-
The Key Role of Product Owners in Federated Data Projects
on November 24, 2020
Dedicated product owners — meaning those that are empowered, well-resourced, and committed to developing cross-agency projects on a permanent basis — can bridge disparate resources and help federated data projects succeed.
-
Saving time and improving data quality for the National School Lunch & Breakfast Program
on April 23, 2020
In February 2020, pilot states reported back on their experience implementing and using a new data validation service during the fall of 2019. They agreed that it had significantly improved the data collection and submission process for their teams, citing time savings, fewer errors returned, greater ability to plan ahead, and lower stress.
-
Becoming a product manager
on November 21, 2019
If you had asked me two years ago what a product manager is, I wouldn’t have known. And, yet, today, that is one of my titles. Along the way, I have been lucky to receive guidance and coaching from experienced product managers at the General Services Administration’s 18F.
-
The U.S. Data Federation wants to make it easier to collect, combine, and exchange data across government
on March 5, 2019
The U.S. Data Federation Project is an initiative of the GSA Technology Transformation Services 10x program, which seeks to address the need for knowledge sharing, repeatable processes, and reusable tools for federated data efforts.
-
Opening the nation’s crime data
on September 7, 2017
For more than eight decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected nationwide crime data under the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. While the data has always been publicly available via static reports, the first release of the Crime Data Explorer makes it easier than ever for anyone to access and use the data.
-
Open data democratizes innovation
on June 2, 2016
Thanks to the President’s Executive Order requiring that agencies make data open, we are democratizing access to data. Open data has empowered citizens to track trends and make informed personal decisions. And increasingly, American citizens are using government data to drive action and solve problems in their communities.
-
What’s in the first U.S. Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative report
on December 16, 2015
Just a few months ago we wrote about the next phase of the United States Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (USEITI), one of our oldest projects with the lofty goal of educating and informing public debate around natural resources produced on public land. This week, the U.S. Department of the Interior released the first report from the United States, a major step toward becoming fully compliant with the global EITI standard.
-
analytics.usa.gov: New features and more data
on December 2, 2015
We’ve recently added a few new features to analytics.usa.gov: location data, download data, and expanded downloadable files.
-
A look at complex data in USEITI
on November 30, 2015
We've been working with the Office of Natural Resource Revenues on implementing the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) standard, which includes all kinds of data. One new data point we have this year is the federal production number: The amount of a given resource produced on federal lands.
-
USEITI: What we learned and where we’re headed
on November 2, 2015
During Sunshine Week, we wrote about our progress on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, or EITI, an international coalition organized here by the U.S. Department of the Interior and a multi-stakeholder group that includes representatives from nonprofits, academia, industry and local governments. Since March, the 18F team has worked with the USEITI team to process research on the current state of the project as well as the next steps for the U.S. as a candidate country for the global initiative.
-
Welcome to betaFEC: campaign finance for everyone
on October 29, 2015
As the 2016 presidential election heats up, here at 18F we’ve been working with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to make campaign finance data more accessible to the public. Today, we launched betaFEC, the first piece in a complete redesign of the FEC’s online presence. We were excited to work on a project that allowed us to delve into intricate campaign finance data, plain language, and the FEC’s first API.
-
Behind the scenes: Building a new College Scorecard with students
on September 14, 2015
How we worked with the Department of Education on new steps to help students, parents and advisers make better college choices, including a new College Scorecard, comprehensive and updated data on higher education institutions, and customized tools using this new data.
-
67 million more Federal Election Commission records at your fingertips
on July 15, 2015
The OpenFEC API added a filings endpoint as well as itemized receipt and disbursement data. This is the first major update to the API: The records we’re adding today are the meat and potatoes of campaign finance. You can see in detail where a campaign’s money comes from and where they spend their money.
-
Introducing the Federal Election Commission’s first API
on July 8, 2015
Today marks the launch of the FEC’s first API. With that API, searching for candidates and committees will be easier and more interactive. Information is organized around concepts like candidates, which are more welcoming than navigating buckets of information based on forms.
-
How DATA Act implementation is opening up federal spending
on June 9, 2015
In May 2014, President Obama signed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) into law. Once implemented, the DATA Act will make it easier to understand how the federal government spends money.
-
Video: What happens when you collect .gov-wide analytics
on May 29, 2015
See the power of open data and open source software in this presentation about analytics.usa.gov from 18F’s Leah Bannon and Charles Worthington of the U.S. Digital Service.
-
The dat team talks data Streams
on April 23, 2015
Max Ogden and Mathias Buus Madsen are visiting 18F today to talk about dat, an open source project for versioning and sharing datasets. This new piece of software is part of their effort to build “automated, reproducible data pipelines that sync.
-
How we built analytics.usa.gov
on March 19, 2015
The U.S. federal government now has a public dashboard and dataset for its web traffic, at analytics.usa.gov. 18F worked with the Digital Analytics Program, the U.S. Digital Service, and the White House to build and host the dashboard. Read on to learn about how the dashboard works, the engineering choices we made, and the open source work we produced along the way.
-
A complete list of .gov domains
on December 18, 2014
We're happy to say that the .gov registry is now releasing the entire set of 5,300 .gov domains, including those outside of the federal executive branch.
-
A new look at the Freedom of Information Act
on September 4, 2014
As demand for information continues to grow, it is important to continue iterating the ways we refine the FOIA request process. Our effort is one of a number of commitments towards creating a more open, transparent government. We will explore how to supplement the work that has already been done by creating tools to improve the online FOIA requests process by designing for the user.
-
Creating an open FEC
on August 21, 2014
A few weeks ago, FEC and 18F started to explore how campaign finance information can be better presented to the public. Over the past few weeks, we’ve begun learning all we can about the FEC, the process by which it collects and shares data, and how individuals outside of FEC use that data on a regular basis to gain insights into the workings of our democracy.
Back to
18F Blog