, we found a solution that allowed Sandy survivors to submit an email reservation and electronic receipt in lieu of a lease agreement to verify housing and a continued need for FEMA disaster assistance.

Unlocking Invaluable Data

In the wake of Sandy, seemingly simple tasks, such as refueling your car, were incredibly difficult. Determining which gas stations were open, had fuel and power from a backup generator was hard. What was really frustrating was knowing that, in many cases, the information existed but was siloed in the vaults of company databases and posts across social media platforms.

That inspired some of us to work with the team at FEMA and other members of the office of the U.S. Chief Technology Officer to email and call the companies, organizations and even high school students who held various pieces of this supply-and-demand puzzle to improve public access to these data.

Waze, a crowdsourced mapping tool, opened up access to the feedback users were providing about gas stations. The All Hazards Consortium worked with Hughes Network Systems — which provides point-of-sale systems to gas stations, restaurants, pharmacies and hotels — to share daily updates on which locations appeared to be open and operational.

Perhaps most remarkable was the group of students from Franklin High School in New Jersey that went on “Twitter watch” — scanning for tweets about gas stations and adding those comments to their database. We encouraged those students to open up the database so other platforms could benefit from this real-time information.

Together, we collaborated with Google, which compiled all of these data sources and displayed them in its popular Google Crisis Map. This map, along with others, helped the federal government better understand the needs of the people impacted by the hurricane, while also providing useful information directly to those communities.

Hacking a Disaster

The tech community played other heroic, but largely unsung, roles. Companies like Hotel Tonight and Angie’s List donated net revenue and offered free memberships, and Walkscore quickly developed a website to help people search for housing by commute-time using various modes of transit. For example, a resident in need of housing could use this tool to search for a place to live that is within a 30-minute commute of his or her workplace or child’s school.

More than 800 technologists, some from NY Tech Meetup, volunteered their services to find solutions to some of the most pressing issues in emergency response. And in a sign that government and innovation can be truly compatible — even synergistic — many of us in the federal government contributed to and learned from these spontaneous activities as they happened.

That involvement continues. Today, through the leadership of Administrator Craig Fugate and Deputy Administrator Rich Serino, FEMA is working with innovators to develop creative solutions for improving disaster response and recovery operations, not just in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy but also for future incidents.

Sandy was a terrible disaster, and full recovery will be long and difficult. But the tech community’s unprecedented response to Sandy was something I could have never anticipated and has left me inspired about the prospects for a new model of response that takes advantage of the shared capacities of federal agencies and the tech community.

If you are a tech company or innovator who has a great idea or is interested in working to improve the way our country responds to disasters, contact disastertech@ostp.gov.

Brian Forde is the Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer for Mobile and Data Innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

(Originally published at Mashable.com)

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This collaboration is a great example of this Administration’s commitment to convening private-sector talent and innovators to work with public servants in order to deliver better results for the American people. The event mobilized innovators from the private sector, nonprofits, artistic organizations, and Federal as well as local government agencies to develop solutions that support and integrate both public and private efforts for disaster relief. It also comes as our Nation prepares for what is usually the peak of Hurricane Season. In fact, the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Irene fell last week, and the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy is approaching.

During the “Data Jam/Think Tank,” we discussed response and recovery challenges with the participants and other Federal leaders, including Patricia Hoffman, Assistant Secretary at the Department of Energy and Dr. Nicole Lurie, Assistant Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services. The participants then broke into subgroups to brainstorm innovative ideas for addressing those challenges, vote on the best ideas, and commit to implementing them.

Below are some of the ideas that were developed throughout the day. In the case of the first two ideas, participants wrote code and created actual working prototypes.

• A real-time communications platform that allows survivors dependent on electricity-powered medical devices to text or call in their needs—such as batteries, medication, or a power generator—and connect those needs with a collaborative transportation network to make real-time deliveries.
• A technical schema that tags all disaster-related information from social media and news sites – enabling municipalities and first responders to better understand all of the invaluable information generated during a disaster and help identify where they can help.
• A Disaster Relief Innovation Vendor Engine (DRIVE) which aggregates pre-approved vendors for disaster-related needs, including transportation, power, housing, and medical supplies, to make it as easy as possible to find scarce local resources.
• A crowdfunding platform for small businesses and others to receive access to capital to help rebuild after a disaster, including a rating system that encourages rebuilding efforts that improve the community.
• Promoting preparedness through talk shows, working closely with celebrities, musicians, and children to raise awareness.
• A “community power-go-round” that, like a merry-go-round, can be pushed to generate electricity and additional power for battery-charged devices including cell phones or a Wi-Fi network to provide community internet access.
• Aggregating crowdsourced imagery taken and shared through social media sites to help identify where trees have fallen, electrical lines have been toppled, and streets have been obstructed.
• A kid-run local radio station used to educate youth about preparedness for a disaster and activated to support relief efforts during a disaster that allows youth to share their experiences.

Before ending the brainstorm, participants committed to taking responsibility for turning these ideas into tangible actions. We will be excited to see how these materialize into impactful projects that will support disaster response and recovery efforts. Our sincere thanks to all of the participants!

Todd Park is Assistant to the President and US Chief Technology Officer. Rich Serino is the Deputy Administrator of FEMA.

(Originally published at WhiteHouse.gov)

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Earlier this week, the President arrived in the Philippines, a country that has been deeply impacted by recent natural disasters. On May 5 and 6, the U.S Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development will build on efforts to utilize innovation for disaster response and recovery efforts internationally by hosting a Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Building TechCamp in the Philippines. Local civil society groups and technologists will roll up their sleeves and join forces to create innovative, low-cost tech-solutions to natural disasters, such as Typhoon Haiyan and the recent 7.2 magnitude earthquake in the Philippines. With support from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the UN World Food Programme, Globe Labs, Open Data Philippines and other partners, these low-cost, easy-to-use technological tools and concepts will help encourage communities to focus on prevention, preparation and resilience.

TechCamp Philippines aims to provide a venue for sharing knowledge regarding Disaster Risk Reduction and Response efforts, and to identify practical actions for collaboration and partnerships. Technologists will discuss topics such as leveraging open data, crowdfunding, and interactive gaming.  In addition, these experts will address ways to effectively engage citizens through social media to solve detailed challenges in tracking relief and aid contributions in a transparent and systematic manner, disseminate early warning information for multiple hazards, and conduct damage and needs assessment.

The TechCamp will be followed by two hackathons, where technologists will work in teams to build practical applications based on the innovative projects/concepts that emerge from the TechCamp.  We look forward to collaborating with our partners in the Philippines on these innovative events.

To date, the U.S. Department of State has hosted more than 30 TechCamps around the globe on topics including: Open Government, Human Trafficking, Environment, Women’s/Youth Empowerment, Social Inclusion, Environment, Education, Crime and Security, and Disaster Response; and has trained more than 2000 organizations (civil society organizations, journalists and governments) from more than 100 countries to use tech-based tools to help them become more effective in accomplishing their goals.

Brian Forde is Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Jamie Findlater is New Media Advisor, Office of eDiplomacy, Department of State

Pritam Kabe is Technology Analyst, Office of eDiplomacy, Department of State

(Originally published at WhiteHouse.gov)

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This event is a follow-up to the preview the President received at his annual Hurricane Season Briefing. At the brief, the President viewed a demonstration of the “Lantern Live” mobile app, designed by Department of Energy Presidential Innovation Fellow Derek Frempong to enable survivors to report and access information on power outages, fallen power lines, and the availability of gas stations with fuel and powered pumps. Other presenters included representatives from the Commonwealth of Virginia and Orange County, Florida, who provided overviews of their mobile apps that assist residents before, during, and after emergencies. These apps help users develop their own emergency plans, receive emergency alerts, and access critical information, including evacuation routes, shelter locations, and ice and water distribution points.

The President recognizes what experience and research have repeatedly shown: citizen/survivors faced with emergencies seek information and take action to help themselves, their neighbors, and their communities to respond to and rebuild from a disaster. Passivity in the face of danger is almost non-existent. Historically,  a large part, if not most of the initial sheltering, feeding, relief, rescue, and transport of victims to hospitals was carried out by survivors in and near the affected area. The Federal Government aims to enable, empower, and strengthen these survivor efforts in the wake of a disaster.

To identify opportunities for the government to utilize technology to support disaster relief efforts, we hosted an all-day “Data Jam/Think Tank” at the White House in August 2013, worked with leading tech startups to find innovative ways their platforms could be leveraged during a disaster, and hired Presidential Innovation Fellows to build crowdsourcing apps. Companies including TaskRabbit, GetAround, and The Weather Channel have made commitments to support survivors and first responders, and we are excited to showcase the tools they have developed at the Demo Day.

If you have a technology that could be highlighted at the event, or if you would like to attend as part of the disaster response community, we encourage you to get involved! Send us a note at disastertech@ostp.gov with information about your work for consideration.

Brian Forde is Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer

Heather King is Director for Preparedness Policy at the National Security Council

Meredith Lee is AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

(Originally published at WhiteHouse.gov)

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First announced by DHS S&T at the White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Demo Day on July 29, the Civic Hardware Hackathon was held in Red Hook, Brooklyn – a neighborhood still rebuilding from the impacts of Hurricane Sandy in October 2012.

From the start, the hackathon organizers shaped the interaction to enable collaboration and to strengthen participants’ insights about end-user needs. After a series of introductory conference calls where civic hackers shared their project goals and challenges, the participants convened Friday morning at the Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation in Red Hook. The hackathon included a Human-Centered Design workshop, a visit to the New York City Office of Emergency Management (NYC OEM), and field testing with volunteer first responders at the Red Hook Initiative (RHI).

The Civic Hardware Hackathon included hands-on workshops, a visit to the New York City Emergency Operations Center, and field testing with volunteer first responders at the Red Hook Initiative Community Center.

Soldering stations were used to prototype sensors and other devices.

A “pop up” classroom built in a shoebox for the hackathon.

