Good Practices for Government Data (consolidating the info)

Hi all,

 

It seems more obvious to me from today's conversation that most if not all
of us are looking for the best (or at least better) practices in terms of
creating and re-using data, particularly government data.  This is true for
governments as well as mashup sites.  The most critical issue in my view is
getting the right information to the right people at the right time.  From
my experience trying to build human readable links for legislative citations
(http://legislink.org), I've learned that information about good data
practices (both preparation and access/parsing) are not provided to the IT
community in any consolidated space.  

 

Other industries provide this information. For example:
http://www.fao.org/prods/GAP/index_en.htm,
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/377/ggmp-usa.pdf 

Wikipedia is also being used by others to define or at least inform others
of their good practices (e.g.,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Clinical_Data_Management_Practice,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Automated_Manufacturing_Practice). 

 

Since Wikipedia has become a primary source for information, I'd like to
suggest that our IG start up Wikipedia pages for Good Data Practices Related
to Government Data and more specific pages related to specific file formats
(e.g., Good Data Practices Related to the HTML file format).

 

>From the government viewpoint, such information would assist them with
reference materials and examples to enhance re-usability for currently
published data and provide ideas for data yet to be published.  For mashup
sites, it can provide a space to share parsing techniques, tools, and
examples of government data practices that have led to improved services.

 

Thanks,

 

Joe