How to Tell a Compelling Story with Data The way a message is communicated is almost as important as the message itself. Our world is moving towards a more data-oriented approach to decision making in every walk of life. Packaging the analysis in a way that?s easy to digest can increase its reach and effectiveness. Humans have evolved to develop a very acute sense of pattern recognition. Using storytelling by representing your data through various graphical and pictorial tools gives the audience an intuitive grasp of the matter, enabling them to easily process and digest the information.
News
Data Quality Coalition Calls on OMB to Reject DUNS The Coalition has filed a comment letter calling on the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to reject the GSA’s proposal to continue using the proprietary DUNS Number to identify federal contractors. Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, GSA must secure approval every three years to continue requiring federal contractors to register with Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., and secure a proprietary DUNS Number from D&B. Approval has been routinely granted since 1997.
Web Widget Nudges Scientists to Share Their Data A free web-based tool that promises to help its users ask authors of research papers to publicly share their data ? and to make such requests publicly trackable ? launched in beta version on March 7. The Open Data Button ? a downloadable web-browser extension ? can be clicked when a reader is looking at a research paper and wants to see its underlying data, says Joseph McArthur, who is co-leading the project and is assistant director of the policy advocacy group The Right to Research Coalition (R2RC) in London.
Privacy, Security Risks Make Gov?t Databases Political In 1998, the FBI launched the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), a database that federally licensed gun dealers use to determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to purchase a firearm. Unfortunately, by all accounts, the data in NICS is woefully incomplete, which means that the background checks are not preventing those who shouldn?t have guns from buying them. Bad data leads to bad results, yet attempts to fix this problem have consistently run into political opposition.
Why the Science of Data Visualization is so Powerful Since long before spreadsheets and graphing software, we have communicated data through pictures. But we?ve only begun, in the last half-century, to understand why visualizations are such effective tools for seeing and understanding data.
NSF/SBE Partnering in Digging into Data Challenge The National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences is partnering in the Trans-Atlantic Platform 2016 Digging into Data Challenge (T-AP DiD). Digging into Data is a grant competition open to international, collaborative projects that address research questions in humanities and/or social science disciplines by using new, large-scale, digital data analysis techniques.
Europe Needs to Get Serious About Open Data Europe?s public sectors are sitting on a huge untapped resource of data. However, most European countries have yet to demonstrate that they are taking this opportunity seriously. Fortunately, there is a ready-made solution to make sure EU countries use public sector data to push economic growth and innovation. Three years ago, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom helped develop five key principles for countries to follow to promote open data. Given the continued importance of open data, all other EU member states should sign on as well.
New & Updated Data Sources
Open CRS Bill Introduced in House and Senate Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Representatives Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and Mike Quigley (D-IL) introduced in the House and Senate legislation directing the online publication of Congressional Research Service reports that are available for general congressional access. A coalition of 40 civil society and grassroots organizations, libraries, trade associations, think tanks, and businesses from across the political spectrum released a statement in support of the legislation.
USDA Preps for the Internet of Tractors The Agriculture Department is looking for a better way to get data from the farm to the spreadsheet. In a request for information released Feb. 17, USDA asks industry for systems that could help bring simplify the process for farmers to send reports to the Farm Service Agency and the Risk Management Agency.
Updated Military Occupations Included in O*NET Websites The Military Occupational Classification (MOC) crosswalk has been updated by the Department of Defense (January 2016) and incorporated into O*NET OnLine and My Next Move for Veterans. Over 11,000 MOC occupations are linked to related O*NET-SOC occupations. The crosswalk is supplemented with data from the Army COOL, Navy COOL, Marine Corps COOL, and Air Force COOL projects. Transitioning military personnel can use their military code or title to discover related civilian occupations/careers within O*NET Online’s Military Crosswalk Search or My Next Move for Veterans’ Military Transition Search.
Visualization of the Week
Finding Opportunity in Philadelphia PolicyMap, an online data and mapping application (and APDU member), now offers a map that allows users to plot desirable places to live in Philadelphia based on criteria including the housing market, transportation costs, and job proximity. Users can fine tune each category based on their needs, such as choosing between low, moderate, or high transportation costs, and overlay up to three categories simultaneously to identify the neighborhoods that could offer them the best opportunities. Users can also include the location of other important resources such as grocery stores and libraries to better identify which neighborhoods meet their needs. PolicyMap uses open data published as part of the White House?s new Opportunity Project, which focuses on increasing access to government data and software tools that can help communities better access resources and improve economic mobility.
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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):
