Office of Shared Solutions and Performance Improvement (OSSPI); Chief Data Officers Council (CDO); Request for Information on Behalf of the Federal Chief Data Officers Council
| Published date | 14 October 2021 |
| Citation | 86 FR 57147 |
| Record Number | 2021-22267 |
| Section | Notices |
| Court | General Services Administration |
Federal Register, Volume 86 Issue 196 (Thursday, October 14, 2021)
[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 196 (Thursday, October 14, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 57147-57149]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-22267]
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GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
[Notice MY-2021-02; Docket No. 2021-0021; Sequence No. 1]
Office of Shared Solutions and Performance Improvement (OSSPI);
Chief Data Officers Council (CDO); Request for Information on Behalf of
the Federal Chief Data Officers Council
AGENCY: Chief Data Officers (CDO) Council, General Services
Administration (GSA).
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: The Federal CDO Council was established by the Foundations for
Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4174/text), which also requires all federal
agencies to appoint a CDO. The Council's vision is to improve
government mission achievement and increase the benefits to the Nation
through improvement in the management, use, protection, dissemination,
and generation of data in government decision-making and operations.
The CDO Council is publishing this Request for Information (RFI) for
the public to provide input on key questions to support the council's
mission and focus areas. Responses to this RFI will inform the
Council's efforts and will be shared with the relevant groups in the
Council.
DATES: We will consider comments received by November 15, 2021.
ADDRESSES: You should submit comments via the Federal eRulemaking
Portal at https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for
submitting comments. All public comments received are subject to the
Freedom of Information Act and will be posted in their entirety at
regulations.gov, including any personal and/or business confidential
information provided. Do not include any information you would not like
to be made publicly available.
Written responses should not exceed six pages, inclusive of a one-
page cover page as described below. Please respond concisely, in plain
language, and specify which question(s) you are responding to in
narrative format. You may also include links to online materials or
interactive presentations but please ensure all links are publicly
available. Each response should include:
The name of the individual(s) and/or organization
responding.
A brief description of the responding individual(s) or
organization's mission and/or areas of expertise.
The section(s) (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and/or 6) that your
submission and materials are related to.
A contact for questions or other follow-up on your
response.
By responding to the RFI, each participant (individual, team, or
legal entity) warrants that they are the sole author or owner of, or
has the right to use, any copyrightable works that the submission
comprises, that the works are wholly original (or is an improved
version of an existing work that the participant has sufficient rights
to use and improve), and that the submission does not infringe any
copyright or any other rights of any third party of which participant
is aware.
By responding to the RFI, each participant (individual, team, or
legal entity) consents to the contents of their submission being made
available to all Federal agencies and their employees on an internal-
to-government website accessible only to agency staff persons.
Participants will not be required to transfer their intellectual
property rights to the CDO Council, but participants must grant to the
Federal government a nonexclusive license to apply, share, and use the
materials that are included in the submission. To participate in the
RFI, each participant must warrant that there are no legal obstacles to
providing
[[Page 57148]]
the above-referenced nonexclusive licenses of participant rights to the
Federal government. Interested parties who respond to this RFI may be
contacted for a follow-on strategic agency assessment dialogue,
discussion or event.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Issues regarding submission or
questions can be sent to Ken Ambrose--phone number: 202-215-7330; or
email: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
The Federal CDO Council was established by the Foundations for
Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (Pub. L. 115-435) which also requires
all federal agencies to appoint a CDO. The Council's vision is to
improve government mission achievement and increase the benefits to the
Nation through improvement in the management, use, protection,
dissemination, and generation of data in government decision-making and
operations. The CDO Council has over 80 member CDOs from across the
Federal government, as well as representatives from the Office of
Management and Budget, and other key councils and committees. The CDO
Council has working groups that focus on critical topics as well as
committees that help Federal agencies connect and collaborate. The CDO
Council also works with other interagency councils on data related
topics and activities. The CDO Council engages with the public and
private users of Government data to improve data practices and access
to data assets.
