APDU Weekly

Features

APDU Election Results
Votes are in, and it was a landslide! Warren Brown was re-elected as President, Cliff Cook as Vice-President, and Elizabeth Nash and Erin Holve won the at-large Board seats. Congratulations to all our new and re-elected office holders. Thank you to everyone who voted, as voter turnout was the highest it?s been in years.
 

News

Obama?s 2nd Open Government National Action Plan
The Administration has committed to: (1) Enhance sharing of best practices on data privacy for state and local law enforcement; (2) Ensure privacy protection for big data analyses in health; and (3) Expand technical expertise in government to stop discrimination.

NAICE 2.0 Kickoff Blog Post
Read about the kickoff meeting for NACIE 2.0 ? the Department of Commerce?s National Advisory Committee on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Possible Revival of NSOPF
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is working with National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to revive the National Survey of Post-secondary Faculty that NCES suspended in 2004.  NSF would appreciate communications that indicate how higher education researchers have used the survey in the past and how much support there is for reviving it.  If you have views, you can communicate them to Susan Singer who is heading the effort at NSF.

Plans to Simplify Labeling of Sensitive Information
The Obama administration is expected to issue a proposed rule to require agencies to stop labeling sensitive data with dozens of classification markings — and to call it all by one name, federal officials say.

Dataset Tracks World?s Open Government Data
The Global Open Data Index, a crowdsourced project launched by the Open Knowledge Foundation, released its 2014 dataset ranking 97 world governments on the openness of their data across 10 categories. The categories are based on issues related to transparency and accountability, including legislation, government spending, and pollution.

Data for Better State and Local Policymaking
Better data and analytics have the potential to transform state and local governments in a variety of ways, improving internal processes, helping provision services, and cutting costs. One underappreciated area where data can have a major impact is in policymaking itself. In particular, state and local governments are analyzing data to inform better policies around economic development, education, and health care.

Open Data?s Hidden Value
States and localities can profit from it, and it?s time to start talking about how.

New & Updated Data Sources

NCES Updates the State Education Reforms Website
New state-level data on arts education policies and alternative education are now available on the State Education Reforms website.

Visualization of the Week

Fighting Over-Fishing with Data Visualization
Global Fishing Watch, the product of a technology partnership between SkyTruth, Oceana, and Google, is mapping all of the trackable fishing activity in the world?s oceans to fight over-fishing. Currently in prototype stage, Global Fishing Watch will be freely available to the public as an interactive online tool, allowing users to act as watchdogs to improve the sustainability of fishing practices. The tool uses vessel location data collected by satellites and then identifies movement patterns as either ?fishing? or ?non-fishing? activity.
 

Notable Data Publications

GOVERNMENT

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality – Utilization of Intensive Care Services, 2011
• Bureau of Justice Statistics – Background Checks For Firearm Transfers, 2012 – Statistical Tables
• Bureau of Labor Statistics – Nonfatal Workplace Injury & Illness Rates Down Over the Past Decade
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Births in the United States, 2013
  • Depression in the U.S. Household Population, 2009?2012
  • Nut Consumption Among U.S. Adults, 2009?2010
• Census Bureau
  • A Child?s Day: Living Arrangements, Nativity, & Family Transitions: 2011 (Selected Indicators of Child Well-Being)
  • U.S. Population Projections: 2014-2060

NON-PROFIT & FOUNDATIONS

• Kaiser Family Foundation – The Uninsured: A Primer – Key Facts About Health Insurance & the Uninsured in America
• Workforce Data Quality Campaign ? Crossing Boundaries: Regional Data Sharing to Study Worker Mobility

Did you work on a great report that you want your colleagues to know about?  Just email us and we?ll include it here.

Calls for Comment

APDU maintains a list of open calls for comment on proposed federal data collections. We periodically alert APDU members to newly added calls for comment. Over the last several weeks, calls for comment on the following proposed data collections were published in the Federal Register (with due date):

Department of Education

• 2015-16 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:16) Field Test Student Data Collection (January 15, 2015)        
• 2015-16 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) Preliminary Activities (January 12, 2015)    

Food and Drug Administration

• Survey on the Occurrence of Foodborne Illness Risk Factors in Selected Institutional Foodservice and Retail Food Stores Facility Types (February 17, 2015)
• Survey on the Occurrence of Foodborne Illness Risk Factors in Selected Restaurant Facility Types (February 9, 2015)    
   

December 18, 2014

The Last Weekly of the Year

The APDU Weekly will return in the new year.

We would like to wish all our members Happy Holidays and a Merry New Year!

See you in 2015!