JANUARY 6, 2005 WORKSHOP ON FEDERAL ORGANIZATIONS (SPF)
Participant Needs and Applications Work Group (SPG)
- Audience (SO7)
- Data researchers are a large audience for NICS. Metro economies are studied to death because metro level data are available. A lot more local research could be done if the data were available. (SO8)
- Need to inventory local administrative records: (SO9)
- What types of administrative data are available? (SOA)
- What can it address? (SOB)
- Who has access to it (wealth counties, states)? (SOC)
- Where do these local administrative records and how are they being use? (SOD)
- Which datasets might NICS provide favorable tradeoff? (SOE)
- Interesting Local Data Sets (SOF)
- CDBG data (file is not readily used or available, but data are being collected) (SOG)
- Foreclosure data (SNW)
- Data Tools (SOH)
- Need data that are able to walk across different fields (health, transportation, etc.). For example, to make case about need for walkable cities, need data on health, demographics, etc. Need tools that are accessible to all users. (SOI)
- Important to develop a finite number of tools that are useful across agencies, so agencies arenˇ¦t spending time and resources building similar tools. Egov initiative should be one of the core priorities: there is a core set of data elements (justice, health, environment) (SOJ)
- Data Reference Model (SOK)
- Make available a set of methodologies that allows users to allocate data to local areas. (SOL)
- Need standard measures and definitions of concepts (SNX)
- Need to define 'local' (SOM)
- 'Local' data means something different to the feds than it does to the local data user. For example, LED provides more detailed meant 4 digit NAICS codes data at county level, more frequently, but to the local users, 1 digit NAICS, once a year, would be more beneficial for monitoring change at the local level. There needs to be someway for locals to customize data at their community level. (SON)
- Local data needs are very unique. There needs be a systems architecture that allows users to do customized analysis. Run into data provider sharing agreements because local data is valuable. (SOO)
- Manifesto for ˇ§local usersˇ¨ needs in terms of technology, needs, etc. (SNY)
- Demand for local data (NICS) (SOP)
- Researchers - A big audience for this data is researchers. Metro economies are studied to dearth because data are available. A lot more local research could be done if the data were available. Modeling on local areas is difficult because of lack of comparable local data. looking for a number of measures (health, biz, etc) to do modeling, (SOQ)
- Community Planners ˇV Planners would be a good users group for generating local demand for NICS. Planners need regional and local data and data over time for time series analysis. Comprehensive planning at local rural level is difficult. For example, data on miles walked would be beneficial but difficult to get. (SNZ)
- Inventory of Administrative Records: (SOR)
- What types of administrative data available (SOS)
- What can it address (SOT)
- Who has access to it (wealth counties, states) (SOU)
- Where do these local administrative records and how are they being use? (SOV)
- Which datasets might NICS provide favorable tradeoff (SO0)
- Incentives for counties to share data (SOW)
- Is there an incentive that makes county want to make there data available? Some counties sell data. It is a source of revenue. (SOX)
- As it get easier to disseminate and collect data, the money that the data brings to counties may become less and less, therefore, less incentive to keep data private. (SOY)
- Should NICS pay counties to collect data? (SO1)
- Market Research (SOZ)
- How do federal agencies get the word out? Federal agencies do not have a lot of money for marketing. (SP0)
- Need to better understand how people get information. Do people have access to the internet? Are the people who have access to the internet the people who are using the information? (SP1)
- Data Intermediaries as vehicle for market research - One of the principal audiences of NICS are data intermediaries. NICS can learn a lot about what users need through data intermediaries. (SP2)
- In terms of measuring usefulness of data, need to think beyond number of hits or how much data is sold (in the case of Census data). (SO2)
- Federal Government policies that could benefit from NICS (SP3)
- OMB requirements for agency program evaluation of programs but they do not have data to conduct the evaluation. (SP4)
- GASB 34 the accountants and auditors now require that local assets are tracked. These would be perfect allies for NICS. (SP5)
- OMBˇ¦s Data Reference Model (SO3)
- Federal/Local Data Partnerships (SP6)
- Some participants expressed interest in the possibility of federal/local partnerships for improving local data. (SP7)
- Census Federal/state cooperative partnership for improving population estimates is one model that might be a good model. (SP8)
- Use Cases (SP9)
- Need to invest more money in documenting use cases we can see how information is used. (SPA)
- Researcher/City Partnerships for use cases - parcel based data available from most city governments but those in government donˇ¦t do research. Could be beneficial to put researchers and data holders together to do a study of interest to both to demonstrate the power of data. (SO4)
- Census did a few test projects with ACS to illustrate the use of the data to demonstrate how it could be used in the Bronx and another community of about 150,000. The small cases cost about $5000 each and were very beneficial in demonstrating how data were being used at the local level and how it benefits local areas. (SO5)
- National Data Centers (SPB)
- Would we need this for community stats? Do we need a trusted local data intermediary? (SO6)
