[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 196 (Thursday, October 14, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 57147-57149]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-22267]


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GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

[Notice MY-2021-02; Docket No. 2021-0021; Sequence No. 1]


Office of Shared Solutions and Performance Improvement (OSSPI); 
Chief Data Officers Council (CDO); Request for Information on Behalf of 
the Federal Chief Data Officers Council

AGENCY: Chief Data Officers (CDO) Council, General Services 
Administration (GSA).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Federal CDO Council was established by the Foundations for 
Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4174/text), which also requires all federal 
agencies to appoint a CDO. The Council's vision is to improve 
government mission achievement and increase the benefits to the Nation 
through improvement in the management, use, protection, dissemination, 
and generation of data in government decision-making and operations. 
The CDO Council is publishing this Request for Information (RFI) for 
the public to provide input on key questions to support the council's 
mission and focus areas. Responses to this RFI will inform the 
Council's efforts and will be shared with the relevant groups in the 
Council.

DATES: We will consider comments received by November 15, 2021.

ADDRESSES: You should submit comments via the Federal eRulemaking 
Portal at https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for 
submitting comments. All public comments received are subject to the 
Freedom of Information Act and will be posted in their entirety at 
regulations.gov, including any personal and/or business confidential 
information provided. Do not include any information you would not like 
to be made publicly available.
    Written responses should not exceed six pages, inclusive of a one-
page cover page as described below. Please respond concisely, in plain 
language, and specify which question(s) you are responding to in 
narrative format. You may also include links to online materials or 
interactive presentations but please ensure all links are publicly 
available. Each response should include:
     The name of the individual(s) and/or organization 
responding.
     A brief description of the responding individual(s) or 
organization's mission and/or areas of expertise.
     The section(s) (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and/or 6) that your 
submission and materials are related to.
     A contact for questions or other follow-up on your 
response.
    By responding to the RFI, each participant (individual, team, or 
legal entity) warrants that they are the sole author or owner of, or 
has the right to use, any copyrightable works that the submission 
comprises, that the works are wholly original (or is an improved 
version of an existing work that the participant has sufficient rights 
to use and improve), and that the submission does not infringe any 
copyright or any other rights of any third party of which participant 
is aware.
    By responding to the RFI, each participant (individual, team, or 
legal entity) consents to the contents of their submission being made 
available to all Federal agencies and their employees on an internal-
to-government website accessible only to agency staff persons.
    Participants will not be required to transfer their intellectual 
property rights to the CDO Council, but participants must grant to the 
Federal government a nonexclusive license to apply, share, and use the 
materials that are included in the submission. To participate in the 
RFI, each participant must warrant that there are no legal obstacles to 
providing

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the above-referenced nonexclusive licenses of participant rights to the 
Federal government. Interested parties who respond to this RFI may be 
contacted for a follow-on strategic agency assessment dialogue, 
discussion or event.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Issues regarding submission or 
questions can be sent to Ken Ambrose--phone number: 202-215-7330; or 
email: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    The Federal CDO Council was established by the Foundations for 
Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (Pub. L. 115-435) which also requires 
all federal agencies to appoint a CDO. The Council's vision is to 
improve government mission achievement and increase the benefits to the 
Nation through improvement in the management, use, protection, 
dissemination, and generation of data in government decision-making and 
operations. The CDO Council has over 80 member CDOs from across the 
Federal government, as well as representatives from the Office of 
Management and Budget, and other key councils and committees. The CDO 
Council has working groups that focus on critical topics as well as 
committees that help Federal agencies connect and collaborate. The CDO 
Council also works with other interagency councils on data related 
topics and activities. The CDO Council engages with the public and 
private users of Government data to improve data practices and access 
to data assets.
    The CDO Council has five statutory purposes:
    (1) Establish Governmentwide best practices for the use, 
protection, dissemination, and generation of data;
    (2) promote and encourage data sharing agreements between agencies;
    (3) identify ways in which agencies can improve upon the production 
of evidence for use in policymaking;
    (4) consult with the public and engage with private users of 
Government data and other stakeholders on how to improve access to data 
assets of the Federal Government; and
    (5) identify and evaluate new technology solutions for improving 
the collection and use of data.
    Through this request for information (RFI), the CDOC seeks input, 
information, and recommendations from a broad array of public 
stakeholders on available methods, approaches, and tools that could 
assist in the CDOC's efforts. We anticipate that these stakeholders may 
include academia, state/tribal/local governments, civil society groups, 
standards organizations, industry, and others. The CDOC will share 
responses to the RFI with the appropriate working groups and other 
stakeholders so that they can inform the work of the council. The 
council also anticipates preparing a review of the RFI comments that 
will be shared publicly.

