New Work on Data Quality - Information & Access

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Published: 05/28/2002

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New Work on Data Quality

Data Quality Efforts

OMB Watch has been extremely active on the Data Quality guidelines that have recently been drafted by most federal agencies. This article summarizes the main efforts OMB Watch has been involved in and the key documents and analysis we have produced.

Background

These guidelines were done within the parameters of implementing guidelines laid out by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which in turn were required by an appropriations rider. The Data Quality guidelines have snowballed from a minor legislative rider into a major concern for the management and dissemination of information from government. OMB Watch has summarized the background and development of the data quality guidelines.

Extension

Considering the potential impact and scope of the data quality guidelines, which have been drafted by over 40 government departments and agencies, it is extremely troubling that most agencies are only allowing a 30-day public comment period. This short public comment period is a response to the deadlines established by OMB requiring agencies to submit final guidelines to OMB for review and approval by July 1, 2002, and that the guidelines be implemented by October 1, 2002. On May 24, the Citizens for Sensible Safeguards (CSS) coalition sent a letter to OIRA Administrator John Graham requesting an extension to the deadline for filing comments on federal agency data quality guidelines. The letter was also submitted to the data quality public comment process of nine key agencies -- Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Labor, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Education. A copy of the letter is here.

Sensible Principles

In addition to requesting an extension to the public comment period, CSS examined the data quality guidelines and attempted to summarize the main principles they would advocate for any agency or department drafting data guidelines. Various members of CSS will likely adapt the principles to develop comments to submit to several agencies and OMB Watch encourages anyone interested in submitting comments during this process to utilize these sensible principles. Those principles are listed here.

Comparison of Draft Guidelines

In an effort to understand the various alternative approaches used in developing data quality guidelines OMB Watch compared the draft Data Quality guidelines generated by a wide variety of Agencies and Departments. This analysis was distilled into a large side-by-side spreadsheet comparing key elements and categories of the guidelines produced by different agencies. A guide to the categories and characteristics that OMB Watch compared between the various drafts is here and the spreadsheet results are here.