MontgomeryCountyMD.GOV

dataMontgomery

 

Project Overview

The County’s Government Open Data legislation, Bill 23-12, requires the Chief Administrative Officer to develop an implementation plan that lists each departments’ data that will be published on dataMontgomery. 

The main purpose of Data Montgomery initiative is to improve public knowledge of the County Government and its operations. Data Montgomery provides County dataset to the general public so the residents can be better informed and well connected to County Government services.

Direct access to County datasets offers the public an opportunity to review and analyze raw data, and the opportunity to use it for a variety of purposes. Residents can perform a data search on their area of interest, view the search result datasets, and to use the datasets in the development of Smartphone apps that create value for them.

Site Overview

The County has contracted with Socrata, Inc., a cloud-service provider, to provide the Montgomery County Open Data Platform at one portal address on the web rather than across dozens or hundreds of web pages.

A series of videos designed to teach you the basics about interacting with this data site, go to the following URL to learn more:

https://data.montgomerycountymd.gov/videos

Inventory Process  Overview

To collect the Open Data inventory from all County departments, the TEBS dataMontgomery team is reaching out to all County department POCs via data gathering meetings, workshops and departmental module design sessions.The raw data provided by the departments were verified by the dataMontgomery team for data quality assurance, then uploaded to the Socrata development environment for departmental review.  Datasets can only be published to the public after the approval document been completed and finalized.

DataMontgomery team also has a mission to compile a list of all inventory data from all County departments, the final inventory list will be included in  the ‘Open Data Implementation Plan’ document which  is scheduled to be completed by June 2014.  Every agency must make at least one public dataset available to be published on dataMontgomery web portal within the five years timeframe prescribed by the ‘Open Data Implementation Plan’, the dataMontgomery project team will provide annual progress report to County Council.

Dataset implementation process (click on image to magnify)

Details will be further defined in the 'Open Data Implementation Plan'

Inventory timeline

Roles and Responsibilities

Data Publishing Technical Standards

Datasets provided by County Department POCs will be prioritized for publishing jointly between the department head and the CAO in accordance with the criteria already provided as a part of the Open Data Policy.  The Open Data Policy can be view online at http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/TEBS/Resources/Files/dataMontgomeryDataPublishingTechnicalStandards.pdf, see below for a couple of important excerpts.

2.0 Data Principles

The guiding data principles for the dataMontgomery initiative are:

• Complete - All public data is made available. Public data is data that is not subject to valid privacy, security, or privilege limitations.
• Timely - Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data. 
• Non-discriminatory - Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.
• License-free – Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark, or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security, and privilege restrictions may be allowed.
• Primary – Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.
• Accessible – Data is presented in a meaningful way.
• Machine Processable – Data can be processed.

Non-proprietary – Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.

3.1.3 Upload Process

There are two methods for upload with one being manual and the other being automated. In either case, TEBS will work with the Using Department to do the actual upload.

A key point with either process is the creation of a design document. The design document will document the transform that must take place mapping the internal County data to the Socrata format. The purpose of the design document is to define a repeatable process that will take the data to the Socrata platform.

The automated process involves using the TEBS Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). The ESB has the ability to take input from a number of data sources with some examples being spreadsheets, email, web services, files and databases. The ESB has a rich transform capability and can take most structured data and transform it into an acceptable input for Socrata. More detailed information on the ESB capabilities can be found in the document Montgomery County Government Enterprise Architecture Technical Architecture [4] in the Service Enabled Domain.

Explanation of key terms

Sensitive Data

Confidential data is data that by Federal, State, or County law that must not be disclosed to the public.  Some examples of confidential data under a State law, the Maryland Public Information Act (“MPIA”), are personally identifiable health care information, student information, personnel records, an individual’s financial information, credit card numbers, and social security numbers. Additional examples of confidential information under the MPIA are information about the County’s computer and facilities security, confidential commercial or financial information, and some criminal justice data.

These examples of confidential information are not comprehensive.  Additionally, a data set may be legally publishable, but other considerations might dictate withholding publication of every piece of data within the set.

If a Department or an employee has questions about whether a particular set of data is legally appropriate for publication on the County’s open data site, they should review the MPIA (available online at http://www.oag.state.md.us/Opengov/pia.htm, “Appendix C”), and the County’s privacy policy, online at http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcg/privacy.html.

If questions remain after a review of this information and after consultation with those in the department familiar with the application of the MPIA to the department’s data, please contact the Office of the County Attorney for further assistance.

Entry area for submission

See a list of  dataMontgomery Executive Branch Point of Contacts(POC)  below.