State agency information officers will gather next week at an IT Executive Council meeting to share feedback from their chief information officers on a draft Open Data Policy from the California Department of Technology, among other agenda items. The draft was shared with AIOs and distributed to CalData meeting attendees in October, according to CalData.
The first iteration was made available in an effort to incorporate feedback from state workers using data.
"This draft language is the first iteration and is an opportunity to engage in conversation with your peers and partners in other organizations. We look forward to developing this policy with you, and to that end would like to make ourselves available to you to discuss the policy, hear your ideas for revision and answer your questions," says an email from CalData announcing the policy draft.
The AIOs' meeting Thursday is not public.
While departments have been encouraged to make data open and available in the past, especially with CDT's open data portal, this effort would create a formal policy. CDT's open data portal uses a similar standard to the federal Project Open Data.
The policy includes State Administrative Manual (SAM) documents 5160, SAM 5160.1 and SAM 5160.2, which outline official policy requirements, security standards, licensing and exceptions.
The policy draft requires "security-related restrictions including National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Publication 199, Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems,” which includes guidance and definitions for confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Building systems that are interoperable and machine readable from the outset will ease the gathering and accessibility of data, according to the policy draft.
"To ensure that state government is taking full advantage of its information resources, agencies/state entities shall manage their data as an asset from the start and, wherever possible, release it to the public in a way that makes it open, discoverable and usable," the draft reads.
And having that data available publicly has multiple benefits for state departments and the public.
"Managing government information as an asset will increase operational efficiencies, enhance performance planning, improve services, support mission needs, inform policy decisions, safeguard personal information, and increase public access to valuable government information. Open data helps ensure that all public datasets are discoverable and fuels entrepreneurship, economic development and scientific discovery," the draft introduction reads.
