APDU Weekly

Feature

Expanding Training on Data & Tech to Improve Communities
Local government and nonprofit staff need data and technology skills to regularly monitor local conditions and design programs that achieve more effective outcomes. Tailored training is essential to help them gain the knowledge and confidence to leverage these indispensable tools. In Spring 2016, the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) and Microsoft?s Civic Technology Engagement Group partnered to explore how to expand community training on data and technology for government and nonprofit staff members.

APDU Data Viz Awards
We are inviting submissions for the 2017 APDU Data Viz Awards to be held at the 2017 APDU Annual Conference!

The deadline for submissions is Friday, July 7, 2017.

Note: The APDU Update will be off next week

and will return on June 22, 2017.

News

Using Data to Fight the Opioid Epidemic

Data can play an important role in the fight against addiction, but privacy concerns are hampering the effectiveness of prescription drug monitoring programs.

Data Sources and Analytical Tools

Strong measures and indicators provide a foundation to advance larger cross- department, -college, -institution and potentially multi-institutional conversations among faculty members and institutional leaders, and to inform decision-making about reforms in undergraduate STEM education. The following is a list of established and emerging data sources and analytical tools.

5 Best Practice Tips To Secure Your Big Data

The goal of securing big data was undertaken by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) recently, with the release of The Big Data Security and Privacy Handbook comprising useful tips for data storage, encryption, governance, monitoring and security. Herewith are five practices that can be undertaken to secure big data.

New & Updated Data Sources

BuzzFeed News Now Sharing Federal Payroll Records

The data, obtained by BuzzFeed News via the Freedom of Information Act, covers more than 40 years of U.S. government employment. You can download and start exploring it today.

A Snapshot of Enhancements to the ACS

This document describes the efforts the Census Bureau is undertaking to create a positive customer experience while maintaining the high quality of ACS data. It provides background on the most impactful issues facing the ACS, methods to address the issue, and the path forward. This document is the next version of the Agility In Action plan for the ACS (Versions 1.2, 1.1).

Monthly Trade Statistics Added to the Census API
The U.S. Census Bureau is announcing the addition of monthly international trade data to the Census Application Programming Interface (API). They?re releasing four years of historical data, covering 2013 to the present, and new data will be added every month.

Visualization of the Week

Children With Public Health Insurance in California
This kidsdata.org map illustrates the percentage of California children/youth ages 0-21 with public health insurance coverage, by U.S. congressional district. California has a higher rate of use of federal funds from Medicaid and the Children?s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) than the nation as a whole. An estimated 37 percent of California children and youth ages 0-21 had means-tested public health insurance coverage at point in time in 2011-2015 compared with 34% of children in the nation as a whole. In California congressional districts, the rate was as high as 61 percent and as low as 10 percent.

Notable Data Publications

GOVERNMENT

• Bureau of Economic Analysis – U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services 
• Bureau of Labor Statistics – Employed Workers Leaving the Labor Force: An Analysis of Recent Trends
• Census Bureau – 2016 Characteristics of New Housing
• National Center for Education Statistics – Four Years After a Bachelor?s Degree: Employment, Enrollment, and Debt Among College Graduates
• National Center for Vital and Health Statistics – Measuring Health at the Community Level: Data Gaps and Opportunities

PRIVATE SECTOR

• IBM Center for the Business of Government – Digital Service Teams: Challenges and Recommendations for Government

NONPROFITS & FOUNDATIONS

• Association of American Universities – Essential Questions & Data Sources for Continuous Improvement of Undergraduate STEM Teaching and Learning
• Digital Learning Compass – Digital Learning Compass: Distance Education Enrollment Report 2017

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

Federal Rulemaking and 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):

• National Survey of Youth in Custody, 2017-2018 (August 7, 2017)
• Survey of State Attorney General Offices – Cybercrime (July 31, 2017)

• Consumer Price Index Commodities and Services Survey (July 3, 2017)

• Report of Traffic and Capacity Statistics-The T-100 System (July 7, 2017)

• American Healthy Homes Survey II (July 3, 2017)