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My primary job is aggregating and contextualizing health data. I don't think people know how many ways there are to get data from government sources. In my section, we'll work with anyone in any way. I've mailed printed reports, shipped CDs, emailed CSVs, and sent collections of links to various data sources and their stewards. We've received requests by letter, phone, fax, email, and walk-in. We've stopped publishing physical and bound copies of reports, but will print them out if asked. People without computers have access to everything we publish online. It'll be hard to know what's available, but that's no different than how things were before the internet. Seriously though, if you want data in a different format or on something they don't publish, call or email the agency and make a data request. If you don't understand the context, ask them. Personally, I love going into the details of how and why we analyze the data. Other people get crowds when talking about their jobs, but nobody wants to hear me gush about R programming or explain gripe about the latest change in cancer epidemiology standards. I happily spend hours crafting and revising detailed replies to simple questions. I'll agree with the author that published data shouldn't have arbitrary and inscrutable "metadata." Such as field names meaningless even to other experts (looking at you, US Census Bureau). But it's unreasonable to think non-experts should be able to understand and properly use all data products. Read summarized reports if you want data with context. >on data.gov’s impact page you’ll find a kind of hall-of-fame list of companies that are “public data success stories”: Kayak, Trulia, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Realtor.com, Zillow, Zocdoc, AccuWeather, Carfax. All of these corporations have, in some fashion, built profit models around public data, often charging for access to the very information that the state touts as “accessible, discoverable, and usable.” First, consider an alternate to listing companies. Should individuals be listed? How many people works care if there was a race review from Dr. Jane Doe who used the data in an article? Second, the companies charge for the collection, processing, and reporting of data. That's added value. If you want the government to add that value in-house, then push your government to hire somebody to do it. I agree, it'll be the cheapest option for society. Government data fees are small, usually just enough to cover hours worked (bonus: government underpays tech workers). But you need to convince them it's a valuable position that'll help private citizens and themselves (agencies have to make data requests of one another). |