Participants get lunch and go to a breakout session. The aim of each session is to suggest possible NICS tools and methods to overcome challenges regarding small area (i.e., neighborhood) data access and use. (Examples of such tools and methods might include metadata standards, synthetic data sets, and larger sample sizes.) (2JKY)
Falk Auditorium, The Brookings Institution February 16, 2005 (2JKZ)
Key Challenges to accessing and using small area data effectively. (2JL0)
- Assembly of data with privacy and confidentiality considerations. Trying to put together data in a meaningful way that also protects privacy and confidentiality. The data exists, but we need to make it usable and integrate easier (2JL1)
- Social Infrastructure with Metadata. We lack the social treaties or social conventions (metadata, standards, notion system agreement) that makes the data difficult to be tapped. We need to ensure the context and meaning travel with the data when it is shared or mined. (2JL2)
- Using data with standard geographies in user-defined geographies. Reconciling different geographies, and access to data at specific (and low-level) geographies. (2JL3)
- Agreement on land use schemes--standard definitions for data collected (2JL4)
- Standardizing a base map at the point level. Inventory of point and parcel data. (2JL5)
- Trust and providence of local data. Assessing confidence in the data collected at the local level -- Accuracy, trustworthiness, usability of data with others. (2JL6)
- Use of data in decision-making. Data is available, but we need to help public policy makers (particularly local level officials) use the data appropriately (for their purposes, and guard against mis-use of the data) (2JL7)
- Separating description from prescription. (2JL8)
- Develop Communities of Practice for communities, local users. (2JL9)
- Effective guides for data use – for laymen users, professions, statisticians. (2JLA)
- Spatial and temporal catalog or indexing of available data, its collection and use. (2JLB)
- Spatial and temporal mis-match of data, geographic consistency. Lack of co-terminality of different geographies (police districts, school districts, neighborhoods) – need to be reconciled for use. (2JLC)
- Data integration needs to ensure statistical quality. For example, current tools split geographies and create duplicate-propagation of data. Propagating statistical significance to all transformations. (2JLD)
- Tyranny of tools…Best practice examples so that the tools don’t define the problem being studied or trying to be defined. People should be made aware (guides, documentation, training) of the uses and limits of tools. Currently, tools guide collection, some people at the local level won’t collect data because the current tools for data use do not help a user at that geography, but they don’t realize that their data is extremely important for users with higher level geographies. Collect data with respect to statistical principles, or more generalized guidelines rather than what current tools can and cannot do. (2JLE)
- Educate communities on the importance of sharing data, and being statistically literate, and on data reference. (2JLF)
- Embrace inconsistencies in data. No one is going to be able to decide or agree upon a single standard for metadata and data, so we shouldn’t wait for this to happen to make data that is good enough for decision-making. Think of this community as a pure democratic exchange, an ebay or amazon rating system, that allows bottom-up or top-down exchanges that builds the best data for decision-making. (2JLG)
- We want to go towards ‘‘open architecture’’ instead of ‘‘open standards’’ (2JLH)
- Incentives to improve data. It’s a resources issue– the private industry has overcome the public sector’s drive to do a lot of these initiatives because when they create tools or combine data, they have created a commercialized product (and sustainable biz model) in the process. In some cases some companies are struggling with this because they can’t find the biz model or the market for a new tool or new information’s use. (2JLI)
- Criminal penalties for mis-use of data (2JLJ)
- A set of standards could be a set of blinders if we are not careful (2JLK)
- Identify data gaps (2JLL)
- People can get comfort through data being produced (2JMO)
- {nid 2JMP} (2JMX)
Name a tool or method for solving these problems? (2JLM)
- Open Architecture (2JLN)
- Legislation (for social issues around data) to allow us to guarantee that people who are involved in these large data pools, participants in NICS don’t get hurt. (2JLO)
- Outreach Early intervention for awareness for those who aren’t as savvy with data collection issues. The earlier that people who are just starting to collect data are addressed by a NICS, the sooner we can have more quality data generally available. (2JLP)
- Indicators that have a numerator and a denominator (2JLQ)
- NICS needs to have a serious support capability (2JLR)
- Use-cases in mutli-disciplinary approaches (2JLS)
- Best-practices (on data collection side, multidisciplinary) (2JLT)
- Peer rating system within NICS. Like an amazon rating system, or blog format – an interim solution while we develop this piece further. (2JLU)
- Demonstration of good data and what are the consequences of bad data to sell and educate users and data producers on what good data can do, and what it looks like (standard formats, good documentation, meta data, notes on limitations and use) (2JLX)
- Metadata standards (2JLY)
- Elucidate what our goal is, what the purpose of data is, how it can effect decision-making, quality of life, etc. EG: child care who's taking services, who needs it. Ask the question: "what would a city council person need to change child care policy?" You need to know what the target population is, what percent of those need the service. Then consider the supply issues - the quality, what percent of those who need it get good quality services. (2JMQ)
Next Steps (2JLZ)
- Use cases to show who are NICS ready, to demonstrate win-wins from data sharing. (2JM0)
- Case studies will populate a users guide, documentation about NICS (2JM1)
- Goal for next year is a set of data that is NICS ready that we can point to as we move ahead. (2JM2)
Other remarks... (2JM3)
- What is NICS-Ready data? (2JM4)
STANDARDS (2KRS)
- geographical (2KRT)
- temporal (2KRU)
- questions behind the availability of data across areas and across time. (2JMY)
KEY TOOLS - Developing a use case that develops best practices. (2KRW)
- Need to demonstrate NICS ready data (2KRX)
- Need to demonstrate rewards and gaps in the data. (2KRY)
- Open technology - developing a standard by which tenchnology standards over time. (2JMZ)
Peer Rating process? Kind of like a market place, do we trust the orginal source like amazon. How do you develop and identify those things? (2JN0)
Legislation - to balance the need for privacy and confidentiality. What would victory be? Need to be able to point to a set of data that are NICS ready. Data that would be able to flow in and out. (2JN1)
Ability to take NICS data and expand on local datasets - attributes associated about data. (2JN2)