A Red Hook Initiative Local Leader and Emergency Medical Technician shares the Civic Ninja “Citizen Power Brigade” prototype with neighbors during the hackathon.

Here are some ways these hardware innovators are working to make American communities more resilient and prepared for disasters:

• The Civic Ninjas team started a new “Citizen Power Brigade” project for this hackathon to transform a hybrid electric vehicle into a clean and fuel-efficient source of mobile emergency power. Their prototype charged up to 100 phones simultaneously, and was demonstrated at over 3 locations in Brooklyn during the hackathon.  In one week with a single tank of gas, one hybrid car can charge 8,400 phones, providing 12 million minutes of talk time for disaster survivors or providing emergency power to run appliances such as refrigerators.
• The RHI Digital Stewards, a group of 19-24 year olds who install, maintain, and promote the Red Hook Initiative community wireless network, worked over the weekend to make their WiFi infrastructure more resilient. The Digital Stewards collaborated with other hackathon participants to prototype solar power stations and new synchronization features.
• The Cascade Designs, Inc. team gathered feedback for their Clean Water STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Education project, aiming to improve hands-on science learning while pre-positioning water treatment devices in schools across the country for disaster preparedness. The water treatment device they shared can generate enough chlorine from table salt and a rechargeable car battery to treat a 55-gallon barrel of water in 5 minutes.
• HeatSeekNYC, a team aiming to tap into the Internet of Things to diagnose problems in heating systems and empower landlords and tenants to keep the heat on responsibly, built off their recent NYC Big Apps and September NY Tech Meetup awards, creating 14 prototype sensors at the hackathon and collaborating with other teams.
• LDLN (pronounced “Landline”), utilized the event to share their off-the-grid communications network that employs Raspberry Pi hubs and an App interface to help disaster relief workers relay their field data without the need for a cell, satellite, or internet connection.  The team’s initial prototype was created last year in the NextDayBetter Typhoon Haiyan Relief Hackathon, and they were able to enhance their project at the Civic Hardware Hackathon by increasing the communication range, building a 3D-printed case, and integrating a GPS auto-locator.
• Eskuwela Now, inspired to get students and families back to their school routines after a disaster, built a “pop up” classroom in a shoebox.  The team created a multi-touch smartboard with a Wii remote, projector, infrared pen, and Raspberry Pi, allowing educators and communities to set up a classroom for 10% of the cost of a typical smartboard.
• ChatPoint brought together off-the-shelf hardware that runs on a battery pack to prototype a WiFi chat base station that pairs with a smartphone app. To increase the communication range to reach several miles, the team looked to use a remote control helicopter backbone.
• The Pedal Power project created a cost-effective, portable means for converting mechanical energy to charge USB devices.  The prototype utilized a hacked drill, IKEA hanger, wood scraps, a circuit board, and duct tape to let event attendees charge their phones with their hands and feet.

In addition to these teams and the event co-hosts, participants included The Rockefeller Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Millennium Challenge Corporation, SparkFun Electronics, littleBits, 3DSystems, Microsoft, DoGoodBus, NYC OEM, RHI, and the American Red Cross.

From off-the-grid messaging using off-the-shelf components, to crowdsourced data and open hardware, the event emphasized community resourcefulness and capabilities that could be sustained under harsh conditions. Robin Reid, Brooklyn resident and hackathon mentor, noted:

“Participants were challenged to question their assumptions and see the big picture impact in addition to putting in the hours to get the hardware to work.”

As Laura McLaughlin from Cascade Designs commented:

“The event brought together creative and open-minded people willing to roll up their sleeves to help, plus compelling real-world challenges – a recipe for collaboration and creativity.”

Coverage of the event can be found by following the hashtag #disastertech on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media outlets.  In addition, The Rockefeller Foundation has sponsored a platform, Feast Connects, to enable continued collaboration. Participants will be able to share ideas, open source code, data, and open hardware designs to allow the community to build on progress made at this year’s event.

Meredith Lee is AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate.

Rafael Lemaitre is Director of Public Affairs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Brian Forde is Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

(originally posted at whitehouse.gov)

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Under Secretary for Science and Technology Dr. Reginald Brothers speaks to technologists, entrepreneurs, and members of the disaster response community at the Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Demo Day in South Court Auditorium, July 29, 2014. (Credit: DHS Science and Technology)

On Tuesday, more than 250 emergency managers, first responders, tech entrepreneurs, and local, state, and Federal officials came to the White House to participate in the Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Demo Day. The event was live-streamed to more than 1,250 people interested in leveraging tech and innovation to improve disaster preparedness, response and recovery.

In the morning, participants attended six workshops to identify challenges where open data, social media, predictive analytics, sharing economy platforms, standards, and user-centered design can be applied to improve disaster preparedness, and disaster response and recovery efforts. Innovation facilitators from the Ideation Community of Practice, the global design firm IDEO, and several federal agencies led the workshop participants in drafting challenge statements — such as,

“The Homeland Security Enterprise of over 3.5 Million first responders and emergency managers must make difficult decisions in the field to safeguard our nation, often triaging multiple streams of information. 

How might we provide ‘Social Media, Unplugged’’ — a means for response organizations to easily and securely extract emerging insights to better inform and coordinate disaster response?”

The challenge statements will continue to be refined over the coming weeks with stakeholder input for inclusion in the upcoming disasters.data.gov site focusing on disaster response and recovery.

Innovators brainstorming challenges where technology can improve disaster response and recovery. (Credit: DHS Science and Technology)

In the afternoon, we heard from 20 different companies and local and Federal departments and agencies about ways they are leveraging technology to improve disaster response and recovery. They made extraordinary commitments and gave excellent demos of how their tools could can be used in communities across America and around the world immediately.  We’re excited that technology companies, agencies and developers have built powerful tools for the community as a result of this initiative.

Examples of highlighted projects stemming from previous White House events and programs included the Appallicious Disaster Assistance and Assessment Dashboard (DAAD) and the Twilio Rapid Response Kit.  We were even more excited to hear about the next step — companies working together to develop shared standards, to unlock data that sits siloed in the vaults of company databases, and to improve the usability of datasets.

Below is a sample of the collective efforts announced at the event:

• TaskRabbit is announcing a new mobile web interface, the TaskRabbit “Needs for First Responders,” which provides a safe and efficient marketplace to connect local service providers with those who need assistance. Using the interface, pre-vetted volunteers called “taskers” can respond in real time to posted requests for help from authorized during a disaster.
• Microsoft added the Yammer survivor network to its disaster-response program’s portfolio of rapidly deployable solutions for use in the wake of a disaster. Yammer’s deployment aims to connect and provide a support network for survivors and responders as they recover and rebuild.
• The Weather Company is building a localized alerting platform that will enable state, local, and private authorities to manage and distribute alerts that will go out via The Weather Channel and existing local distribution points, incorporating National Weather Service and existing Integrated Public Alert and Warning System alerts.
• Twilio open-sourced their Rapid Response Kit for developers to stand up effective communications solutions during an emergency response without any telecommunications expertise.  The kit delivers nine tools, including SMS-powered volunteer signups and flexible push and pull conference calling, that developers can customize.
• Google extended its Crisis Map, an open source and freely available web mapping tool, to include crowd-sourcing capabilities. Users can now contribute information and updates, such as whether a gas station has fuel available, in the wake of a disaster.  In addition, a number of electric utilities and technology companies — including Duke Energy, BGE, ComEd, PECO, SDG&E, Southern California Edison, National Grid, and iFactor Consulting — have agreed to publish power outage and restoration data openly, so Crisis Map and other websites can use and display the information.
• The City of San Francisco and IDEO launched the City72 Toolkit, an open-source, ready-to-use software package to enable communities to customize and build their own preparedness platforms. Johnson County, Kansas is using the toolkit to launch their own JoCo72 today.
• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate, the Feast, and Intel will host a Hardware Hackathon in New York on October 10-11, 2014. The hackathon will bring together hardware-focused innovators to explore what could be created to help make our cities more resilient, and to prototype solutions in a local context in Red Hook, Brooklyn — an area still recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Sandy.
• The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced the forthcoming launch of an HHS “At-Risk Resiliency Interactive Map.”  The open data map will combine the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) real-time weather-tracking capabilities with data on the number of electricity-dependent Medicare beneficiaries at the U.S. territory, state and county levels to identify areas that may be impacted by severe weather and at risk for prolonged power outages. The HHS “At-Risk Resiliency Interactive Map” is under development and anticipated to launch on www.phe.gov in September 2014.
• The International Association of Emergency Managers and the Big City Emergency Managers made commitments to share the tools presented at the event with emergency managers from cities across America and around the world.
• USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and the Department of State’s Humanitarian Information Unit (HIU) announced investments in platforms and tools that promote creation and sharing of open data for emergency managers and disaster vulnerable communities.  USAID unveiled enhancements to the OpenStreetMap (OSM)Tasking Manager — an open source mapping tool designed and built to facilitate open data creation and collaborative mapping for humanitarian assistance and disaster response around the world. This effort was carried out in partnership with the Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT), which acts as a bridge between the traditional Humanitarian Responders and the OpenStreetMap community.  The Department of State highlighted Map Give, an educational campaign that brings people around the world into the OpenStreetMap community by teaching them about the importance of open map data, giving them the skills to map, and helping them get connected with mapping tasks through a user-friendly website.

For a full list of commitments made on the Demo Day in support of this initiative click here and bookmark http://whitehouse.gov/blog for updates. With National Preparedness Month quickly approaching in September, you can learn more about how to contribute to disaster preparedness by visiting www.ready.gov.  We look forward to your continued feedback and encourage organizations to share their progress at disastertech@ostp.gov.

Meredith Lee is AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Heather King is Director for Preparedness Policy at the National Security Council

Brian Forde is Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

(Originally published at WhiteHouse.gov)

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“This is based on the [Microsoft] Bing index, but it’s using algorithms and indices of the federal websites,” said Dave McClure, GSA’s associate administrator in GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, at the Management of Change Conference sponsored by ACT and IAC. “It’s also a learning algorithm, so the more you search the more it determines what you it is you actually are looking for.”

