GSA official touts progress on Data.gov

November 18, 2010 by
The General Services Administration is “very proud” of the work it has done with the federal government’s online clearinghouse of downloadable information, but challenges remain, a project manager said on Wednesday.

Data.gov has grown from hosting 47 data sets when it launched in May 2009 to offering more than 300,000 today, said Program Director Marion Royal, during the International Open Government Data Conference in Washington. Royal leads the team of federal employees and contractors working on the site.

GSA launched an open data community page within the site on Monday, according to Royal. The page aims to bring together policy makers, technologists, data owners and citizens, encouraging them to make recommendations on information that should be shared.

“[I'm] happy to finally open up . . . two-way communication on Data.gov,” he said. “New two-way communication is going to be helpful to not only us but the public as well.”

GSA also is working on hosting data sets that will be easier to view without downloading the entire file, Royal said, adding, this will be especially helpful for people using mobile devices.

“[The] tools we are looking at will allow us to do that kind of thing and allow us to [display] the data in a way the average person” will understand, he said.

Despite this progress, hurdles remain, according to Royal. “If we have additional funding, we could do additional things,” he said, though he did not elaborate on how much extra money would be necessary, or what he’d like to accomplish with it.

Royal has big plans for the site nonetheless. “I hope we can get around or over the roadblocks to achieve some really special things,” he said. “No matter how well we do at Data.gov, we [always have] to kick it up a notch.”

– by Brian Kalish - 11/18/2010 – NextGov.com

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: , ,

Officials hope unique identifiers will sharpen procurement data reporting

August 17, 2010 by

Agencies may have to develop unique identifiers for their contracts and orders under a new proposal meant to improve the quality of federal data.

The Civilian Agency Acquisition and the Defense Acquisition Regulations councils have proposed standardizing the use of unique procurement instrument identifiers (PIID) throughout the government and giving agencies policies on how to use the identifiers, according to a notice published in today’s Federal Register. A PIID consists of alpha characters in the first positions to indicate the agency, followed by alphanumeric characters identifying bureaus, offices, or other administrative subdivisions.

Under the proposal, agencies would have to ensure each PIID reported to the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) would be unique for all contracts and orders. The identifier would have to be unique for at least 20 years from the contract’s award and used on all solicitations. Agencies also would have to submit the format of their identifier to the General Services Administration’s Integrated Acquisition Environment Program Office, according to the notice.

Officials hope to improve transparency, the quality of the contract and spending reports with the proposed policy.

As it stands now, the Federal Acquisition Regulation requires the unique identifiers, but it has no policies that accompany the rule. And the lack of specifics causes numerous hitches for contract data in governmentwide systems, such as FPDS, and other systems that issue reports on the data, according to the notice.

The result is duplication, errors and discrepancies, and these problems are exacerbated by multiple-award contracts that more than one agency uses, the notice states.

“Without a consistent means for distinguishing PIIDs for each agency to ensure uniqueness beyond FPDS reporting, it is difficult to report to the level of transparency required by” the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which instituted USASpending.gov, and the economic stimulus law, the notice states.

At a congressional hearing in July, Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said his auditors hit numerous roadblocks in their oversight of contract and grant awards because there’s no cohesion among agencies on how they code their awards.

– by Matthew Weigelt – Aug. 17, 2010 – Federal Computer Week

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: , ,