Information and Key Questions

    The CDO Council seeks input in the following areas:

Section 1: General

     Is the CDOC missing any critical aspects in our focus 
areas? Are there industry or academic trends that we need to be aware 
of?

Section 2: Data Skills and Workforce Development

    The Federal CDO Council's Data Skills Working Group is chartered to 
help CDOs and their stakeholders improve the Federal government's data 
skills and data workforce development efforts, ultimately improving 
data acumen and closing data skills gaps.
     Early efforts on data skill development have focused on 
data science upskilling. When thinking about upskilling programs:
    [cir] What are the roles and responsibilities and types of data 
acumen that make up a data driven organization?
    [cir] What are the roles and responsibilities of an effective data 
team?
    [cir] What upskilling programs exist for these roles?
    [cir] How can upskilling programs support continuous learning and 
data driven decision making at all levels in an organization, including 
for organization leaders?
    [cir] What are the key areas agencies should focus on to improve 
the data acumen of the Federal workforce, broadly?
    [cir] How might we collaborate to incorporate public sector data 
and topics into data training curricula?
     How can the Federal government attract and retain people 
with data skills? How can the Federal government help applicants 
understand the wide array of skills and roles that are needed?
     How should federal agencies benchmark data management and 
analytics activities to support upskilling programs so that we can 
understand our progress, opportunities to improve, and identification 
of best practices? How can we support benchmarking and comparisons 
across agencies as well as with non-federal near peers?

Section 3: Data Inventory

    The Federal CDO Council's Data Inventory Working Group is chartered 
to help CDOs improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their data 
inventory efforts. The group is working to better understand how 
agencies are using, and want to use, data inventories both internally 
and externally, thinking about how to harmonize across inventory 
standards (e.g., data.gov and geoplatform.gov), and more.
     How do you find Federal data? Are there better ways to 
find Federal data?
     How can data inventories best support how you identify 
Federal data that is valuable for your own use cases? How could 
existing platforms (e.g., data.gov, geoplatform.gov ) better support 
access to Federal data?
     Early Federal efforts on data inventories were focused on 
cataloguing publicly available data, and facilitating search and 
discovery. When thinking about inventory use cases:
    [cir] What are the most valuable use cases for data inventories to 
support non-Federal entities, including state and local governments, 
academia, and the private sector?
    [cir] What are the most valuable use cases for Federal agency 
operations?
    [cir] What are the most valuable use cases for Federal agency data 
analysts?
    [cir] How well do current data inventory standards meet those use 
cases?
     What is the best implementation of a data inventory you 
have seen? What are the characteristics that made it so successful?
     To date, inventories have relied on manual work to 
generate and maintain metadata. What best practices and tools are 
available to automate and reduce the manual workload associated with 
inventories?

Section 4: Data Sharing

    The Federal CDO Council Data Sharing Working Group is chartered to 
develop a comprehensive view of data sharing purposes across the 
Federal government, understanding the challenges surrounding data 
sharing, and recommending solutions that make sharing easier while 
preserving privacy and confidentiality.
     What best practices could statistical agencies and non-
statistical agencies use to better partner? Please share success 
stories and what led to that success.
     What are effective ways for Federal programs to share 
programmatic data in ways that protect the privacy of individuals and 
organizations? Specifically:
    [cir] What are models of developing and using privacy protecting 
identifiers?

