Interagency Data Policy Workshop

This Interagency Data Policy workshop will be a working meeting where we will work in small groups to develop and document answers and solutions to questions and problems identified prior to and during the Federal Agency Data Policy Panel. These discussions will be facilitated by Bruce Caron and Karl Benedict, and will be documented for consolidation in the Federation wiki. We hope to bring technologists together with data managers to collaborate in developing recommendations that are both technically feasible while meeting the common data management and delivery needs of the multiple agencies participating in the meeting.

INSTRUCTIONS for TABLE Discussion WRITE-UPS

Please use your word processor to write a short description of the discussion at your table, using the notes from the flip-pad. Copy and paste this under the QUESTION on its page (See Link Below.)

1. User requirements are expanding, budgets are decreasing, how should data centers respond?

2. How is “data access” from federal agencies different from “data access” from commercial and other sectors? Where can federal agencies learn from private data/information providers (such as Google Earth and Flickr)?

3. How can data providers make it easier to assess the data quality and the appropriate uses for a data set?

4. What is the current state of progress in “data fusion” methods? What are the next steps?

5. Is deploying a SOA going to provide substantive help to the user, and, if so, how can agencies and entities best coordinate an SOA approach?

6. If SOA is seen as valuable for data interoperability to the user, how can data centers promote sufficient SOA guidelines/governance/standards to help spawn reuse and recombination of these services by users?

7. How can agencies best help users combine data from sources that are maintained in statutory and programmatic stovepipes?

8. How can agencies leverage user communities to add contextual information that will help new users find/understand/use data for their specific purposes in the most appropriate manner?

9. “Crowdsourcing” volunteer data input from citizens can extend/improve/correct data records. How can agencies best gather these data? How do agencies resolve quality issues and other concerns when using crowdsourced data?

10. Many regulatory decisions are made largely based upon model results, how do agencies engage stakeholders directly in these efforts to provide full transparency?

11. Public-private partnerships can bring private sector expertise and support to data collection efforts. How can these be managed to ensure that the public interests in the resulting data are maintained while the private need for returns on investment are also supported?

12. Does your organization use a virtual globe to display data images or inventories for users? What are your requirements for such tools? How important are these tools for your future plans?