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–Lynn Overmann, Senior Advisor to the U.S. CTO

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Find the Data

To find the data you need:

1. Search the catalog at Data.gov, which includes some local government and universities as well. If you need help searching, here are some tips.
2. More local data can be found for cities, counties, and states.
3. Having trouble finding the data you need? Tweet @usdatagov or contact us.
4. Looking for data beyond the Data.gov catalog? Post a question to the Open Data Stack Exchange.

If you make an app, visualization, map, or activity with open data, post it below.  Best of luck!

Answer a Challenge

Challenges from the U.S. government are available at Challenge.gov.  Specifically for open data, check out:

• Asteroid Detection (NASA)
• Coastal Inundation (NASA)
• Harmful Algal Bloom (Environmental Protection Agency)
• Highway Performance Monitoring System (Federal Highways, Department of Transportation)
• Innovative Access to Education Data (Department of Education)
• Interactive API Explorer (Federal Emergency Management Administration)
• Location Affordability Portal (Housing and Urban Development and Department of Transportation)
• Patent Application Publication Notification System (U.S. Patents and Trade Office)
• Safety Data Challenge (White House Safety Data Initiative at Safety.Data.gov)
• TradeMark Notification System (U.S. Patents and Trade Office)

Looking for Inspiration?

Not sure where to get started? Some suggestions for interesting datasets and APIs, may inspire you…

Highlighted Data

• Consumer Complaints about financial products and services (interactive version)
• Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
• Institute of Museum and Library Services administrative grants
• Location affordability index for housing and transportation
• Museum Universe of all museums in the U.S.
• Public library service of all public libraries in the U.S.
• Newly released datasets–be the first to create something!

APIs

• Department of Labor
• Envirofacts for environmental information
• Federal Register for government notices, rules, and Presidential documents
• National broadband map
• National Renewable Energy Lab for energy data
• Pillbox for drug identification and reference
• Recalls for consumer products
• Regulations.gov for public comments and proposed rules
• USA.gov for government information and services
• An additional 450 APIs from the U.S. Government

Participate in an Event

There are 123 events around the country.  The following are specifically organized around Federal activities:

• Transparency Camp – May 30-31, Arlington, VA
• Northern Virginia and National Science Foundation Hackathon – May 31, Arlington, VA
• We the People, By the People – May 29, White House, Washington DC
• Transportation Datapalooza – June 2-4, Arlington, VA
• Health Datapalooza – June 1-3, Washington DC
• Lean Data Project Development Census Event – May 27, Washington DC

Learn more about how the Federal government supports the National Civic Day of Hacking.

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More…

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More…

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Graphic overview of talks from the Second Annual Safety Datapalooza

Welcome message from Krysta Harden, Deputy Secretary, US Department of Agriculture
Keynote from Gregory Winfree, Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, US Department of Transportation
Bryan Beshore, Founder, Keychain Logistics
Janice Jacobs, Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, US Department of State
Robert Adler, Acting Chairman, US Consumer Product Safety Commission
Seth D. Harris, Deputy Secretary, US Department of Labor
Katherine Champagne, Web Developer, LaborSight.com

Rich Serino, Deputy Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Administration
Dr. Nicole Lurie, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Jackie Kazil, Presidential Innovation Fellow, Federal Emergency Management Administration
Padden Murphy, Public Policy and Market Development, Getaround
Brian Birtwistle, Head of Partnerships and Operation, CrowdTilt
Leah Busque, Founder and CEO, TaskRabbit
Bryson Koehler, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, The Weather Channel

Patricia Hoffman Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy
Derek Frempong, Presidential Innovation Fellow, U.S. Department of Energy
Phil Harris, Chief Executive Officer, Geofeedia
Matt Kochman, Founder, Bustr
Greg Ridgeway, Director, National Institute of Justice, US Department of Justice
Bryan Vila, Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Washington State University
Joel Caplan, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University
Closing Keynote by Todd Park, Assistant to the President and US Chief Technology Officer, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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Watch the National Center for Education Statistics video “Teacher Characteristics.” For the complete data on the characteristics of public school teachers, see Digest of Education Statistics: Chapter 2, “Teachers and Other Staff” subsection.

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President Obama told students and families that helping to ensure their debt is manageable is a priority, and equipping counselors and advisers with the resources they need to help students prepare for higher education and understand college costs is a key component. To meet these goals, the Department has launched a “one-stop shop” for guidance counselors, college advisers, mentors and volunteers to assist students through the process of choosing and financing their higher education.

The Financial Aid Toolkit, available at FinancialAidToolkit.ed.gov, consolidates financial aid resources and content into a searchable online database. That makes it easy for individuals to quickly access the information they need to support students on their path to college, including details on how to apply for financial aid along with presentations, brochures and videos.

By equipping counselors and advisers with financial aid information in an easy-to-use format, we can help to ensure that current and potential students get the assistance they need to successfully navigate the process of planning and paying for a postsecondary education.

Read more on Homeroom Blog

By Martha Kanter, U.S. Under Secretary of Education, and David Soo, Senior Policy Adviser, Office of the Under Secretary

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An example of the information on the Shopping Sheet

So far, nearly 2,000 institutions have committed to providing the Shopping Sheet to their prospective students.  Those institutions represent over 43 percent of, or over 8.1 million, undergraduate students across the United States.

Since institutions started adopting the Shopping Sheet, we’ve received input from students, parents, guidance counselors, and financial aid administrators. The feedback suggests that institutions and students are becoming more familiar with the Shopping Sheet, so the newest edition of the Shopping Sheet includes only modest changes. To improve clarity, ED has identified minor language changes and has added a glossary to better explain financial aid terms.  Additionally, data used to populate college outcomes used on the Shopping Sheet (graduation rate, loan default rate, and median borrowing) have also been updated to be one year more current.

Through the release of college search and transparency tools, such as the College Scorecard, Financial Aid Toolkit, and the Financial Aid Shopping Sheet, the Obama Administration continues to demonstrate its commitment to improving transparency in the college selection process. Institutions interested in adopting the Shopping Sheet may contact the U.S. Department of Education at ShoppingSheet@ed.gov. For more information on the Shopping Sheet, including a list of participating institutions, visit www.ed.gov/financial-aid-shopping-sheet.

View original post on the U.S. Department of Education Homeroom blog

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In August the President outlined an ambitious agenda to combat rising college costs and improve the value of education so students and the nation can achieve our goals of growth, opportunity and economic strength.  He asked the Department of Education to reach out widely as we create a system both to help students and families choose colleges and eventually to reward colleges’ performance on key measures of opportunity and completion that are important to the nation. He also asked us and to honor his “firm principle that [the Administration’s] ratings be carefully designed to increase, not decrease, the opportunities for higher education for students who face economic or other disadvantages.”  –August 22, 2013, Buffalo, NY.

Acting Deputy Secretary of Education Jim Shelton gets feedback during an open forum at Louisiana State University.

So we fanned out across the country to listen. First, we gathered national student organizations, because students are at the heart of this effort to improve education and put it within everyone’s reach. In November, we held four Open Forums in the Los Angeles area at California State University- Dominguez Hills, George Mason University in the Washington, D.C., area, the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We also arranged meetings in Chicago, Boston, Richmond, Las Vegas, and Annapolis, MD, before wrapping up the Fall portion of our outreach earlier this week in Davis, CA.  We gathered a wide range of perspectives from college leaders, students and faculty from all levels and sectors, and from parents, business people, college counselors, education associations, and policy analysts. In all, we held more than 55 meetings with thousands of participants. We also invited comment from the public, and continue to welcome ideas, atcollegefeedback@ed.gov.

What have we learned? It was no surprise that people want the option of college for themselves and their families, that choosing among colleges is hard, and that people worry – a lot — about the cost. Many students and groups that advise low-income students about college responded positively to the plan for ratings that would incorporate measures of college access, affordability and outcomes.

And it was very good to hear, over and over and from all quarters, how many people share the President’s fundamental commitments to affordability, access, completion, innovation and transparency. Here are some of the most enthusiastic and personal comments we heard in support of the plan to develop a college ratings system:

“Parents and students shouldn’t have to guess. We salute the Secretary’s call for a ratings system – nutrition labeling for colleges.” J.B. Schramm, College Summit

“There is an urgency in developing solutions…Perhaps the worst thing we could be doing right now is to do nothing.”  King Alexander, President, Louisiana State University

“We whole-heartedly stand behind a ratings system…It would encourage institutions to start innovating and create more effective practices to get their students through the pipeline.” Allison De Lucca, Southern California College Access Network

“The Administration is right to demand results, not rhetoric, and metrics for accountability.” American Council of Trustees and Alumni

At the same time, we heard many probing questions, thoughtful suggestions, and serious concerns about the design of the system, its reliability and clarity, and the effects it might have. They were glad to hear that colleges will be grouped by mission or other criteria to generate reasonable peer groups; that the system is envisioned to generate broad performance categories, not rank-ordered lists; and that we want to give weight to whether schools are improving. Stakeholders said they appreciate the Department seeking advice before designing the system, but not having a specific proposal they could react to led to speculation and some concern.