The CDO Council has five statutory purposes:
(1) Establish Governmentwide best practices for the use,
protection, dissemination, and generation of data;
(2) promote and encourage data sharing agreements between agencies;
(3) identify ways in which agencies can improve upon the production
of evidence for use in policymaking;
(4) consult with the public and engage with private users of
Government data and other stakeholders on how to improve access to data
assets of the Federal Government; and
(5) identify and evaluate new technology solutions for improving
the collection and use of data.
Through this request for information (RFI), the CDOC seeks input,
information, and recommendations from a broad array of public
stakeholders on available methods, approaches, and tools that could
assist in the CDOC's efforts. We anticipate that these stakeholders may
include academia, state/tribal/local governments, civil society groups,
standards organizations, industry, and others. The CDOC will share
responses to the RFI with the appropriate working groups and other
stakeholders so that they can inform the work of the council. The
council also anticipates preparing a review of the RFI comments that
will be shared publicly.
Information and Key Questions
The CDO Council seeks input in the following areas:
Section 1: General
Is the CDOC missing any critical aspects in our focus
areas? Are there industry or academic trends that we need to be aware
of?
Section 2: Data Skills and Workforce Development
The Federal CDO Council's Data Skills Working Group is chartered to
help CDOs and their stakeholders improve the Federal government's data
skills and data workforce development efforts, ultimately improving
data acumen and closing data skills gaps.
Early efforts on data skill development have focused on
data science upskilling. When thinking about upskilling programs:
[cir] What are the roles and responsibilities and types of data
acumen that make up a data driven organization?
[cir] What are the roles and responsibilities of an effective data
team?
[cir] What upskilling programs exist for these roles?
[cir] How can upskilling programs support continuous learning and
data driven decision making at all levels in an organization, including
for organization leaders?
[cir] What are the key areas agencies should focus on to improve
the data acumen of the Federal workforce, broadly?
[cir] How might we collaborate to incorporate public sector data
and topics into data training curricula?
How can the Federal government attract and retain people
with data skills? How can the Federal government help applicants
understand the wide array of skills and roles that are needed?
How should federal agencies benchmark data management and
analytics activities to support upskilling programs so that we can
understand our progress, opportunities to improve, and identification
of best practices? How can we support benchmarking and comparisons
across agencies as well as with non-federal near peers?
Section 3: Data Inventory
The Federal CDO Council's Data Inventory Working Group is chartered
to help CDOs improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their data
inventory efforts. The group is working to better understand how
agencies are using, and want to use, data inventories both internally
and externally, thinking about how to harmonize across inventory
standards (e.g., data.gov and geoplatform.gov), and more.
How do you find Federal data? Are there better ways to
find Federal data?
How can data inventories best support how you identify
Federal data that is valuable for your own use cases? How could
existing platforms (e.g., data.gov, geoplatform.gov ) better support
access to Federal data?
Early Federal efforts on data inventories were focused on
cataloguing publicly available data, and facilitating search and
discovery. When thinking about inventory use cases:
[cir] What are the most valuable use cases for data inventories to
support non-Federal entities, including state and local governments,
academia, and the private sector?
[cir] What are the most valuable use cases for Federal agency
operations?
[cir] What are the most valuable use cases for Federal agency data
analysts?
[cir] How well do current data inventory standards meet those use
cases?
What is the best implementation of a data inventory you
have seen? What are the characteristics that made it so successful?
To date, inventories have relied on manual work to
generate and maintain metadata. What best practices and tools are
available to automate and reduce the manual workload associated with
inventories?
Section 4: Data Sharing
The Federal CDO Council Data Sharing Working Group is chartered to
develop a comprehensive view of data sharing purposes across the
Federal government, understanding the challenges surrounding data
sharing, and recommending solutions that make sharing easier while
preserving privacy and confidentiality.
What best practices could statistical agencies and non-
statistical agencies use to better partner? Please share success
stories and what led to that success.
What are effective ways for Federal programs to share
programmatic data in ways that protect the privacy of individuals and
organizations? Specifically:
[cir] What are models of developing and using privacy protecting
identifiers?
