Open Data Roundtables Set Out To Make Data Accessible To Benefit Economy

Bruce Andrews, the Commerce Department’s acting deputy secretary, wrote in a blog, 'We know that only by listening to the business community, partnering with industry, and collaborating with fellow government agencies can we best serve our customers and unleash the full power and potential of open data.  InformationWeek reports the twelve agencies acting under the Commerce Department produce vast amounts of data, especially the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Census Bureau, the Patent and Trademark Office, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. For example, NOAA assimilates 19 terabytes of data every day, which is twice the data of the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress. However, only two terabytes can be made easily accessible. But even this limited amount fuels a multi-billion dollar weather enterprise in the private sector.  The first of the roundtable meetings on June 18 focused on five critical areas: weather and climate data, geospatial and mapping data, economic and demographic data, technology and data management, and intellectual property. Discussed as well were data inventories, data interoperability, public-private partnerships, and channels for feedback from data users ..."