Pennsylvania Announces Open Data Portal; Government Technology, 4/18/16

Colin Wood, Government Technology; Pennsylvania Announces Open Data Portal:

"Pennsylvania is renewing its commitment to transparency.

On April 18, Gov. Tom Wolf, who assumed office in January, signed an executive order to create an open data portal. The new portal is mandated to contain downloadable, machine-readable data, a feature not offered by the state’s existing transparency site called PennWATCH. The state Office of Administration is also mandated to help agencies find their most valuable data sets...

The commonwealth’s data portal efforts are to be led by Julie Snyder, director of the Office of Data and Digital Technology at the Office of Administration. By working closely with the state’s agencies, civic hacker community, universities and cities, she will identify which data sets are most useful to be unlocked first, said Sharon Minnich, secretary of the Office of Administration. To develop its plan, Minnich said, Pennsylvania not only looked around the nation to spot best practices, but also assessed plans closer to home, asking Pittsburgh for advice.

“There’s a lot of open data out there that doesn’t necessarily get downloaded, so we want to make sure we put out the most valuable information,” she said. “In speaking to the universities, there really were a broad spectrum of interests. It’s going to depend on what the use cases would be for those data sets we would publish.”"

Gov. Wolf signs open data executive order; Technical.ly, 4/18/16

Juliana Reyes, Technical.ly; Gov. Wolf signs open data executive order:

"Four years after Mayor Michael Nutter signed an open data executive order for the City of Philadelphia, Gov. Tom Wolf is signing one for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

“Our goal,” Wolf said in a statement, “is to make data available in order to engage citizens, create economic opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs, and develop innovative policy solutions that improve program delivery and streamline operations.”

As part of the order, the state will form an advisory committee and launch an open data portal. The state aims to launch the portal in August, where it says it will post data in a machine-readable format. The first datasets slated for release will be focused on Wolf’s goals, said Office of Administration Secretary Sharon Minnich.

The order will be carried out by Julie Snyder, director of the Office of Data and Digital Technology. Snyder, the former chief information officer of the Department of Environmental Protection, reports to Minnich."