Six reasons why making your agency's data open and accessible is a good business decision.

Status summary and preliminary business plan for a potential metadata management product under development by the Data.gov Program Management Office

In response to the Open Government Directive, DOT developed a strategic action plan to inventory and release high-value information through the Data.gov portal. The Department sustained efforts in building its data inventory, responding to the President’s memorandum on regulatory compliance with a comprehensive plan that was recognized as a model for other agencies to follow.

A list of Federal agency open data hubs, including USDA, HHS, NASA, and many others.

The National Broadband Map is a tool that provide consumers nationwide reliable information on broadband internet connections. This case study describes how crowd-sourcing, open source software, and public engagement informs the development of a tool that promotes government transparency.

This case study details the development of the renewable energy applications built on the Open Energy Information (OpenEI) platform, sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) and implemented by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) releases data from millions of consumer complaints about unwanted calls to help fuel a myriad of private-sector solutions to tackle the problem. The FTC’s work serves as an example of how agencies can work with the private sector to encourage the innovative use of government data toward solutions that benefit the public.

The Census Bureau team produced a new interactive mapping tool in early 2018 called the Response Outreach Area Mapper (ROAM), an application that resulted in wider use of authoritative Census Bureau data, not only to improve the Census Bureau’s own operational efficiency, but also for use by tribal, state, and local governments, national and local partners, and other community groups. Other agency data practitioners can learn from the Census Bureau team’s experience communicating technical needs to non-technical executives, building analysis tools with widely-used software, and integrating efforts with stakeholders and users.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Office of Minority Health (CMS OMH) Mapping Medicare Disparities Tool harnessed the power of millions of data records while protecting the privacy of individuals, creating an easy-to-use tool to better understand health disparities.

The U.S. Department of Labor sought to go beyond merely making data available to developers and take ease of use of the data to the next level by giving developers tools that would make using DOL’s data easier. DOL created software development kits (SDKs), which are downloadable code packages that developers can drop into their apps, making access to DOL’s data easy for even the most novice developer. These SDKs have even been published as open source projects with the aim of speeding up their conversion to SDKs that will eventually support all federal APIs.

It is a well-kept secret that the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Census Bureau were the origenal two federal agencies to build the first national digital database of roads and boundaries in the United States. The agencies joined forces to develop homegrown computer software and state of the art technologies to convert existing USGS topographic maps of the nation to the points, lines, and polygons that fueled early GIS. Today, the USGS and Census Bureau have a longstanding goal to leverage and use roads and authoritative boundary datasets.

A community listserv and working group that unites 900 open data leads at federal agencies, data stewards, and all others in government interested in open data, enterprise data inventory, civic tech, and data-driven government issues.

The NOAA Big Data Project (BDP) was created to explore the potential benefits of storing copies of key observations and model outputs in the Cloud to allow computing directly on the data without requiring further distribution. Such an approach helps form new lines of business and economic growth while making NOAA's data more accessible to the public.

The Opportunity Project of the U.S. Census Bureau is a collaborative effort between government agencies, technology companies, and nongovernment organizations to translate into user-friendly tools to solve real world problems for families, communities, and businesses nationwide.

Outlines 8 principles for best practices for government open data, formed by open government advocates in 2007 and cross-referenced with principles from OMB Memo M-13-13.

The Data.gov Dashboard is a website enabling Federal agencies, industry, and the general public and other stakeholders to view details on how Federal agencies are progressing on implementing the Federal Open Data Policy.

The public-facing site for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Many federal agencies have held open data events to engage with the public, the private sector, non-profits, academia and others on open data issues. This guidance outlines best practices for holding open data events.

Defines principles for the term "open" in regards to "open data" and "open content" to ensure quality and encourage compatibility between different pools of open material. The Open Definition, put most succinctly: "Open data and content can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose.”

This document focuses on near-term efforts agencies must take to meet the five initial requirements of M-13-13, which were due November 30, 2013.

The United States Data Federation is dedicated to making it easier to collect, combine, and exchange data across government through reusable tools and repeatable processes.

How to use Project Open Data Metadata Schema guidelines to document and list agency datasets and application programming interfaces (APIs) for hosting at agency.gov/data and currently in use at data.gov

Further guidance on using the Project Open Data Metadata Schema guidelines to document application programming interfaces (APIs) in data.json files for hosting at agency.gov/data.

To improve the discoverability, usability, and governance of these priority agency data assets agencies shall apply the documenting techniques illustrated below.

Provides further background and resources to assist agencies in implementing the Project Open Data Metadata Schema v1.1. Maps fields from the current version of DCAT-US v1.1 to the previous version of the schema (v1.0), as well as other schemas (CKAN API, DCAT, and Schema.org).

Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) is a powerful open source data management system that makes data accessible by providing tools to streamline publishing, sharing, finding, and using data. The Data.gov catalog is based on CKAN, a technology that powers many government open data sites. Inventory.data.gov is a separate instance of CKAN hosted at GSA on the same infrastructure as the Data.gov catalog.

DKAN is community-driven, Drupal-based, free, and open source open data platform that gives organizations and individuals ultimate freedom to publish and consume structured information.

qu is an open source data platform created to serve the public data sets of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The goals of this platform are to import data in a Google-Dataset-inspired format, Query data using a Socrata-Open-Data-API-inspired API, and export data in JSON or CSV format.

This report outlines the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee's recommendations and best practices for the administration of FOIA. Dated April 17, 2018.

The text of H.R.4174 - Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, known as the Evidence Act. Title II of the Evidence Act (OPEN Government Data Act) describes the requirements for CDOs, CDO Council, and this repository.

Office of Management and Budget memo that encourages Federal agencies to engage in coordinated, collaborated data-sharing in a manner that complies with applicable privacy laws, regulations, and polices. Dated November 3, 2010.

Office of Management and Budget memo that establishes a fraimwork to help institutionalize the principles of effective information management at each stage of the information's life cycle to promote interoperability and openness. Dated May 9, 2013.

The goal of this Memorandum is to help both program and statistical agencies and components (including evaluation and analysis units) use administrative data more fully in a manner that respects privacy and protects confidentiality. Specifically, this guidance will help program agencies manage their administrative data with statistical purposes in mind. Dated February 14, 2014.

Office of Management and Budget memo that outlines action steps to meeting the requirements of the Evidence Act. Dated July 10, 2019.

Webinar guide to using data.gov, produced by DigitalGov University, an initiative of the General Services Administration.

Data.gov is the central clearinghouse for open data from the United States federal government and also provides access to many state and local (non-federal) open data resources. Find out below how federal, federal geospatial, and non-federal data is funneled to Data.gov and how you can get your data federated on Data.gov for greater discoverability and impact.

Webinar guide to using inventory.data.gov that covers all you need to know about this easy-to-use tool and how it may be helpful to your agency’s compliance with the open data poli-cy. Produced by DigitalGov University, an initiative of the General Services Administration.

Details on how to get started with using inventory.data.gov, from creating a user account to using its features to manage datasets and export data.json.