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    [cir] What policies are needed to ensure that privacy protecting 
identifiers are effective?
     What are the premier examples of public or private sector 
entities that aggregate, integrate, and share information? Think of 
entities that operate on the scale of Federal agencies with broad and 
diverse missions. In addition, we are interested in entities that have 
moved beyond one-to-one data sharing to using standardized and 
automated data sharing controls.
    [cir] For the premier entity, can you outline the policies, 
frameworks, strategies, organizational constructs, operational 
capabilities, and value creation model?
     How can the Federal government engage with private sector 
data providers in a way that maximizes the ability to use the data or 
data derivatives across multiple agencies? How might we achieve this 
while ensuring a viable business model for data providers?

Section 5: Value and Maturity

    As agencies formulate their data strategies, they are constantly 
looking for ways to deliver and communicate value. There is broad 
awareness of the value of Federal data. However, there is not a 
consensus on how to measure the value of that data.
     What are meaningful approaches to defining the value of 
government data?
    [cir] How can we define the value of data to different stakeholders 
or purposes? (e.g. government agencies in decision-making, performance 
management, and program evaluation, as well as to researchers, states, 
localities, private industry and the general public)
     What are the best practices and practical experiences for 
conducting useful, high integrity maturity assessments in large, 
distributed, and decentralized federal agencies--balancing overhead and 
burden with utility, coverage, and alignment against ongoing efforts to 
implement data strategies?
    [cir] Can you describe an example where mission or business leaders 
have championed maturity assessments as core to transformation 
initiatives they championed, why they did so, and how they did it?
     What approaches or models exist to calculate the return on 
investment in data products, data governance, and data management?
     How can we raise awareness of the value of data governance 
and data management in support of achieving agency value?
    [cir] What steps do we need to take in order to integrate a data 
governance framework into the way of doing government business?
    [cir] How should CDOs communicate progress on and value of data 
governance efforts?

Section 6: Ethics and Equity

    The Federal Data Strategy, delivered in December 2019, recognized 
the importance of ethics in its founding principles. The Federal Data 
Strategy 2020 Action Plan required the development of a Data Ethics 
Framework that is intended to help agency employees, managers, and 
leaders make ethical decisions as they acquire, manage, and use data. 
The Framework and its Tenets are a ``living'' resource and are to be 
updated by the CDO Council and Interagency Council on Statistical 
Policy (ICSP) every 24 months to ensure the Framework remains current.
     How might the Federal Data Ethics Framework need to evolve 
to address racial equity and support for underserved communities? Does 
the Federal Data Ethics Framework sufficiently address concerns about 
the vulnerability of certain populations?
     Are there best practices for agencies to consider at the 
intersection of data ethics and diversity, equity, inclusion, and 
accessibility?
     How can we leverage Federal Data ethics to improve trust 
and transparency?
     What steps can the CDO Council and the ICSP take to ensure 
the Federal Data Ethics Framework serves as the foundation of 
partnerships between Federal agencies, academic and research partners, 
state, local, and tribal governments, community and advocacy groups, 
and other stakeholders?
     How might the Federal government encourage the adoption of 
the Federal Data Ethics Framework across the contractor, financial 
assistance communities, and other stakeholders?

Section 7: Technology

    The Federal CDO Council is interested in better understanding the 
marketplace trends for both operational and analytic data management 
use cases.
     What frameworks should agencies use to evaluate their 
existing data infrastructure and to modernize technology with 
capabilities that break down organizational data silos and ensure the 
best available data is available?
    [cir] What are the best examples of where you have seen this happen 
in the public and private sectors?
     Are advances in data management enabling new models for 
information sharing?
    [cir] How are technologies evolving with new data management 
models?
    [cir] What technology components are positioned to serve as the 
source for operationally authoritative data?
     Technology approaches go through a cycle of emphasizing 
integration of open source or commercial best of breed for targeted 
capabilities, or emphasis on integrated solutions or platforms with 
accompanying ecosystems.
    [cir] Where are we in the cycle and why?

Ken Ambrose,
Senior Advisor CDO Council, Office of Shared Solutions and Performance 
Improvement, General Services Administration.
[FR Doc. 2021-22267 Filed 10-13-21; 8:45 am]
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