We received many comments that recognize the challenges the Department faces in shaping a successful ratings system.  We were encouraged to consider a range of issues, including:

• Promoting access, not endangering it: In recognizing schools that do a good job of providing access and achieving strong completion results, it will be important to avoid what many called “unintended consequences,” such as creating incentives to not accept high-risk students or to push students to less-demanding programs.
• Outcomes measures: We were encouraged to consider a broad view of outcomes that go beyond degree completion to include successful transfer, completion of occupational certificates, and persistence, as well as to choose metrics relating to employment and income after college very carefully.
• Intangible outcomes of education: A ratings system is not expected to capture all of the significant benefits of a college education, including academic success and capacities for civic engagement, critical thinking and problem solving, and lifelong learning.  We were urged to make very clear that college contributes to the success of our democracy, on the broad level, and to individuals’ quality of life and ability to participate in civic life on the personal level.
• Institutional comparisons: Many comments noted the complexity of designing meaningful peer groups, especially given the variety of colleges and the fact that students with choices often compare colleges across categories, such as by location or program.
• State role: Recognizing that about 75% of students attend public institutions of higher education, many comments reflected the common pattern of diminishing state investment in colleges and universities so that students and the federal government are shouldering more of the cost. Institutions and students asked whether it would be possible to reflect variations in state support so that colleges and results could be compared in light of those differentials. Others noted that the ratings system could be a useful tool for state policymakers, as well as college leaders.
• Consumer accessibility: The effectiveness of a new rating system depends on whether the data and interface are friendly and easy to use for all families. The Department plans to test the system with consumers, colleges and other stakeholders to assure that the presentations are fair and appropriate and tell a clear and useful story.

The Department is now evaluating all the comments we received, while working with data experts, soliciting technical recommendations, and assessing existing ratings systems in higher education and other fields. Our goal is to publish a draft of the ratings system in mid-2014 for public feedback and improvement. The President has charged us to issue the ratings in time for students and others to use it for the 2015-16 school year.

We continue to look forward to receiving your comments, particularly those which both pose a question and focus on a specific recommendation to address the issue. Secretary Duncan has urged stakeholders to be candid and constructive. We understand the concerns we have heard and recognize the challenge of developing a system that is helpful to students and their families and not harmful to quality institutions and our diverse higher education sector. With continued constructive feedback and collaboration, we can produce a more useful, smarter system that promotes opportunity and individual and national goals through informed higher education choices.

Jamienne Studley is Deputy Under Secretary of Education.

View original post on Homeroom, the official blog of the U.S. Department of Education

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The My Brother’s Keeper Data Jam brought together a diverse group of high school students, teachers, data scientists, data visualization experts, developers and community and non-profit leaders. The aim was to find new and better ways to use data to highlight opportunities and create solutions that can improve life outcomes for all students, including boys and young men of color. It was a powerful day.

A group of young men started us off with compelling spoken word performances that reminded all in attendance of the incredible challenges they face and enormous potential they hold. While acknowledging the role they had to play in changing the narrative of their own lives, they made plain the real danger and risks they face each day and expressed frustration in having to overcome the negative stereotypes that are applied to them and their peers.

The attendees then broke into teams focused on the six universal goals outlined in theMy Brother’s Keeper 90 Day Task Force Report– entering school ready to learn; reading at grade level by third grade; graduating from high school ready for college and career; completing post-secondary education or training; successfully entering the workforce; and reducing violence and providing a second chance. The teams were designed to capitalize on the range of perspectives and expertise among the participants. The student and teacher team members almost uniformly commented that they had never before been engaged in developing or even asked about tools and resources that impact their daily lives.

Nearly 20 teams worked through the day on crafting compelling ways to show data and creative solutions to chronic challenges – ranging from strategies to reduce preschool suspensions and expulsions to websites that enable students to find career paths and the required education or training to access them. At the end of the day, seven teams were voted by other participants as having the most promising ideas, and those teams committed to moving these and other ideas forward.

We are excited about the ideas that emerged and anxiously await seeing these ideas in action. We are even more excited about the lessons learned from the day and how they will improve future Data Jams that I am sure other colleges and universities will be clamoring to host. But we are most excited by the demonstration of commitment and unbelievable energy of the individuals and teams that participated. With no cash prizes or press coverage, these people leaned in and showed a big part of what My Brother’s Keeper is all about – people coming together to help our young people and the country. The Data Jam simply applied a little technology and innovation to that simple but profound concept and left many of us feeling inspired.

Yet, nothing was as inspiring to me as the time I had during lunch with the youth in attendance. They asked how I got where I am; how I avoided and dealt with the violence in my neighborhood; how best to survive and excel on campuses where they, for the first time, might come across few people with similar backgrounds and experiences; and many other questions about life as they know it and imagine it. They shared their stories of struggle and triumph as well as their plans for the future and the impact they plan to have on the world. Their questions and their stories reminded me, as one young man said in the morning session, they are “overcoming every day.” So if we create ladders of opportunity, they are more than willing to climb. And, that, too, is a big part of what My Brother’s Keeper is all about.

The My Brother’s Keeper initiative is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach led by an interagency federal task force to build ladders of opportunity and unlock the full potential of our young people, including boys and young men of color. Learn more about My Brother’s Keeper.

The Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation at Georgetown University exists to inspire and prepare students, faculty and global leaders with the necessary skills to generate and innovate solution-based social change both locally and internationally. It will promote collaborative spaces for fostering innovation and provide experiential opportunities to pragmatically impact the social sector. Learn more about the Beeck Center.

This blog post originally appeared on the U.S. Department of Education Homeroom Blog.

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Ed Games Week wrapped up with a 48-hour Education Game Jam that brought together over one hundred veteran and independent game developers, teachers, and students. (Photo credit: U.S. Department of Education)

Games and play are a central part of childhood and can stimulate creativity and learning. As technology grows as a tool for teachers, one question has been: what role might educational video games play in the classroom?

Today, increasing numbers of teachers are incorporating games to supplement and enrich classroom instruction. In addition, students of all ages are developing their own games, as showcased in competitions and hackathons in communities across the country.

Ed Games Week brought the discussion on educational games to Washington, D.C. The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the U.S. Department of Education (ED) collaboratively planned a series of events including the Ed Games Expo, the Ed Games Workshop, and the White House Education Game Jam.

The Ed Games Expo

The Ed Games Expo showcased 25 newly developed learning games developed with funding from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs at ED’s Institute of Education Sciences (ED/IES SBIR) and other federal programs. More than 150 attendees met face-to-face with the developers and played games that covered a range of topics – from STEM, history, and foreign languages – and used a wide variety of genres for gameplay. For example:

• Addimal Adventure challenges children to solve mathematical equations with support of friendly characters.
• Zoo U helps grade school students navigate a series of challenging social situations.
• Reach for the Sun encourages deep understanding of photosynthesis as students grow a virtual sunflower from seed to full plant.

For more, check out the Office of Educational Technology YouTube channel:

Ed Games Workshop

The Ed Games Workshop brought together the Expo game developers and a team of federal experts. Workshop collaborators strategized exciting possibilities to create regional, national, or even international STEM game competitions featuring games that motivate as well as teach, such as through an X-Prize model. For more, see this article on the Clinton Foundation blog.

The White House Education Game Jam

Ed Games Week wrapped up with a 48-hour Education Game Jam that brought together over one hundred veteran and independent game developers, teachers, and students with the goal of creating educational games that make challenging K-12 topics easier for students to learn and for teachers to teach. Organized by the White House and Department of Education, developers were challenged to develop playable prototypes during the event. On Monday, Sept. 8, Game Jam participants presented videos of their games and demonstrated the prototypes at the White House. Twenty-three educational games were developed over the weekend including:

• Grub Run, a health and fitness game by Team Pixelopus
• President of the Galaxy, a game about the dynamics of U.S. presidential elections by Team 1^st Playable
• Land Grab, a game highlighting a conceptual social behavioral model called the tragedy of the commons, by Team Filamentarians

You can find videos of all the game prototypes on the Office of Educational Technology YouTube channel:

Ed Metz is a developmental psychologist and the Program Manager for the Small Business Innovation Research Program at the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

Russell Shilling is an experimental psychologist and the Executive Director of STEM Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Education.

Mark DeLoura is Senior Advisor for Digital Media at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

This blog post originally appeared on the U.S. Department of Education Homeroom Blog.

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Through openFDA, developers and researchers will have easy access to high-value FDA public data through RESTful APIs and structured file downloads. In short, our goal is to make it simple for an application, mobile, or web developer, or all stripes of researchers, to use data from FDA in their work. We’ve done an extensive amount of research both internally and with potential external developers to identify which datasets are both in demand and have a high barrier of entry. As a result, our initial pilot project will cover a number of datasets from various areas within FDA, defined into three broad focus areas: Adverse Events, Product Recalls, and Product Labeling. These API’s won’t have one-on-one matching to FDA’s internal data organizational structure; rather, we intend to abstract on top of a myriad of datasets and provide appropriate metadata and identifiers when possible. Of course, we’ll always make the raw source data available for people who prefer to work that way (and it’s good to mention that we also will not be releasing any data that could potentially be used to identify individuals or other private information).

The openFDA initiative is one part of the larger Office of Informatics and Technology Innovation roadmap. As part of my role as FDA’s Chief Health Informatics Officer, I’m working to lead efforts to move FDA in to a cutting edge technology organization. You’ll be hearing more about our other initiatives, including Cloud Computing, High Performance Computing, Next Generation Sequencing, and mobile-first deployment in the near future.

As we work towards a release of openFDA we’ll begin to share more about our work and how you can get involved. In the meantime, I suggest you sign up for our listserv (on our home page) to get the latest updates on the project. You can also reach our team at open@fda.hhs.gov if there is a unique partnership opportunity or other collaboration you wish to discuss.

Dr. Taha Kass-Hout is the Chief Health Informatics Officer of FDA

taha@fda.hhs.gov | @DrTaha_FDA

The post Introducing OpenFDA from the Food and Drug Administration appeared first on Data.gov.

Last week, the Obama Administration focused on a specific climate risk – the risk to the food supply – and the ways data could be used to help increase “food resilience.” The goal is to make data, computational power, and analytic tools available to help food producers, distributors, and inspectors keep the food supply reliable and robust.

As part of that effort, last Friday the GovLab and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) co-hosted an Open Data Roundtable on food resilience to bring together government officials, companies, and nonprofits to improve the use of data on climate and agriculture. Like the Roundtable we hosted with the White House and the Department of Commerce in June, this event was designed to promote a dialogue between government agencies that supply data and the companies and organizations that use it. The ultimate goal of all our Roundtables is to make open government data more relevant, accessible, and actionable.

