May 21, 2009 By Matt Williams
Federal CIO Vivek Kundra made good Thursday on his promise to launch Data.gov, which will make data generated by the federal government publicly available.
It's apparent that Data.gov is only in the initial state of development. Day one featured an eclectic assortment of data sets, such as the locations of the world's copper smelters, National Weather Service advisories and weekly reports of earthquakes. Web site widgets for the FBI's 10 Most Wanted and the H1N1 swine flu virus are also featured.
Kundra championed a similar Web site in his former position as the CIO of Washington, D.C.: The District of Columbia Data Catalog contains more than 275 data sets -- everything from the locations of road kill pick-ups to crime incident reports. Like the D.C. Data Catalog, datasets available on Data.gov are retrievable in different formats like XML and ESRI Shapefile.
Kundra has said that the aim of Data.gov will be to improve government transparency by releasing these data sets so that citizens are able to analyze them and build mash-up applications.
Not all government data will be released on Data.gov, though. According to a policy statement posted on the Web site, all information must comply with privacy regulations. National security information will be unavailable.
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Based off of discussions of the Digital Communities Large Jurisdiction Chief Information Officer (CIO) Working Group, this white paper aims to answer the question, "In today's economic, political and business environment, what constitutes a successful relationship between government and industry?" Cause for Optimism identifies and clarifies the issues that separate government and industry, and begins to find an answer to the question necessary for both to enjoy a successful and prosperous future.
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