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APDU Weekly

 

The APDU Weekly Update is a member benefit that has been made available to nonmembers for this week?s edition. Join APDU today! APDU members also have the opportunity to participate in webinars, an annual conference, and trainings, and your membership will support advocacy for your valued public data programs.

Feature

 

APDU Welcomes New Directors

The Association of Public Data Users (APDU) is excited to announce the election and re-election of four outstanding individuals to its Board of Directors. Congratulations are due to President Cliff Cook, Vice President Kevin McAvey, and At-Large Directors Elizabeth Nash and Mary Jo Hoeksema for their election. Cliff Cook was our past Vice President, while Elizabeth Nash has been elected to a second term as an At-Large Director. Kevin McAvey and Mary Jo Hoeksema are new additions to the Board of Directors. Warren Brown retains his seat on the Board of Directors as Immediate Past President.

 

Census Bureau Unifying Data Access Platforms

The Census Bureau is moving toward a new data dissemination platform. Drawing on feedback from a wide variety of data users, this new approach to data dissemination will emphasize the consumer experience and will attempt to create a single platform for accessing all Census Bureau data. Right now, you can preview the new platform at data.census.gov and provide your feedback to help create a tool that works for you.

 

News

 

APDU in the News
APDU Executive Director Ken Poole was quoted in a fivethirtyeight.com story on funding for federal statistics and the importance of a mandatory ACS under a Trump Administration.

 

Job Board December 2016

APDU?s December Job Board can now be found on the APDU website. Thank you to all who submitted job postings for this month! You can submit your job postings to: info@apdu.org

 

Driving Commerce Data Onto New Platforms

The Department of Commerce has been working with technology firms to incorporate federal data into various platforms. For example, Alexa, is the internal ?personality? behind the Amazon Echo hands-free speaker that you control with your voice. And now, through a joint effort between the Commerce Data Service, the Census Bureau, Amazon Web Services, and developers who volunteered their expertise, a source of Echo?s ?knowledge? is the Census Bureau?s API.

 

Combining Commerce Datasets to Improve Business Intel

Ephesoft has used its digitization and machine learning technology to start extracting meaningful data from federal statistical data that made available to the public in pictures that contain data?like files in ?portable document format? (PDF) or in ?tagged image file format? (TIFF). Ephesoft first performed a proof-of-concept exercise on data from the US Patent and Trademark Office, by running patent data in image-based PDF format through their platform and identifying fields such as patent date and number.

 

Making the Case for Evidence-Based Decision-Making
Evidence-based practice has great potential to improve social outcomes, but only if we do a better job marketing and adapting it to address the specific problems at hand.

 

New & Updated Data Sources

 

New Tool From Socrata for Urban Planners

Socrata has created a tool for Census Bureau data for researchers to use and visualize population trends, including population density, jobs data, and earnings information.

 

Census Releases 2015 Income and Poverty Estimates

The U.S. Census Bureau released the latest findings from its Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates program. The program provides the only up-to-date, single-year income and poverty statistics for all counties and school districts ? roughly 3,140 counties and over 13,000 school districts nationally.

 

NCES Adds to Online Dataset Training Modules
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has added six new modules to its Distance Learning Dataset Training (DLDT) system. The DLDT computer-based training module resource is an online, interactive tool that allows users to learn about the wide range of NCES data and evaluate its suitability for particular purposes, such as research, policy, and teaching.

 

Visualization of the Week

 

 

What Does Local Gov Receive from Oil and Gas Taxes?
Headwaters Economics produces economic profiles and data visualizations using a variety of federal statistical data, making federal data accessible and attractive. In this example, users can compare the effectiveness of states? oil and natural gas tax policies to see which states ensure that tax revenue is available in the right amount, time, and location to manage drilling-related increases in the local demand for services. See which states invest in long-term infrastructure and economic diversification.

 

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.

 

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):