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Annual Business Meeting Recap
APDU would like to thank all members who attended our Annual Business Meeting and State of the Association. Members were informed by APDU Board Members and the management team from the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness on accomplishments from 2015 and future plans, including preparations for the 2016 Annual Conference in Alexandria, VA. The webinar recording and presentation are available in the Board Minutes page of the members? area of APDU.org.
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Government?s Troublesome Data-Hoarding Habit
Long before corporations embraced big data and business intelligence, the public sector was on the case, collecting mountains of data with hopes of finding efficiencies, making service improvements and bettering the lives of constituents. This type of data hoarding follows the old logic: It’s better to have something and not need it than the reverse. But if government agencies aren’t careful, this hoarding habit could result in an uninhabitable, unproductive operation — just as it does for the hoarders we see on television.
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The 2017 President?s Budget for BLS
The 2017 President?s Budget proposes $640.9 million in funding for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for the fiscal year (FY) that begins on October 1, 2016. This FY 2017 request is an increase of $31.9 million over the FY 2016 final enacted level. The 2017 Budget will continue the production of core data series while also allowing the BLS to undertake new initiatives.
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The Private Tech Sector Goes Public
More companies than ever now offer digital services and tools designed specifically for government. The number of these firms has grown so quickly that there?s now a public-sector version of the Fortune 500. Called GovTech100, the list of companies and their products have names like ArchiveSocial, CitySourced, GovSense, mySidewalk and Urban Engines.
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Innovation @ BEA: Exploring New Data Projects
BEA is working on a variety of projects this year to introduce new economic statistics. The goal is to give business people, policymakers and households additional tools to make informed decisions and deepen their understanding of the U.S. economy. At this point, it?s too early to say exactly when these new statistics will be introduced, but here?s a look at what they?re planning.
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Five Tech Projects Buried in the Budget
Data mining jobs data. Testing self-driving car testing. Tailoring medical treatments. Tucked away in the White House?s budget request are billions of dollars? worth of projects that advance technology ? or that use it to further an agency?s objectives.
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Funding Better Data in the President?s Budget
The final budget request of the Obama administration was released, though it?s not clear that anyone in Congress is listening. Its many initiatives, new and old, will be non-starters for a Republican-controlled congress in the throes of an election cycle, but there are some proposals that show promise as starting points for broader conversations among presidential candidates, the education community, and current and future elected officials. While better higher education data is one small component of the President?s budget proposal, it would enable more informed policy decisions about higher education going forward.
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Introducing the Commerce Data Academy
The Economics and Statistics Administration recently launched the Commerce Data Academy pilot program. Through a collaboration with General Assembly, the Commerce Library and LINC (Leadership & Innovation Network in Commerce), the Academy offered four initial courses: “Agile Development”, “HTML + CSS”, “Storytelling with Data”, and “Excel at Excel”.
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New & Updated Data Sources
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Statewide Open Data Portal Being Tested in California
California is hatching plans to pilot a next-gen open data portal to house all of its public agency data under one roof. The announcement came Friday, Feb. 12 from Stuart Drown, the deputy secretary for innovation and accountability from the recently formed California Government Operations Agency (CalGovOps).
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Visualization of the Week
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Visualizing the Flow of Anonymous Data Around the World
Data visualization company Uncharted has created TorFlow, a data visualization that maps traffic on Tor, the international network of servers that allow users to browse the Internet relatively anonymously as well as access the ?dark net??unlisted websites frequently used to facilitate illicit transactions, such as the now-defunct drug trafficking marketplace Silk Road. TorFlow illustrates the flow of data between Tor servers around the world on a daily basis beginning on November 8, 2007. By comparing different time intervals, users can observe the growth of Tor traffic in various regions in response to world events such as in Egypt at the beginning of the Arab Spring in 2011.
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Notable Data Publications
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GOVERNMENT
HIGHER EDUCATION
NONPROFITS & FOUNDATIONS
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Did you work on a great report that you want your colleagues to know about? Just email us and we?ll include it here.
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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):
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Census Bureau
- Construction Progress Reporting Surveys (March 18, 2016)
National Institute of Standards and Technology
- Generic Clearance for Community Resilience Data Collections (April 18, 2016)
National Science Foundation
- Generic Clearance of the National Center for Science & Engineering Statistics Improvement Projects (April 18, 2016)
U.S. Geological Survey
- USGS Ash Fall Report (April 12, 2016)
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