|
APDU Conference Chair Kevin McAvey provides his personal reflections on his organization?s efforts in using data to better inform the health care marketplace in Massachusetts. He discusses how the Center for Health Information and Analysis in Boston, MA uses public data to inform better decision making ? and the questions he and his colleagues ask themselves when producing and disseminating data. Read his post to learn more, and come to this year?s APDU Conference in Alexandria, VA for our networking and learning opportunities!
|
|
President Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:
- Paul Ohm ? Member, Commission on Evidence-Based Policy Making
- Allison B. Orris ? Member, Commission on Evidence-Based Policy Making
|
|
Big data is the term used to define the perpetual and massive data gathered by corporations and governments on consumers and citizens. When the subject of data is not necessarily individuals but governments and companies themselves, we can call it civic data, and when systematically generated in large amounts, civic big data. Increasingly, a new generation of initiatives are generating and organizing structured data on particular societal issues from human rights violations, to auditing government budgets, from labor crimes to climate justice. These civic data initiatives diverge from the traditional civil society organizations in their outcomes, that they don?t just publish their research as reports, but also open it to the public as a database.
|
|
The Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking?s examination of Federal administrative and survey data provides an exceptional opportunity to address the management and use of data for measuring postsecondary education and workforce outcomes. The Commission?s findings and impact could lead to more inclusive, aligned and market-relevant data systems to help educators, students, employers, workers and policymakers all make more informed decisions.
|
|
New & Updated Data Sources
|
|
The federal government is set to release data reports designed to help measure the performance of accrediting agencies, with metrics such as the graduation rates, debt, earnings and loan repayment rates of students who attended the colleges the accreditors oversee. The U.S. Department of Education sent the new reports to accreditors, a couple of days before a scheduled meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, the federal panel that advises the department on which accreditors deserve federal recognition.
|
|
The General Services Administration?s (GSA) final transactional data rule fundamentally alters the basis for negotiation and pricing of commercial items on Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts and subsequent orders, with immediate impact on some of the largest FSS Schedules. On June 23, the GSA published its highly anticipated final rule on transactional data reporting (TDR Final Rule). The TDR Final Rule is effective immediately for those Schedules and Special Item Numbers (SINs) included in the pilot program (identified below).
|
|
The recent announcement that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has published a large amount of financial and administrative data about nonprofits is an important step forward on open data. While this information was already public, users can now access it online in a machine-readable format on Amazon Web Services, making it easier to process and analyze. Although this is a welcome development for transparency in the nonprofit sector, this data is far from complete because it does not contain information from the 40 percent of nonprofits that file their annual returns on paper. To ensure critical data about all nonprofits? activities and finances are accessible to the public, Congress should discontinue the use of paper-based filings and instead require non-profit organizations to file these annual forms electronically.
|
|
Visualization of the Week
|
|
Until now, a comprehensive, digitised database of city populations through world history has been lacking, with the United Nations? dataset only extending as far back as 1950. Recent research published in the journal Scientific Data, transcribed and geocoded nearly 6,000 years of data (from 3700BC to AD2000). The report produced a gargantuan resource for scholars hoping to better understand how and why cities rise and fall ? and allowed blogger Max Galka to produce a striking visualisation on his site Metrocosm.
|
|
Notable Data Publications
|
|
Did you work on a great report that you want your colleagues to know about? Just email us and we?ll include it here.
|
|
GOVERNMENT
NONPROFITS & FOUNDATIONS
|
|
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):
|
|
Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (August 29, 2016)
Census Bureau
- Current Mandatory Business Surveys (July 22, 2016)
- Quarterly Summary of State and Local Government Tax Revenues (July 22, 2016)
National Center for Education Statistics
- Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System 2016-2019 (July 25, 2016)
|
|
|
|
Not an APDU Member? Become one today! Check out our membership benefits.
| | |
