Comments Sought on Federal Data Strategy Action Plan
The White House is seeking public comment on its Draft 2019-2020 Federal Data Strategy Action Plan. The Federal Data Strategy, which is being coordinated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is a “ten-year vision for how the Federal government will accelerate the use of data to support the foundations of democracy, deliver on mission, serve the public, and steward resources while protecting security, privacy and confidentiality.” The Strategy consists of 10 principles, and 40 best practices to guide federal agencies on how to leverage the value of their data. The next phase in the Strategy’s implementation is the development of a first-year Action Plan, which details concrete steps to align existing efforts and establish a firm basis of tools, processes, and capacities to leverage data as a strategic asset. The action plan also incorporates several mandated actions from the recently-passed Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018.
The proposed actions are:
Shared Actions: Government-wide Data Services
- Action 1: Create an OMB Data Council
- Action 2: Develop a Curated Data Science Training and Credentialing Catalog
- Action 3: Develop a Data Ethics Framework
- Action 4: Develop a Data Protection Toolkit
- Action 5: Develop a Repository of Federal Data Strategy Resources and Tools
- Action 6: Pilot a One-stop Standard Research Application
- Action 7: Pilot an Automated Inventory Tool for Data.gov
- Action 8: Pilot Standard Data Catalogs for Data.gov
Community Actions: Cross-Agency Collaboration
- Action 9: Improve Data Resources for AI Research and Development
- Action 10: Improve Financial Management Data Standards
- Action 11: Improve Geospatial Data Standards
Agency-Specific Actions: Agency Activities
- Action 12: Constitute a Diverse Data Governance Body
- Action 13: Assess Data and Related Infrastructure Maturity
- Action 14: Identify Opportunities to Increase Staff Data Skills
- Action 15: Identify Data Needs to Answer Key Agency Questions
- Action 16: Identify Priority Datasets for Agency Open Data Plans
Comments are sought on whether the proposed actions accurately describe the needed activities, if any actions should be added or removed, and on what resources would be needed to implement the actions. Comments should be submitted by July 5, 2019. Full details are available on the Federal Data Strategy Website.