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[cir] What policies are needed to ensure that privacy protecting
identifiers are effective?
What are the premier examples of public or private sector
entities that aggregate, integrate, and share information? Think of
entities that operate on the scale of Federal agencies with broad and
diverse missions. In addition, we are interested in entities that have
moved beyond one-to-one data sharing to using standardized and
automated data sharing controls.
[cir] For the premier entity, can you outline the policies,
frameworks, strategies, organizational constructs, operational
capabilities, and value creation model?
How can the Federal government engage with private sector
data providers in a way that maximizes the ability to use the data or
data derivatives across multiple agencies? How might we achieve this
while ensuring a viable business model for data providers?
Section 5: Value and Maturity
As agencies formulate their data strategies, they are constantly
looking for ways to deliver and communicate value. There is broad
awareness of the value of Federal data. However, there is not a
consensus on how to measure the value of that data.
What are meaningful approaches to defining the value of
government data?
[cir] How can we define the value of data to different stakeholders
or purposes? (e.g. government agencies in decision-making, performance
management, and program evaluation, as well as to researchers, states,
localities, private industry and the general public)
What are the best practices and practical experiences for
conducting useful, high integrity maturity assessments in large,
distributed, and decentralized federal agencies--balancing overhead and
burden with utility, coverage, and alignment against ongoing efforts to
implement data strategies?
[cir] Can you describe an example where mission or business leaders
have championed maturity assessments as core to transformation
initiatives they championed, why they did so, and how they did it?
What approaches or models exist to calculate the return on
investment in data products, data governance, and data management?
How can we raise awareness of the value of data governance
and data management in support of achieving agency value?
[cir] What steps do we need to take in order to integrate a data
governance framework into the way of doing government business?
[cir] How should CDOs communicate progress on and value of data
governance efforts?
Section 6: Ethics and Equity
The Federal Data Strategy, delivered in December 2019, recognized
the importance of ethics in its founding principles. The Federal Data
Strategy 2020 Action Plan required the development of a Data Ethics
Framework that is intended to help agency employees, managers, and
leaders make ethical decisions as they acquire, manage, and use data.
The Framework and its Tenets are a ``living'' resource and are to be
updated by the CDO Council and Interagency Council on Statistical
Policy (ICSP) every 24 months to ensure the Framework remains current.
How might the Federal Data Ethics Framework need to evolve
to address racial equity and support for underserved communities? Does
the Federal Data Ethics Framework sufficiently address concerns about
the vulnerability of certain populations?
Are there best practices for agencies to consider at the
intersection of data ethics and diversity, equity, inclusion, and
accessibility?
How can we leverage Federal Data ethics to improve trust
and transparency?
What steps can the CDO Council and the ICSP take to ensure
the Federal Data Ethics Framework serves as the foundation of
partnerships between Federal agencies, academic and research partners,
state, local, and tribal governments, community and advocacy groups,
and other stakeholders?
How might the Federal government encourage the adoption of
the Federal Data Ethics Framework across the contractor, financial
assistance communities, and other stakeholders?
Section 7: Technology
The Federal CDO Council is interested in better understanding the
marketplace trends for both operational and analytic data management
use cases.
What frameworks should agencies use to evaluate their
existing data infrastructure and to modernize technology with
capabilities that break down organizational data silos and ensure the
best available data is available?
[cir] What are the best examples of where you have seen this happen
in the public and private sectors?
Are advances in data management enabling new models for
information sharing?
[cir] How are technologies evolving with new data management
models?
[cir] What technology components are positioned to serve as the
source for operationally authoritative data?
Technology approaches go through a cycle of emphasizing
integration of open source or commercial best of breed for targeted
capabilities, or emphasis on integrated solutions or platforms with
accompanying ecosystems.
[cir] Where are we in the cycle and why?
Ken Ambrose,
Senior Advisor CDO Council, Office of Shared Solutions and Performance
Improvement, General Services Administration.
[FR Doc. 2021-22267 Filed 10-13-21; 8:45 am]
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