Date specified: Monday, 16-Mar-2015 00:00:00 EDT

1.2.4 Develop Data Inventory Schedule - Summary

Summarize the Inventory Schedule

Our open data leads continue to work with program offices to document data definitions and standards and publish releasable metadata. We have worked one-on-one with these offices to obtain the metadata and spread awareness about the importance of providing open data in machine-readable formats. Now that our inventory has begun to reach a good level of maturity, we are enriching and opening our inventory by providing more detailed metadata, better organizing our inventory, and providing more data to the public in machine-readable formats. One example of better organization was made possible with the late 2014 release of version 1.1 of the metadata schema: parent-child relationships. We are taking full advantage of this new feature. Since completing the initial inventory in November 2014 and moving to version 1.1 of the schema in February 2015, we have begun to turn our attention to providing machine-readable versions of data that we currently make available only in formats such as PDF. However, we continue to identify data assets that have fallen through the cracks and add them to the inventory. Besides maintaining the inventory, we will conduct qualitative analysis to develop categories among the data assets and modify our Metadata Repository (MDR) to incorporate these categories and accommodate the data assets.

1.2.5 Develop Data Inventory Schedule - Milestones

1.2.6 Develop Customer Feedback Process

Describe the agency's process to engage with customers

On both http://www.opm.gov/digitalstrategy and http://www.opm.gov/data, we have placed links to the open government topic area in our frequently asked questions system. Users can submit questions or requests for  data using that system. OPM's open government staff redirects these requests to the proper program offices. The program office staff are responsible for responding to these requests. OPM's Data Governance Board considers remaining requests monthly and works with program offices to release that data as practicable.

1.2.7 Develop Data Publication Process

Describe the agency's data publication process

The Data Governance Board (DGB) oversees the processes of inventorying and releasing data. The members of the DGB are technically competent and represent OPM's major data owners. We are currently focusing on inventorying our data and are temporarily accepting program offices' assessments of the public access level of their data assets. However, as we further open our data, when a program office deems that the data's access level should be public, the DGB will offer a determination as to whether the data could be harmful because of the mosaic effect (i.e., two or more independently harmless data sets could be compared or unified to inadvertently identify an individual or otherwise cause harm) or other potential negative consequence that was unforeseen by the program office. If the DGB does not find any such potential harms, it will recommend to OPM's Investment Review Board (IRB) that the data be released. The IRB, in turn, will make a recommendation to OPM's Office of the General Counsel, which will make the final determination. Any program office that labels its data restricted public or non-public is required to provide justification. Reasons for restricting some of the data but not all of it (restricted public) fall primarily into the category of personally identifiable information, or PII. Social security numbers are the most obvious example, but information about law enforcement or homeland security personnel that could make them easy to target would also be off-limits. In these cases, we will release non-attributable or less granular data at the appropriate time. Reasons for restricting all of the data (non-public) will fall primarily into the category of security. For example, certain data about Continuity of Operations (COOP) are not be releasable because they could compromise the agency's ability to operate securely in a national emergency.