Jane Edwards
John Kamensky, a senior fellow with the IBM Center for the Business of Government, wrote in an article published Thursday on Nextgov that agencies should go beyond the Federal Data Strategy by taking into consideration four recommendations to promote intergovernmental data sharing.
These recommendations were offered and discussed by Jane Wiseman, Innovations in American Government Fellow at Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, in a report for the IBM center.
Wiseman recommended that Congress and the president should come up with a governance and policy framework. Actions under this recommendation include developing intergovernmental data councils, offering rewards to agencies for linking their datasets, and creating an “ask once†goal for government data collection.
The president and Congress should create capacity building and funding mechanisms to back the implementation of increased information sharing across all government levels. This can be done by providing funding for data sharing initiatives and supporting data literacy programs at agencies.
Kamensky also mentioned the two other recommendations Wiseman discussed in the report: the need for philanthropic and nonprofit organizations to support intergovernmental data sharing initiatives and for agency managers and data leaders to promote data sharing efforts.
