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APDU Weekly

Feature

 

White House Nominates New BLS Commissioner

The White House nominated William Beach of George Mason University?s Mercatus Center to be Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for a term of four years. He would be replacing former Commissioner Erica Groshen, whose term expired earlier in 2017.

 

News

 

American Cities Depend on Federal Data

A Sunlight Foundation survey of staff in 63 American cities reveals that data collected and published by the federal government is a crucial resource for local communities.

 

Three Blogs to Help You Understand Population Estimates

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released the 2016 population estimates, which helps gauge change in the population since the 2010 Census. Read these blogs to understand the methodology behind these releases.

 

Meeting Titans of Open Data

The recent Association of Public Data Users (APDU) Conference gave Ari Lamstein the opportunity to meet some people who have made tremendous contributions to the world of Open Data.

 

New & Updated Data Sources

 

New American Community Survey Data Now Available

The U.S. Census Bureau?s 2016 American Community Survey one-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files and Supplemental Estimates Tables are now available on census.gov.

 

CEDS Version 7.1 Draft Released for Public Comment
A draft of the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) version 7.1 is available for public comment, with a final release planned for January 2018. The purpose of this update to CEDS is to make minor adjustments and add usage notes to the existing standards in response to stakeholder feedback. Use the ?Contact Us? button on the website and select the ?Data Model? topic?also include the name of the specific data element in the subject line if applicable?to comment by November 1.

 

A Kayak for Credentials
Ambitious project to create public database of wage data and other information about all postsecondary credentials seeks to help students and employers know more about what’s expected in academic and job-training programs.

 

SEC Might Convert Corporate Cover Pages into Data
Recently the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposed its first expansion of open corporate data in nearly nine years. Here?s where the new proposal came from, what it means, and why it matters.

Visualization of the Week

 

Visualizing the Greenness of Cities
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?s Senseable City Lab, a research initiative studying the impact of technology on urban life, has created a data visualization called Treepedia illustrating how green major cities are on a block-by-block basis. The researchers developed an algorithm to analyze Google Street View imagery and determine the percentage of each image containing trees, and applied this algorithm to every street in cities around the world, such as Boston, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, and Tel Aviv. Treepedia plots the greenness score for each block and provides an overall greenness score for each city.

 

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.

 

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):

 

Census Bureau
  • 2018 Estimates of Compact of Free Association Migrants (December 26, 2017)
  • Annual Business Survey (November 24, 2017)
  • Annual Wholesale Trade Survey (November 18, 2017)
  • Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, and Orders Survey (November 19, 2017)
  • Report of Organization (November 17, 2017)
Department of Housing and Urban Development
  • 2018 Rental Housing Finance Survey (December 19, 2017)

October 26, 2017

 

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