White House Releases Draft Federal Data Strategy Action Plan - SPARC

"Yesterday, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released their long-awaited draft Federal Data Strategy Action Plan which outlines the Administration’s concrete action plan for implementing the President’s Management Agenda priority to leverage data as a National Strategic Asset. It also serves as a blueprint for the government’s implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking/Open Government Act, which was signed into law in January.

Along with the draft action plan, OMB released final versions of the principles and practices it expects agencies to follow in gathering, using, protecting, and engaging with data.

The draft action plan, which is open for public comment until July 5th, lays out actions considered fundamental for the government to undertake during the first year in order to execute the full breadth of the strategy over time. It includes concrete deliverables for each individual federal agency, as well as government-wide actions facilitated by collaborative agency work.

The plan articulates six actions for all federal agencies to individually complete once the action plan is finalized in August:

1. Improve data resources for artificial intelligence research and development by February 2020
2. Constitute a diverse data governance body by September 2019
3. Assess data and related infrastructure maturity by May 2020
4. Identify opportunities to increase staff data skills by May 2020
5. Identify data needed to answer key agency questions by August 2020
6. Identify priority datasets for agency open data plans by August 2020..."