While it may be a few weeks before all the suggestions from last Friday’s Open Data Roundtable at USDA are compiled into a report, companies and USDA officials came away with a better understanding of how public data is gathered, disseminated and processed by users.  The meeting was part of a series of discussions initiated by USDA.  Undersecretary and Chief Scientist Cathie Woteki, Deputy Undersecretary Ann Bartuska and Chief Information Officer (CIO) Cheryl Cook listened to and participated in discussions aimed at making it easier for crop, weather, soil and other information gathered by USDA to be provided to those who need it, here in America and abroad.

Some of the recommendations made by the group during two breakout sessions:

• Things change, so develop an ongoing dialogue between users and providers of the data. Reach out to users (customers) to determine what they value and what they use.
• Standardize data across sets so that, for example, the definition of something as simple as “corn” is universal.
• Develop a better system to enable a searcher to get what he or she wants without having to sort through reams of data first.
• Have a “crosscut” system to keep users from having to go to multiple agencies or places for portions of the data they need.  Provide “one stop” service.
• Provide better service to those who request information under the Freedom of Information Act.
• Standardize tables to make it easier for business to convert raw data into information it needs.
• Create a “data concierge” to assist users, improve the search function of @data.gov.
• Set long terms improvement goals and develop a roadmap to get there.  Improve geospatial data and make it the “highest quality possible.”
• Build an app that provides a “real time” data alert system, which could also be employed by USDA and other government departments to share information with the public during times of crisis or disaster.
• Leverage data that is already available, such as drought monitoring and let it be used for expanded purposes, such as predictive analysis to drive efficiencies and insight to create a smarter “AgriBusiness”.

The White House recognized the value of the Open Data Roundtables in the U.S. Open Data Action Plan, released on May 9, 2014, which described the Roundtables as helping to “support innovators and improve open data based on feedback.” The Plan notes that “Specific, actionable feedback from these sessions [the Roundtables] and others has the potential to improve descriptions, formats, and accessibility of government data.”

At the conclusion of the meeting, Dr. Woteki pledged to continue her effort to provide more, free access to USDA’s scholarship and data.  She noted that these efforts build on an Open Data event spearheaded by the G-8 countries at the World Bank over a year ago, and continued this week as African leaders from many nations came to Washington to discuss agricultural and other issues.  “Agriculture has a growing role in open data implementation, because we face a growing challenge to produce more food for more people, and to provide the services they expect,” said Dr. Woteki. “The only way to achieve this is through collaborative work, innovation sharing, and research.”  USDA CIO Cook talked about how data was crucial to her previous jobs with the State of Pennsylvania, then as a Federal official in the Clinton and Obama administrations.  “As someone who has been a data producer and a data user,” said Cook, “I understand the need to consolidate data so it can be used for multiple purposes to help our clients achieve their goals. We support public-private partnerships, open data and the need to know who is using our data and how, so we can serve them better.”

Originally posted at USDA.gov.

The post Participants in Open Data Roundtables Guide USDA on Ways to Provide High Quality Data to Users appeared first on Data.gov.

Water column sonar data are collected on NOAA fishery survey vessels and academic and international fleets, and are used to assess the physical and biological characteristics of the ocean. Primary uses include 3-D mapping of fish schools and other mid-water marine organisms, assessing biological abundance, species identification, and habitat characterization. These data are also useful for evaluating underwater gas seeps, remotely monitoring undersea oil spills, and bathymetry.

NGDC is working with scientists at NMFS and the Joint Hydrographic Center to ensure the long-term preservation and world-wide dissemination of these data.

The post Water Column Sonar Data Collection appeared first on Data.gov.

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See this data in action at:

The Weather Channel broadcasts weather forecasts and weather-related news over their cable channel and web properties.

Climate Corporation offers weather insurance that helps farmers protect their potential profits against bad weather that can cause yield shortfalls.

The post Weather Service Data appeared first on Data.gov.

Each facility has its own set of use policies, so a contact person is included in the data wherever possible. For example, some entrepreneurs may be able to access NASA’s National Center for Advanced Manufacturing to produce the high-strength, defect-free joints required for cutting-edge aeronautics, and DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for collaborative projects in additive manufacturing, composites and carbon fiber, and other leading clean energy technologies.

The Obama Administration is issuing a call to action for the developer community and other stakeholders to leverage these open data resources to build tools that will enhance the ability of innovators, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers to better utilize Federal R&D facilities and other resources.

Over time, Research.Data.gov will expand to include more comprehensive data on other important R&D assets, including federally funded intellectual property (IP). Moreover, as part of the President’s Management Agenda and Lab-to-Market initiative, the Administration will continue to accelerate and improve the transfer of new technologies from the laboratory to the commercial marketplace, including by reducing the time, cost, and complexity of licensing Federal IP and utilizing Federal R&D facilities, where appropriate and consistent with agency mission.

In the coming months, we will continue to convene the university and industry communities to work together on lowering the cost of innovation for manufacturing and other capital-intensive industries, accelerating R&D commercialization, and fueling economic growth.

Tell us what you’re building by leaving a note in the comments below, or by tweeting @usdatagov and @WhiteHouseOSTP.

Federal R&D Facilities Data:

• Department of Energy (DOE)
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)

The post Federal R&D Facilities: Open for Collaboration appeared first on Data.gov.

–Doug Rand, Assistant Director of Entrepreneurship in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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The Inventory is available as a searchable website and a JSON file.  It contains descriptions about the data the Department collected as part of program and grant activities as well as statistical data collections.

Read more on Homeroom Blog

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Presenter(s): Mimi D’Iorio (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration), Laura McKay (Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program),
Nick Meade (Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program), Jeanne Herb (Rutgers
University)

Description: Understanding human uses of the ocean is essential to successful marine
planning. Unfortunately, spatial data on ocean uses are often limited and
difficult to capture consistently over large areas. Participatory
geographic information system (PGIS) processes provide interactive ways to
capture local knowledge and ocean use patterns through specialized GIS
mapping tools. NOAA has been working with partners all over the country to
apply this method at local and regional scales. This webinar will be a
panel discussion with NOAA and its partners in the mid-Atlantic region
focused on the process, data, and lessons learned.

In this webinar, participants will:

– Learn about the NOAA PGIS method for capturing ocean use data and
where it has been applied;
– Hear insights from the mid-Atlantic team that has taken the process
from one state to the entire region for marine planning applications; and
– Gain a better understanding about the data, products, and often
unexpected outcomes of PGIS projects.

Registration Link

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Wednesday, June 4, 2014

2:00 – 3:00pm EST

Presenter(s): Jeff Adkins and Linwood Pendleton

A lot of people’s livelihoods depend on the resources of the oceans and Great Lakes. Economics: National Ocean Watch (ENOW) is the only nationally consistent data set that is focused on monitoring the ocean and Great Lakes economy. These time-series data report the establishments, employment, wages, and gross domestic product for six ocean-dependent sectors. ENOW provides data for about 400 counties, 30 coastal states, 8 regions, and the nation. This webinar will be an interactive dialogue between Duke University Nicholas Institute scholar Linwood Pendleton and NOAA economist Jeff Adkins. They will be sharing highlights and data development methods, related international efforts, and ways in which the data can be used to improve coastal and ocean management.

In this webinar, participants will:

• Get an overview of ENOW data and methods
• Understand the value of the U.S. ocean and Great Lakes economy
• Learn how to apply data for coastal and ocean management

Registration Link – LINK

The post Webinar: “Monitoring the US Ocean and Great Lakes Economy” appeared first on Data.gov.

The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) is a unique, 20-digit identifier, like a bar code, that will make it possible to identify all the legal entities involved in the thousands of financial transactions that happen around the world every day — and that’s good news for developers in the field of financial technology.

We expect the LEI to allow financial technology developers to delve into industry sector analysis, especially in the nonbank financial sector. Using the LEI, they also will be able to write applications that analyze connections and linkages between companies and datasets.

The LEI will allow the precise identification of financial institutions, which can sometimes have similar names. The LEI also should significantly reduce the burden and cost of cross-referencing data by becoming the key for linking financial datasets to one another.

In addition, this tool will allow developers to build data quality applications for reference data, which is basic information about legal entities.

In the future, the LEI is expected to enable developers to build applications that track the complex hierarchies and networks of ownership, and control of corporations and holding companies.

It sounds revolutionary, but essentially the LEI is nothing more than a static code of letters and numbers connected to basic information describing a company. Think of the LEI as a bar code identifier for entities that engage in financial market transactions.

Financial companies and information technology professionals worldwide have been attempting to develop a standard identification system for financial market participants for about a decade. But reaching consensus on such a huge undertaking was difficult.

The financial crisis showed industry and regulators the value of a global identifier system for risk management and regulatory oversight, and created an urgency to establish the LEI system.

Now the LEI is being adopted on a global scale. For example, its use is now required in swap data reporting, which is benefitting the public by supporting financial stability. Globally, a dozen early-stage registrars have issued more than 220,000 LEIs in 173 countries. In addition, the Global LEI Foundation recently nominated 16 directors, which is key to governance for the system.

Because the LEI is free, open source, and has no intellectual property restrictions, we anticipate financial technology developers to find it an excellent resource. The LEI is already having an effect in the marketplace. Some major information and data vendors already are beginning to incorporate LEI in their products.

Two helpful websites to search for LEI data include www.openleis.com and www.p-lei.org.
The technical specifications for the LEI are in ISO Standard 17442 (www.iso.org). To find the technical specifications for the overall global LEI system check the Regulatory Oversight Committee website at www.leiroc.org.

For more information about the LEI, see the LEI Primer by the Office of Financial Research (OFR) in the U.S. Treasury Department.

The post The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) Is Good News for Financial Technology Developers appeared first on Data.gov.

