QUESTION
How do agencies manage their responsibility in providing datasets, and what happens if they fail to meet their goals?
0:58:23
·
4 min
The Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI) employs various strategies to ensure agencies are publicly accountable for delivering datasets, focusing on performance measures and maintaining regular communication with open data coordinators.
- The OTI publishes an open data dashboard displaying agencies' performance towards their self-set goals.
- Regular communications with open data coordinators include tracking dataset release schedules and resource allocation for publication.
- Challenges such as constrained budgets and staffing issues frequently impact agencies' ability to meet publication timelines.
- The frequency and update rate of data releases are determined by the specific dataset requirements and resource availability at both the agency and OTI levels.
Jennifer Gutiérrez
0:58:23
just wanna explained a little bit more on the questions regarding datasets and the responsibility that agencies have to provide that data.
0:58:32
Right?
0:58:32
And I'm just gonna paint the picture that that you've painted for me.
0:58:35
Let me know if it's accurate.
0:58:36
Right?
0:58:37
You your open data coordinators work with no.
0:58:39
Your team works with open data coordinators at those agencies to figure out what are the appropriate datasets that they can ultimately provide data for that then you are able to to publish on the site.
0:58:51
Are their instances where agencies are not and and they're they're they're essentially setting up their own goals.
0:58:57
Right?
0:58:58
Their own deadlines is my under standing?
0:59:00
That's correct.
0:59:01
What happens and does it happen often that agencies are not meeting their own goals?
0:59:05
That agencies are unable to provide that data.
0:59:09
And what happens, what does accountability look like in those instances, and I'm particularly interested in the 2 agencies that we've highlighted PD and DOE.
Martha Norrick
0:59:17
Yep.
0:59:18
So we have a few methods that we use to sort of make sure that agencies are being how publicly accountable for their delivery of open data data sets.
0:59:30
We publish on the open data portal a a dash board, an open data dashboard that has all of the agency's performance towards their own goals in terms of releasing data at the frequency that they said that they would release it whether or not data sets are late to be released, again, against the agency's own benchmark of when that data should be available publicly.
0:59:52
And all of at all of those sort of performance measures that we use to when we work with agencies to say, like, hey.
0:59:59
Where are you on on, you know, how having the status not being released are also
Jennifer Gutiérrez
1:00:05
Responsibility is that from the team to approach those open data coordinators to say, you're late.
Martha Norrick
1:00:13
It's part of our regular communications with with open data coordinators is that, you know, we're tracking their we're tracking datasets are scheduled for release, you know, for our own purposes as well to make sure that, you know, all of the you know, if there's engineering resources or other sort of resources, that are required for the publication of that dataset that we're sort of allocating our time, you know, towards towards those appropriately as well.
1:00:35
So I think it's you know, we have we have we're using these regular check ins.
1:00:40
We're using this sort these sort of relationships.
1:00:42
To to to have these conversations with agencies about how well they're doing towards their own goals.
1:00:50
You know, if they're missing if they're missing they're late, you know, we can encourage them to to you know, we we definitely encourage them to, like, provide a reason why the agency is write that data is gonna be late frequently.
1:01:03
It's around resources within the agency.
1:01:05
You know, agencies are also working in sort of a constrained budget environment.
1:01:08
And so the, you know, IT staff and the the data staff to produce data sets on the agency side, you know, if they're if they're short staffed, then that can affect the timelines for agencies as well.
1:01:20
You know, we don't have there's, you know, apart from sort of, you know, public making sure that everything that we're doing is publicly available and that everybody is sort of working towards those same goals that are being released publicly.
1:01:36
You know, that's our main that's our main sort of tool for for helping agencies deliver on their obligations for their responsibilities open data.
1:01:45
And what the
Jennifer Gutiérrez
1:01:48
the the frequency of which agencies provide that data, that is also determined by that agency.
Martha Norrick
1:01:54
It's determined by the agency, but it is is also really determined by the data set.
1:01:58
You know, if a data set is only updated once a year, you know, high school graduation rates come to mind, there's there's not a lot of utility in in updating that data at other points in time.
1:02:09
So it's a it's a it's both sort of what makes natural for that dataset?
1:02:12
How often is that dataset updated?
1:02:14
Zachary mentioned the census, you know, there's there's datasets that have different sort of natural cadences, and then it's also, you know, a resource is question on the part of the of the agency and then also on the part of sort of our team to to build automations to be able to release data frequently.