National Infrastructure for Community Statistics (NICS) Community of Practice

1. National Infrastructure for Community Statistics (NICS) Community of Practice Learning Phase Workshop I Community Organizations September 27, 2004

2. What is NICS? • Web-based utility for community-level statistics from 1000s of federal, state, local and private data sources • Defined by needs of its community of users—as expressed through this community of practice

3. MissionNICS Community of Practice • The NICS CoP will facilitate the development of • An integrated, web-based national infrastructure • To provide widespread access to community statistics from local, state, and national sources • On socioeconomic and geophysical topics.

4. Who are NICS participants? • Public, private, non-profit data providers, intermediaries • National, state, community levels • Linked by common interest in collecting, accessing, analyzing and using data on communities

5. What will NICS provide? Innovative tools that: • Share community-level data among federal, state, and local governments, non-profit and commercial organizations, data intermediaries • Create web interfaces for community statistics customized for particular data user groups

6. What value will NICS add? • Make community-level data more transparent, available and accessible • Improve assessment of federal, state, and local program performance and outcomes • Inform public debate and support better public choice • Spur more and smarter investment and business activity • Empower communities to set goals and assess progress in meeting them

7. Why NICS now? “The digital enterprise is the nervous system for the economy” --Ken Bohlen, CIO, Textron • We are data rich, but information poor • Information is crucial to: • Understand change in local communities • Provide tools for adapting to change • Evaluate program performance and outcomes • Drive investment and market growth

8. Other drivers for NICS… • Budget realities mean we need to do more with less • Need to prove investment case for significant state and federal e-government initiatives • Significant growth in local capacity to collect, use and analyze community statistics to change policy and monitor outcomes • Technology tools, such as web service architecture, enable construction of an infrastructure that allows for data sharing, while preserving confidentiality appropriately

9. NICS can play a part in enabling a seamless US statistical infrastructure State Extensive investment in E-government initiatives; significant source of administrative records Local Development of network of community statistical systems with ability to collect and analyze data for local use Federal Multiple efforts to develop systems and interfaces for public and statistical use Technology Enable a more effective, seamless US statistical infrastructure empowering better public choices

10. Overall NICS Development Process • Phase I: Develop concept • Phase II: Understanding user needs for NICS • Local, state, federal, non-profit, commercial • Phase III: Build business plan to implement NICS • Lots of players, lots of parts!

11. Goals for Today’s Meeting • Understand what community-level users would like to see in NICS • Learn from local practitioners to inform the development of NICS • Discuss what capacities local practitioners need to have to participate in NICS • Inform federal, state, commercial and nonprofit organizations about local needs and activities