With ‘open by default’ policy in place, DC inventories its data

During Sunshine Week, D.C. government is taking stock of public datasets.

The District’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer released an Enterprise Dataset Inventory as open data. It’s the first time the District has released such a report. and follows on the heels of a new data policy that was implemented by Mayor Muriel Bowser last year taking the stance of “open by default.”

“We can’t really claim to care about our data if we don’t know what data we have, where it is or how sensitive it is,” Barney Krucoff, the District’s Interim CTO who joined the office as Chief Data Officer in 2016, said in a statement. “…Publishing the EDI inventory as open data is fundamental to transparency.”

The inventory includes 1,640 datasets. According to OCTO, 80 percent of the District’s 99 agencies were asked to participate, including all 69 agencies under the mayor’s purview. Ten out of 30 independent agencies participated. They were not required to do so.

Today, @OpenDataDC published its 1st enterprise dataset inventory & an annual report by its Chief Data Officer: https://t.co/HSbdXFw3iV
We're glad to see "open by default" is prominently featured. We pushed hard for that policy: https://t.co/erDitGspuh #SunshineWeek #opengov pic.twitter.com/XvCcb2gAqv

— Sunlight Foundation (@SunFoundation) March 12, 2018

According to an annual report which includes an analysis of the datasets, OCTO provided the most datasets, followed by D.C. Public Schools, the District Department of Transportation and the Department of Health.

The District also released an inventory datasets that are not currently available on Open Data DC, and said they will be prioritized for publication on the portal this year.

In May 2017, Bowser announced a new District data policy after consulting with partners such as the Open Government Advisory Group, Code for D.C., the Sunlight Foundation. It was part of a push to revive the District’s leadership on #opendata that had previously lost momentum.