Monday, June 2, 2014, 3 to 4p.m. Eastern

Presenters: Daniel Martin, NOAA Coastal Services Center; Stephen Creed,
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management; Kyle Ward, NOAA Office of Coast Survey;
Andrea Dransfield, Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary

Vessel traffic data, or Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, are
collected by the U.S. Coast Guard through an onboard navigation safety
device that transmits and monitors the location and characteristics of
large vessels in real time. The MarineCadastre.gov project team has worked
with the Coast Guard and NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey to repurpose and
make available some of the most important data for use in ocean planning
applications. This webinar will provide an overview of the data available
and examples of how the MarineCadastre.gov AIS data are being used,
including scoping wind planning areas, evaluating ship anchorage areas, and
analyzing changes to shipping lanes through a national marine sanctuary.

In this webinar, participants will

• Learn about the variety of vessel-tracking data products and tools and how to access them via MarineCadastre.gov
• Gain a better understanding of how the products can be applied to a range of ocean-planning applications

Registration Link:
http://noaacsc.adobeconnect.com/june022014/event/registration.html

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Enter the Federal Government.
Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/08/government-data/#rKFtdsJGvTj9OV42.99 

The post Can the government solve Silicon Valley’s identity crisis with open data? | VentureBeat appeared first on Data.gov.

The Office of Management and Budget marked the one-year anniversary of the Digital Government Strategy Thursday by expanding the range of ways agencies can implement smartphones, tablet computers and mobile apps.

“It’s been quite a year of innovation and embracing technology to drive innovation to help the economy and make a more efficient, effective and accountable government,” said Steve VanRoekel, the federal chief information officer, yesterday during a briefing with reporters.

VanRoekel said he hopes the new tools and guidance will be a “big, giant innovation permission slip” for every agency.

The post New mobile tools gives agencies ‘giant innovation permission slip’ |Federal News Radio| appeared first on Data.gov.

Now, we may see even more life-changing technologies as a result of open government data. Last week, the White House released an executive order that makes “open and machine readable” the new default for the release of government information. Although people who care about open data were generally quite excited, the news barely made an impression on the general public. But it should: This is perhaps the biggest step forward to date in making government data—that information your tax dollars pay for—accessible for citizens, entrepreneurs, politicians, and others.

The post The Best Thing Obama’s Done This Month | Slate appeared first on Data.gov.

The post Transparency train keeps rolling with President’s open data executive order | California Forward appeared first on Data.gov.

The post Chopra Reflects on Year of Open Gov—ExecutiveGov Blog appeared first on Data.gov.

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The post Data.gov in crisis: the open data movement is bigger than just one site—The Guardian Blog appeared first on Data.gov.

The post Open Letter: Congress Must Protect Transparency Programs in Budget Negotiations—SunLight Foundation via Targeted News Service appeared first on Data.gov.

The post Data 2.0 Coming Next Week as Data.gov Future Uncertain—Programmable Web Blog appeared first on Data.gov.

The post Beth Noveck testifies in Canada on the power of Open Government—Gov in the Lab Blog appeared first on Data.gov.

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The post IDC: Open government, mobile and ‘smart’ technologies will change federal IT in 2011—Fierce Govt IT appeared first on Data.gov.

The post A Year of Open Government Data: Transparency, but also Innovation—Nodalities Blog appeared first on Data.gov.

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Jeffrey Zients, the chief performance officer and the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, described the planned site to the panel, and also described other initiatives the administration has undertaken to improve the government’s performance.

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The committee’s ranking member, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D.-Md.), introduced the Transparency and Openness in Government Act (H. R. 1144), which would combine the Presidential Records Act Amendments, Electronic Message Preservation Act, Government Accountability Office Improvement Act, Presidential Library Donation Reform Act and Federal Advisory Committee Act Amendments into one bill, Federal News Radio reported.

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When you go to our Raw Data Catalog, in the left column you’ll see a list of agencies, all of whom have provided datasets for your use. From the Broadcasting Board of Governors to the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel, these U.S. Government Executive Branch agencies offer a wealth of broad-based data. Find the 171 participating agencies here.

To make these datasets available to you, Data.gov reaches out to access points the agencies provide. Even after the dataset has been input and approved for national security and quality, the agency retains responsibility for and control of the dataset.

Of course, regardless of where it’s hosted, the most important place for the data is in your hands to use to make daily life easier and better by educating people, creating jobs and enhancing government accountability.

Sally Ruth Bourrie of Phase One Consulting Group supports Outreach and Communications at Data.gov.

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While Data.gov lists its holdings at almost 400,000 datasets, the fact is, Data.gov is the link to millions of public datasets.

Many Federal agencies post their data collections on Data.gov as single entities. In addition, Data.gov is host to tools, widgets and gadgets that each accesses thousands of datasets.

These collections run the gamut of topics. For example:

•  2011 Code of Federal Regulations in XML. It’s not surprising that the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the Federal agencies would reach 100 MB in size.
• Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office (GLO)  Records System. About 10 million records. The GLO holds U.S. land title information images, including patent images, survey plats, field notes and master title plats.
• EPA Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) Exporter Data. ECHO shares data related to water, air, waste, and drinking water regulations, along with information on facilities violating the Clean Water Act and tools that compare water quality trends and generate interactive maps that link to state dashboards.
• Farmers Market Geographic Data. Longitude and latitude, state, address, name, and zip code of nearly 8,000 Farmers Markets in the United States.
• Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) Database. Records of more than 1,000 government advisory committees from 1972 to the present.
• NASA Image Exchange (NIX). A collection of more than 500,000 multimedia records from NASA’s missions and projects.
• Patent Grant Bibliographic Text (1976-present). With 4,000 patents being issued each week, this database contains about 10 million records. Like many agencies, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is a wealth of data. We’ve also got the Patent Classification Files since 1790.

Data.gov is not about the numbers but the quality of our holdings. Still, it’s important to realize that a vast storehouse of data can be found behind just one little click.

Sally Ruth Bourrie of Phase One Consulting Group supports Outreach and Communications at Data.gov.

The post One Click and We’ll Give You Millions appeared first on Data.gov.

In the next few weeks, you’re going to be hearing a lot about APIs, and unless you’re some kind of techie or datahead, you’re probably wondering what they are and why you should care.

Here’s why: because our daily lives have been made infinitely easier thanks to these Application Programming Interfaces.

In functional terms, an API is a doorway that works silently in the background to, for example, make a piece of software do many more things than it otherwise could accomplish. From a data perspective, an API opens up a dataset for broader usage. APIs don’t talk to people; instead, they allow software and data to speak directly to each other.

At Data.gov, we are primarily interested, of course, in how APIs help public data to be as useful as possible. A great example of government APIs are those belonging to the National Weather Service. The National Weather Service owns mountains of real-time data that ultimately help us to prepare for future weather. Without APIs – doorways to the data – forecasters and developers wouldn’t have the same easy access to timely information. Instead, with these interfaces they can translate the data into information that is meaningful to the general public.

What does this mean for Data.gov? The Federal Government is launching a focus on APIs to help public data become more and more useful.  We’ll be talking more about APIs on this site and showcasing the apps that result from these open doorways.

So when you hear, “There’s an app for that,” remember that there’s an API – and maybe more than one – behind it.

Learn more about APIs here.

Sally Ruth Bourrie of Phase One Consulting Group supports Outreach and Communications at Data.gov.

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Todd Park, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, speaks at the first annual White House Safety Datapalooza. The event was organized by the White House Office of Public Engagement, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Department of Transportation

In our Safety Community, you’ll find a new page showcasing the talks on the featured apps selected last fall during the White House Safety Datapalooza. We’ve posted these apps to inspire you to create – and use – apps that draw from the free public data on Data.gov.

In addition to building and using apps on your own, we also want to introduce you to a new section of Data.gov, which will keep you notified of datapaloozas and data jams that are on the horizon.  Visit our Communities page and you’ll see Upcoming Events. You’ll also find an Events button. Click on that button and you can browse the calendar and see what’s coming up.

Here are some events to put on your radar screen:

Big Data Conference, March 5–6, 2013

International Space Apps Challenge, April 20–21

Health Datapalooza IV, June 3–4

Looking forward to your participation!

Sally Ruth Bourrie supports Outreach and Communications for Data.gov.

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You may have noticed that census.gov has been undergoing some modest changes since December.  Based on customer research and feedback we collected and analyzed over time, we heard loud and clear that both search and navigation of our site could be much better.  Visitors to census.gov shouldn’t have to work so hard to find the information and statistics they’re looking for to complete their research, personal projects or business needs.

I’m happy to say that we are well underway with our transformation, and that we’re in the midst of beginning to roll out some big changes in the coming months.  I hope to use this blog as a place to regularly update our Census Bureau customers on those changes, but also to create an ongoing dialogue to solicit feedback and suggestions on how to improve the site.  Each post will focus on a particular subject and area of improvement, including things like search, navigation, data visualization, APIs, new data access tools and even mobile apps.

Tomorrow, the Census Bureau will be launching its first-ever public API for developers, and in early August, our first mobile app – America’s Economy.  Both are big steps for the Census Bureau, because they acknowledge that our users are not only changing how they want our statistics, they’re changing how they access them.

The API serves up both 2010 Census and American Community Survey statistics for every neighborhood in the US, and delivers on our commitment to create a platform for innovation by “opening up our data”.  This information-centric approach is outlined in the recently released Federal Digital Strategy, and promises to be the new default for all public data – users of all varieties will benefit by creating new ways and tools to explore the data they want to, rather than the government restricting its use through PDFs and impossible to download formats.  We’ve already gotten lots of comments during our initial beta-version phase over the last 2 months, but feel free to keep them coming following our public launch of the census API.

America’s Economy (Figure 1) will let economists, planners and policy makers have greater access to key indicators about the health of the U.S. economy via their mobile devices.  This customer-centric approach combines numbers from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics to create a better view of our constantly changing economy and markets.  The app will be available for both Android and IOS smart phone and tablet users.  Two additional apps will be launched later in the Fall, but I’ll save those details for a future post.

