W3C eGovernment Community: Data Science

1. W3C eGovernment Community: Data Science Dr. Brand Niemann Director and Senior Data Scientist Semantic Community http://semanticommunity.info/ AOL Government Blogger http://breakinggov.com/author/brand-niemann/ August 23, 2013 http://semanticommunity.info/An_Open_Data_Policy/Project_Open_Data

2. Agenda • 11-11:15: W3C eGovernment conversion from Working Group to Community (Jeanne Holm) • 11:15-11:45: Project Open Data approach to open source policy and technology and co-development with citizens (Gray Brooks) • 11:45-12:00: Open Data Stack Exchange available: http://opendata.stackexchange.com/(Joe Hourcle) • 12:00-12:25: Opportunities for data science (Brand Niemann) • 12:25-12:30: Adjourn

3. The Changing Landscape of Federal Information Technology • Dominic Sale, new OMB Chief of Data Analytics & Reporting, said the new Digital Government Strategy is "treating all content as data." So big data = all your content. • Doing work for OMB and Agency senior managers on Data Visualization and Analysis Tools and Analytic Data Sets. • “Data Science precedes the use of SOA, Cloud, and Semantic Technologies.” • “It is not just where you put your data (cloud), but how you put it there.” • “Successful SOA depends on the data, which in turn requires success in dealing with data’s semantics, which in turn requires data science to get the data ecosystem organized to deal with the semantics of data integration.”

4. Cloud: SOA, Semantics, & Data Science: September 10-11th • Today: Thank You to the Speakers, Participants, Sponsors, Organizers, and Waterford @ Springfield! • http://www.afei.org/events/3A03/Pages/default.aspx • Past: 14 SOA for eGov Conferences and 5 Semantic Interoperability Conferences @ MITRE! • http://semanticommunity.info/Federal_SOA • Present: Collaboration with Data Community DC with Over 4,000 Members (Harlan Harris, President)! • http://datacommunitydc.org/blog/about/ • Future: New Data Transparency Collation Community of Practice Today (AJ Budhraja, DoJ CTO, Federal SOA CoP Co-Chair) • http://datacoalition.org/ • Now: Highlights For Today and Tomorrow. • http://datacommunitydc.org/blog/2013/08/cloud-soa-semantics-and-data-science-conference/

5. Opportunities for Data Science • Previous W3C eGov: • Open Government Data for Japan (and the US and Europe): • http://semanticommunity.info/A_Japan_METI_Open_Data_Dashboard • Digital Government Strategy: • “Treating all content as data." So big data = all your content: • http://semanticommunity.info/AOL_Government/Managing_Big_Data_For_Results • OMB Data Analytics & Reporting: • Visualizations Tools Requirements Analysis: • http://semanticommunity.info/Data_Science/Free_Data_Visualization_and_Analysis_Tools • Analytic Data Sets: • http://semanticommunity.info/Data_Science/The_Presidents_Budget_for_Fiscal_Year_2014 • White House Project Open Data: • Wiki and GitHub versus MindTouch and Spotfire • http://semanticommunity.info/An_Open_Data_Policy/Project_Open_Data

6. Discussion • Several month ago when the Open Data Policy was announced, I did an An Open Data Policy Result story showing how it could be implemented using their new content with an Open Government Data Data Science Team as follows: • Steven VanRoekel - Federal CIO - Directs the Digital Government Strategy • Jeanne Holm - Data.gov Evangelist - Evangelizes the Availability of the Data • Gannon Dick - Data Preparation - Prepares the Data for Analysis • Brand Niemann - Data Scientist - Provides the Data (Catalog and Results) in a Data Platform • See: http://semanticommunity.info/An_Open_Data_Policy#Story

7. Discussion • Then Information Week Government asked: Is this effort by education a good example of what agencies should be doing? And noteworthy in itself? • Status of the Department of Education's Inventory of Its Data Collections. GAO-13-596R, June 28. See: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-596R • I find this except on page 7 very important to answering your questions: Officials from all three offices said they anticipate using the inventory to identify any areas of overlap and inconsistent data definitions among the various data collections across program offices. Officials from two offices said their staff would also use the inventory to avoid duplication before undertaking any new collections. • Is this effort by education a good example of what agencies should be doing?: Yes, inventory data assets for a purpose like data quality assurance, integration across multiple data sets, and avoiding collection duplication. • And noteworthy in itself?: Yes, if they do something more to demonstrate real value to the public like showing actual examples of using this to create new results with their data and other agencies. In essence they have created a data ecosystem, now they should use it themselves. • http://semanticommunity.info/An_Open_Data_Policy/Open_Government_Data#Status_of_the_Department_of_Education.E2.80.99s_Inventory_of_Its_Data_Collections

8. Discussion • Then Information Week Government asked: Could I get your take on the new Next.Data.gov site and comments?: • "But in many respects, the new site is also likely to disappoint die-hard data users as being not much more than a shiny new showroom attached to the same old government data warehouse, a warehouse still in need of operating improvements and accessible data.“ • http://www.informationweek.com/government/policy/datagov-gets-updated-a-closer-look/240158634 • My Comment: It does disappoint and using the following click trail as an example: • Start at: http://next.data.gov/ • pick a Community like Safety: http://next.data.gov/safety • pick Resources: http://next.data.gov/safety/safety-resources/ • pick the National Map: http://nationalmap.gov/viewer.html • then Click here to go to The National Map Viewer • and Download Platform!: http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/ • and you finally get to the data and its display • Bottom line: This is yet another new interface to the old Data.gov interface that eventually takes you (if you are lucky enough to find it) to where the actual data has been for years! • http://www.informationweek.com/government/policy/datagov-gets-updated-a-closer-look/240158634# • My current efforts for OMB are just starting: • http://semanticommunity.info/Data_Science/Free_Data_Visualization_and_Analysis_Tools

9. Discussion • Recently, I did a story for Information Week on the Open Data Policy Implementation: It Takes a Data Science Team. • Essentially, OMB has established a new Web Site calledOpen Data Git Hub, to do this instead of the OMB MAX, which is very similar to the way I use MindTouchand Spotfire. • Now I am going to do the same thing with their new content and some actual data that I found in it. • I reformatted the new content to be compliant with their Digital Government Strategy requirements and the functionality provided by the new GitHub so all of this is done in one place with content analytics. • This Open Data Policy Implementation took only several hours to build and provides more functionality than the Open Data GitHub: • See: http://semanticommunity.info/An_Open_Data_Policy/Project_Open_Data#Story

10. Discussion • Today, I finished a story for Information Week on Hacking a Hacker of Open Government Data: • I really admire Josh's pioneering data science work for open government data. • I decided to "hack" his content using MindTouch and Spotfire to accomplish the following goals: • Digital Government Strategycompliant. • "Treating all content as data" (1) so big data = all your content (2). • Graphs of Graphs and Not Charts of a Graphs (3) • Sources: • (1) Dominic Sale, new OMB Chief of Data Analytics & Reporting. • (2) Brand Niemann. • (3) For example, what Spotfire does with adjacent dynamically linked visualizations. See Graph Databases and the Semantic Web. • I followed his four steps: • Step 1 Get the Data • Step 2 Scrub the Data • Step 3 Build Something • Step 4 Distribute • Josh Tauberer was and is a pioneering data scientist of Open Government Data who believes in "creative use of technology to innovate our civic lives, especially our participation in government", so I did the same with his book content and four steps to build on his work and present that to the new W3C eGovernment Community for Data Science. • See: http://semanticommunity.info/An_Open_Data_Policy/Open_Government_Data#Story