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One way to tame a mess, whether it is a child’s room, a woodshop or a swamp of data, is to have a place to put everything. Data standards do this for data. More importantly, they can do this for generative AI systems, allowing us human beings to address many of the legitimate concerns that have arisen since the widespread release of large language models (LLMs) and their host generative AI (Gen AI) systems like OpenAI ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot™, and Google Bard™.
March 20, 2024: Written Statement from Nicholas (Nick) Hart, Ph.D., President & CEO of the Data Foundation For the Committee on House Administration, Subcommittee on Modernization. Hearing on Legislative Proposals to Support Modernizing the Congressional Research Service and the Use of Federal Data.
The dream of purely objective, data-driven decisions may be alluring, but the reality is more nuanced. Vast amounts of data in federal databases, whether from surveys, records, or health reports, stem from someone's lived experience. These experiences are translated into ones and zeros, and skillful analysis can transform them back into meaningful evidence.
This January, as we mark both Data Privacy Week and the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act’s (Evidence Act) fifth anniversary, it’s time to celebrate how the Evidence Act is pioneering 21st century privacy protections.
We are tackling this issue of better data and useful evidence head-on across government with the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, or Evidence Act, celebrating its 5th anniversary today!
Stakeholder engagement improves the quality and responsiveness of government processes and resources, including activities like formulating and fulfilling federal evaluation plans and learning agendas. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) emphasizes the role of engagement with key stakeholders in evidence-building activities (see Circular A-11, M-19-23, M-21-27), yet engagement is still limited in practice for many agencies.
During a joint virtual event hosted by the Data Foundation and Results for America, participants learned about discrete examples which highlighted the importance of effective engagement from practitioners and resources available to improve engagement moving forward.
Congress passed the Financial Data Transparency Act (FDTA) in late 2022, a long-standing policy priority for the Data Foundation. When enacted, “covered agencies” in the financial regulatory community initiated a rapid implementation process, including reports to Congress from the Securities and Exchange Commission (e.g. Regarding Public and Internal Use of Machine-Readable Data for Corporate Disclosures).
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dec. 19, 2023 – The Data Foundation, in collaboration with Deloitte, unveiled the 2023 Federal Chief Data Officer (CDO) Survey, which found that federal CDOs made much progress advancing data culture, governance, and analytics goals, but still experience consistent challenges accessing adequate resources, staff skills, and authorities.