We are looking to create a contest or a hack-a-thon to bring users and developers together in one room to design apps we have not even thought of.  In the interim, ask yourself what types of applications you would like to see developers work on.

The point is, while we are genuinely excited about some of the changes we’re making to census.gov, they’re all meaningless if they don’t meet the needs of our users.  We greatly appreciate and encourage your feedback at cnmp.web.comments.list@census.gov, and hope to construct a new census.gov site worthy of your daily interest and explorations.

You can also follow us on Twitter @uscensusbureau for the latest updates, news and statistics about our changing nation’s people, places and economy.

This blog was written by Stephen Buckner, Stephen Buckner, Center for New Media and Promotions, U.S. Census Bureau, and originally appeared on Random Samplings, the official blog of the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Federal Datasets

Population Information – Census
The U.S. Census Bureau provides DataFerrett, which is a unique data analysis and extraction tool-with recoding capabilities-to customize federal, state, and local data to suit your requirements. (FERRETT stands for Federated Electronic Research, Review, Extraction, and Tabulation Tool.) Using DataFerrett, you can develop an unlimited array of customized spreadsheets that are as versatile and complex as your usage demands.

The National Map
Use The National Map Viewer and Download Platform to visualize, inspect, and download our most current topographic base map data and products for free. Managed by the USGS National Geospatial Program (NGP), The National Map Viewer provides access to all eight primary data themes of The National Map.

Travel Habits – National Household Travel Survey
The NHTS is the authoritative source of national data on the travel behavior of the American public. The dataset allows analysis of daily travel by all modes, including characteristics of the people traveling, their household, and their vehicles.

Non-Federal Datasets

City of Chicago Public Safety Data
The City of Chicago Open Data Portal provides access to a wide variety of public data, including public safety data.

Maryland StateStat – Violent Crime
A dashboard developed by the State of Maryland to measure progress against the goal of reducing violent crime. The dashboard provides access to resources and the underlying data used to measure progress.

North Carolina Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Data Tool
Use this online database to learn about North Carolina police reported bicycle and pedestrian crashes. Information for almost 40,000 bicycle and pedestrian crashes with motor vehicles in North Carolina has been compiled to create an interactive database. You can look for standard data tables for certain years or geographic areas, or create your own using our online query tool.

Wisconsin Community Maps
Community Maps provides Wisconsin’s local law enforcement and Traffic Safety Commissions with an online interface for visualizing and mapping crash data. Fatal crash locations are mapped from 2001 to the present, using FARS- or locally-mapped coordinates.

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The debut of HealthData.gov has provided an exciting new way for innovators and entrepreneurs to access and utilize federal health related datasets.  We are extremely excited to see other organizations follow suit and put health data resources online.  We are thrilled to see the launch of the Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx).  Here is an introductory post about GHDx from Peter Speyer, director of data development at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Global Health Data Exchange launches today

By: Peter Speyer, IHME

Launching today, the Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) is a new data catalog for demographic, public health and global health data. It was developed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. The GHDx is our user-friendly and searchable data catalog for global health, demographic, and other health-related datasets. It provides detailed information about datasets ranging from censuses and surveys to health records and vital statistics, globally. The GHDx features powerful search tools and multiple ways to browse global health data. It also serves as a platform for data owners to share their data with the public. All of IHME’s search results are available on the platform, and IHME invites others to distribute their data through the GHDx. As a launch partner, the CDC’s Reproductive Health Unit is making the microdata from their Reproductive Health Survey series available for download on the GHDx.

Working with large amounts of health data, we at IHME know how difficult it is to identify, find, and get access to health-related data. We were very excited about the launch of HealthData.gov with information about and direct access to U.S. Government health data. We are using U.S. Government data ranging from surveys like BRFSS and NHANES to HCUP databases and USAID-funded international research, and we will be active participants in HealthData.gov’s community. With the GHDx, we are creating a platform that provides transparency and (increasingly) access to health-related data in a global context. Both platforms are good examples of the current trend toward open data. Health-related data, used as evidence for policy and decision-making, can have a tremendous impact on the health of people and populations, if they are made broadly available. In that context, HealthData.gov and the GHDx are complementary (and complimentary) offerings. Let us know how they are helpful for you, and how we can further improve them.

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Not everything that goes viral improves health…  but here at Health 2.0, we’re excited about one thing that will.  The newest addition to the Health 2.0 Developer Challenge portfolio is the Go Viral to Improve Health: IOM-NAE Health Data Collegiate Challenge. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) are sponsoring this challenge for college and university teams.

The Go Viral Collegiate Challenge is looking for college and university students to self-organize into multidisciplinary teams (engineering and medical students for example) and identify a significant health problem facing their local communities, on or off campus.  Teams must then create a web or mobile app to increase awareness and inspire positive action to address that issue.  IOM and NAE are looking for solutions that leverage social networks so educational messages can be communicated quickly across a large community and so that positive actions by individuals can influence others to take similar steps – hence the name Go Viral!

We’re particularly excited to see how these apps will incorporate health data – especially from the newly-launched Health Indicators Warehouse.  The possible sources of health data to fuel these apps are piling up, thanks to the opendata.gov and healthdata.gov initiatives.  At the least, teams must integrate data from the Health Indicators Warehouse.  More suggestions of amazing and free datasets are available on the challenge page.

Worth noting – the top three winning teams will be recognized and featured exhibits at the forum of the Health Data Initiative on June 9, which pulls leaders from tech, government, non-profit, and investing communities to see what’s next in the innovative use of data for health.  In addition, the first prize team will be awarded $3,000 and an on-stage live demo of their application. Second and third place will win $2,000 and $1,000, respectively.

The Go Viral Collegiate Challenge is part of several initiatives to free data and bring innovation to healthcare. The IOM is a driving force behind the Health Data Initiative – a movement that fosters the release and use of government data sets to improve health and wellness in communities. The Health Data Initiative was officially announced in June 2010, shortly after the Health 2.0 Developer Challenge was launched, in collaboration with Health and Human Services. The Health 2.0 Developer Challenge allows anyone interested in health care issues to sponsor a challenge or create an app to address a sponsored challenges.

Teams have just 10 weeks to get cooking: submissions for the Go Viral Collegiate Challenge are due April 27, 2011. The clock is ticking!

Liz Rockett is a member of the Health 2.0 team, leading the Health 2.0 Developer Challenge initiative.  Health 2.0’s Developer Challenge brings innovation in technology to healthcare’s biggest challenges.  Prior to joining the Health 2.0 team, Liz was a product manager for software-based healthcare improvement programs at the Advisory Board Company and at Outcome, a healthcare data analytics firm. 

While completing her MBA and Masters of Public Health, Liz worked in strategy for Kaiser Permanente’s medical group and The Trizetto Group’s value-based insurance practice, and advised several Health 2.0 startups. Her MBA/MPH is from University of California, Berkeley, and bachelor of arts is from Princeton University.  You can find her @liz_rockett on twitter and follow the Health 2.0 team’s work to spark innovation at #health2dev and www.health2challenge.org.

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Todd Park. U.S. Chief Technology Officer, speaks at the 2012 Education Data Jam.

The new Data Jams are being co-hosted and organized by regional innovation hubs, industry groups and start-up incubators. Although focused on certain geographies and sectors, they all have the same common structure:

• Step One: Assemble inspiring innovators and entrepreneurs from the private sector, government, academia and non-profit entities.
• Step Two: Provide an introduction to valuable open datasets and align them to common challenges.
• Step Three: Small groups brainstorm new products, services, apps or features that could solve common challenges and be created within 90 days.
• Step Four: Large group votes on the best ideations.
• Step Five: Individuals volunteer to create new products within 90 days.

Beyond the obvious commercial advantage of creating new products that help people, another incentive for volunteers at Data Jams is the possibility of being invited to annual showcase Datapaloozas, like the one hosted by the Energy Department last October. As demonstrated by the roster of upcoming Data Jams, the Federal government is not required to be “at the table” in order to host a Data Jam. Data Jams can be held wherever there are people willing to convene innovators with a bias-for-action. In the next few months, Energy Data Jams will include a vehicles-focused Data Jam with the automotive industry in Detroit, the Research Triangle Park in Raleigh, NC, Boston Cleanweb, and New York Energy Week.

For additional information on past Data Jams, resultant products, and to explore the open energy datasets yourself, please check out the Energy Data Initiative collaboration platform on OpenEI.

Presidential Innovation Fellow Ian Kalin is Director of the Energy Data Initiative at the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Private industry uses Data.gov all the time. Agriculture is one of many industries whose products and predictions depend on public data. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service’s plant Genomics and Genetics datasets are used by more than 500,000 visitors*, including firms who are household names. Same thing with the U.S. Department of Energy. Ecodesk is a live, web-based platform that enables organizations to search, publish, analyze and communicate sustainability data in one place. OPower works with more than 75 energy utilities to provide millions of people across the country with a personal analysis of their energy usage and individualized recommendations for how to use less.Find more examples of how companies are using free Federal energy data here.

Nonprofit organizations use Federal open data in their work, too. The National Priorities Project (NPP) is a non-partisan research organization dedicated to making complex Federal budget information transparent and accessible. Naturally, its tools are based on Federal open data. Like the Federal Priorities Database search tool localizes Federal spending along with corresponding indicators. Trade-Offs: Allocate Your Tax Dollars estimates the amount of individual income tax that cities, congressional districts, counties, and states contribute towards Federal programs. Tax Receipt shows where your tax dollars were spent and President’s Budget analyzes what the President has proposed for the future.

Federal agencies save taxpayer dollars by using Data.gov itself as a tool. Take the U.S. Agency for International Development. It had a dataset of approximately 117,000 records that needed cleaning up before it could be mapped. Staff invited crowdsourcing using Data.gov as an interactive platform to get the job done. In 16 hours – 44 hours sooner than expected – it was completed, and at no cost to the agency/taxpayer. Learn more here.

