TechMiso

One of the cornerstones of President Obama’s campaign bid for the White House was more government transparency. After being inaugurated, Obama issued an executive order directing government officials to determine ways to make government information more accessible to the public. Data.gov is one of the fruits of this labor, having just launched today. The intent of the site is to be an information clearinghouse for all publicly available government data. Unfortunately, while the efforts are to be lauded, the site fails to impress.

One would assume that if the President orders data to be made publicly available on a government-run web site for the citizens then the various departments and agencies would find ways to provide quality and useful data for the effort. Unfortunately this is not the case with Data.gov at launch time. There is only a very small set of information available, and considering the size of the United States Government (USG) I find it amazing this is all they have to share at the moment.

The lack of data should not really come as a surprise. The size of the USG is enormous, highly complex and quite disparate. Facilitating data sharing across the entire government is a huge undertaking. Wired had the following to say about this very topic:

The sheer scale of government data presents many problems, as we’ve noted in the Open Up Government Data wiki. More than 100 government agencies collect data and statistics. Though some agencies have done a great job of getting data and documents online, the accessibility and usability of government data overall can be improved and standardized. With impressive attention to detail and metadata, Data.gov appears to be a step in that direction, but not everyone is satisfied with the new effort.

After perusing the site for a short time I can only say I am severely underwhelmed. The “catalog” is where the meat of the site should conceivably rest considering the point of Data.gov. The problem is this: as of this writing there are only 47 “raw” datasets available in the “raw data catalog.” Similarly there are only 27 “tools” available. A site entirely devoted to data seems quite devoid of such.

There have only been 120 days since Obama took office so it makes sense to see the site somewhat unfinished. It might have been smarter to hold the launch until the site was more useful and composed of a more substantial amount of datasets.

The problems do not lay solely with the severe lack of data either. Even though the site does have some data available, it is not packaged in an average-citizen friendly manner. How many users are going to know what to do with XML, CSV/TXT, KML/KMZ and ESRI data types? Rather than just offer raw information, Data.gov would better serve the American public by providing useful tools for viewing the data.

I am not the only person having issues with the data and tools offered on the site. VentureBeat’s Anthony Ha had the following to say specifically about the tools:

‘My bigger complaint is the fact that Data.gov isn’t doing enough to make the process easier for your average user. I understand that that the “raw data” isn’t going to be that useful for non-techies, but even the “tools” aren’t as accessible as they should be. For example, I wanted to see the chart of airplane displays frm the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, but Data.gov just sent me to the bureau’s site, where I had to download a 22 megabyte ZIP file. Is this “democratizing data”? Only if you can democratize something by making it accessible to the hardcore policy wonks and developers.’

Simply making data available in the hopes that private developers will create useful tools based on the data is unacceptable. What incentives exist for developers to build tools for reading and manipulating the data available on Data.gov? Necessity is the mother of all inventions and regrettably there is no vital reason to use the data currently offered.

Though Data.gov currently is unimpressive, the idea posed by President Obama is admirable. We live in exciting times and it’s wonderful that our President understands the government needs to be more accessible, especially in the Internet age. I certainly hope to see Data.gov mature in the coming months and grow in to a useful resource worth tapping for vital government data.