For more open data success stories, check out alpha.data.gov and visit the Smart Disclosure community blog to find success stories using U.S. Department of Treasury data.

*A visitor is defined as a repeat Web site visitor who accesses multiple pages of the database.

Sally Ruth Bourrie of Phase One Consulting Group supports Outreach and Communications at Data.gov.

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We’re pleased to announce that much of the work was done by the Data.gov Presidential Innovation Fellow, Dave Caraway, whose passion is open data and how it can be used by entrepreneurs to build businesses and create jobs. Dave’s enthusiasm is infectious and his knowledge base is massive. And on top of that, he’s one nice guy. It’s a real pleasure to have him on the team.

But the truth is that Next is a group project. In the last two weeks, the conversation has been buzzing, you’ve given us a lot of great ideas, and the developers out there have been actively helping. (Thanks!) In this beta stage, we need your ideas and your thoughts as well as your coding abilities!

Here’s how you can help: Tell us what you think of the design and how we can improve it.

Developers, please visit Next’s Developers page to see the latest code that comprises the Adams release. If you notice something not working, tell us about that “bug” by filing an issue on GitHub. Follow us on Github and lend a hand by creating a pull request, too.

We want to hear from you!

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Imagine your agency or private business is considering a small renovation project that is supposed to be green but you are not a “sustainability expert.” What would you need to know before starting the project?  How would you plan something like this using sustainable building models?  What about comparing green products to fit your building project? When do you need to hire an expert?

GSA’s popular online Sustainable Facilities Tool – SFTool.gov – does all of these things, a one-stop web tool to meet all sustainability planning, designing, and procurement needs. Its purpose is to simplify, for both government and private-sector property managers, sustainable building practices and to compare options for renovation projects.

Sustainability is best thought of as a process rather than a thing. It means to create and maintain conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony that permit fulfilling the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations. New ways of designing, constructing and operating buildings and facilities must be identified to achieve such conditions.

The website offers easy to use learning tools on sustainability and green building planning, customizing sustainable work environments to suit your needs, and an integrated learning section. It also has interactive building models, including virtual office sustainable workplaces and whole building systems.

GSA has now released an upgraded version of SFTool.gov.  The new version expands upon some of the features of the original to include 50 percent more web content and the green products compilation tool that allows customers to purchase green building materials directly from the website.  It also features an updated interface and new interactive user guides.  Additionally, its advanced search engine will help customers find their specific building requirements.

There is also a mobile app called SF Mobile, which provides mobile access to the website on Apple, Android, and Blackberry platforms.  The tool’s mobile app has been downloaded more than 1,400 times.

Since its initial launch in February 2011, the popular tool has informed project decision making for more than 30 federal agencies as well as states and foreign countries.

To learn more about the GSA Sustainable Facilities Tool and the new addition of the Green Products Compilation go to www.SFTool.gov.

Kevin Kampschroer is Director of the Office of High-Performing Green Buildings at the U.S. General Services Administration.

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To kick off the EDI, this week the White House and U.S. Department of Energy participated in an “Energy Data Jam” in Silicon Valley. This workshop brought together a group of America’s most innovative entrepreneurs, software developers, CEOs, energy experts, and policy makers to take advantage of existing and newly available government data to spark new private-sector consumer-facing and business-oriented tools, products, and services – think smart phone apps – all while rigorously protecting personal, proprietary, and national security information.

Standardizing and liberating energy data empowers consumers and businesses and spurs innovation. We’re building on work already under way – such as the Green Button initiative, where utilities and service providers serving more than 30 million customers have committed to providing easy access to personal, secure, understandable energy usage data in a common, machine-readable format. And the Department of Energy has been running an Apps for Energy contest and managing an $8 million grant-funding opportunity to help consumers better manage their energy consumption through improved access to energy data. Both the contest winners and grant recipients were announced today.

Led by the Energy Department in collaboration with other Departments and the White House, the EDI commits the Administration to release additional data resources in computer-readable form, and calls upon private-sector organizations to voluntarily give consumers secure access to their own energy use data. As similar efforts in health and public safety have demonstrated, data from various government and non-government sources can literally fuel new companies, new products, and new features that can improve Americans’ lives.

Our communities, our economy, and our environment all stand to benefit as we move forward with the EDI to unlock datathat can lead us to new ways to save energy and money, reduce pollution, provide energy services, and create jobs to ensure an American economy that is built to last.

Todd Park is the U.S. Chief Technology officer and Assistant to the President

Jason Bordoff is the Associate Director for Energy and Climate Change at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and a Senior Advisor for Energy and Environmental Policy at the National Economic Council

David Danielson is the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy

Original blog post at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/05/22/unlocking-power-energy-data

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Effective metadata is the fulcrum for leveraging open government data to serve the public. Data.gov organizes its metadata in a way very similar to most of those governments throughout the world that also employ open data to deliver better mission value and foster democracy by enabling transparency, participation, and collaboration. The most common approach is to describe all data resources with a core set of metadata elements based on Dublin Core and add extensions for various domains such as geospatial data.

Data.gov has recently reached out across the agencies of the U.S. government to revitalize a Metadata Working Group to take the Data.gov metadata to the next level. Contributing agencies include Health and Human Services, Federal Communications Commission, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Social Security Administration, U. S. Geological Survey, National Science Foundation, General Services Administration, Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Commerce, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Census Bureau. The working group is working to deliver, over the next few months, three new increments of value through the Data.gov metadata:  These are to: one, finalize the core metadata design for the first operational release of the Open Government Platform (OGPL, https://www.data.gov/blog/welcome-community-open-government-platform ); two, customize the OGPL metadata to meet the specific needs of the U.S. government’s instance of OGPL; and, three, extend the metadata structure to support the next generation of open data capabilities, such as the semantic web and federated data catalogs.

Exciting times ahead! You can find the current metadata template here.  I welcome your comments and suggestions!

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The US Department of Transportation has issued a data challenge for civic app developers to build apps that address public safety, access to transportation, and that help the Department of Transportation better understand and reduce traffic congestion.

Goal: Develop tools to help people make decisions about transportation.

Specifically, the Department is looking at three categories for the challenge.

•  Safety: how can we address safety concerns and challenges? What communities have the safest roads and transit, and why?
•  Transportation Access: how can planners improve the way transportation connects people to jobs, school, housing, and community resources?
•  Traffic Management and Congestion: how can we better understand and reduce traffic, congestion, and emissions?

US DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx had this to say about the challenge:

    It’s all part of a balanced and responsible approach to improving our transportation system. Yes, we need to continue investing in infrastructure, but we also need to make better use of the resources we already have, and one of the most valuable resources we have is data.

    Over the last few years, there has been a tremendous change in government at all levels–rather than sitting on their datasets, from city to county to state and across the agencies that make up our federal government, organizations are making their data publicly available in formats that make it easier for innovators to convert that data into information and useful tools for the public, urban planners, policymakers, journalists, and others.

    Even with thousands of datasets open to the public, we still need innovators like you with the vision to develop tools that help people use data to make decisions.

Prize:

The winning team will be invited to US DOT headquarters to take part in a special ceremony with Secretary Foxx and other senior officials.

Deadline: April 30th, 2014

Data Resources:

The US Department of Transportation has over 1600 transportation related data sets at data.gov along with several developer resources. These developer resources include:

• Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Open Source Data API
• Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) SaferBus API
• Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Safety Data APIs
• Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) APIs
• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) API

At the local level, Chicago also has several sets of data related to transportation including:

• Average Daily Traffic Counts
• Daily Boarding Totals for the Chicago Transit Authority
• Historical Congestion Estimates by Region API

The State of Illinois’ Department of Transportation also publishes data on transportation including:

• Average Annual Daily Traffic 2010
• IDOT Rest Areas Map

Examples of Transportation Related Apps:

SpotHero: SpotHero is a civic startup that efficiently connects parking demand and parking supply. SpotHero allows parking spot owners to earn income by renting their spot when it’s unoccupied.

SpotHero was the winner of the Apps for Metro Chicago Challenge in 2012. Since then, they’ve graduated from TechStars/Excelerate, raised 2.5 million in VC funding, expanded to seven cities and has hired twenty people.

Chicago Bike Crash Map: Crash data for Chicago in 2005-2012 where a bicyclist or pedestrian was the first point of impact by a driver’s automobile, as collected by responding law enforcement and maintained by the Illinois Department of Transportation.

TextMyBus – Built by Code for America for the  the Detroit Department of Transportation. This app lets riders text a number to see when the next bus is.

Questions about the challenge

Q: Do I have to build something specifically for this challenge?

No, this challenge is all about highlighting the great work being done around using transportation data. So, if you’ve built a transportation app already, feel free to submit it!

Q: Do I have to have a fully completed app?

The apps need to have a working prototype, but beta versions are more than OK.

Q: Is there a place I can have my app user tested?

Yes, if you’re in Chicago and want to utilize the Civic User Testing group to test your app you can submit your app for testing here.

Q: If I win, will the Department of Transportation use my app?

Winners will be featured on the Department of Transportation website and your app will be accessible by the public through that website.

If you have other questions about the US DOT Data Challenge, you can email datachallenge@dot.gov with your questions.

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The new catalog consolidates all of Data.gov’s holdings in one easy-to-use catalog. It features a number of improvements, such as an improved search that helps you find all the datasets for a particular location, such as your zip code, better sorting and tagging of datasets, and improved metadata. Data.gov now has one unified data catalog based on an open source standard that will make it easier to federate with other federal agency catalogs, as well as those of states, cities, and counties. The new CKAN catalog will also enable the implementation of the Open Data Policy, as it will easily harvest the data inventories that federal agencies will be creating under the policy. The result will be a user-friendly, comprehensive catalog that will allow citizens, developers and others to fully take advantage of the vast array of federal data that affects the daily lives of citizens. 

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