[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 72 (Friday, April 14, 2023)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 22990-22992]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-06998]


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AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

48 CFR Parts 727, 742, and 752

RIN 0412-AA90


USAID Acquisition Regulation: United States Agency for 
International Development (USAID) Acquisition Regulation (AIDAR): 
Planning, Collection, and Submission of Digital Information as Well as 
Submission of Activity Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan to 
USAID

AGENCY: U.S. Agency for International Development.

ACTION: Notice of availability of supplemental document; request for 
comments.

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SUMMARY: This document advises the public that the U.S. Agency for 
International Development (USAID) is placing in the public docket a 
standards document related to USAID's proposed Rulemaking that, in 
part, proposed to add a new section to the USAID Acquisition 
Regulations (AIDAR). During the public comment period, USAID received 
comments requesting public access to the ``USAID Digital Information 
Technical Guidelines,'' which are referenced in the proposed regulatory 
language. This document makes those Guidelines available, renames the 
Guidelines to ``USAID Digital Collection and Submission Standards,'' 
and solicits public comment.

DATES: Comments on this document must be received by May 15, 2023.

[[Page 22991]]


ADDRESSES: Address all comments concerning this notice to Kelly 
Miskowski, USAID M/OAA/P, at 202-256-7378 or [email protected]. 
Submit comments, identified by title of the action and Regulatory 
Information Number (RIN) through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at 
http://www.regulations.gov by following the instructions for submitting 
comments. Please include your name, company name (if any), and ``0412-
AA90'' on any attachments. If your comment cannot be submitted using 
https://www.regulations.gov, please email the points of contact in the 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this document for alternate 
instructions.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kelly Miskowski, USAID M/OAA/P, at 
202-916-2752 or [email protected] for clarification of content or 
information pertaining to status or publication schedules. All 
communications regarding this rulemaking must cite AIDAR RIN No. 0412-
AA90.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In the Federal Register of December 15, 
2021, (86 FR 71216), the U.S. Agency for International Development 
(USAID) announced a proposed rule to implement USAID requirements for 
managing digital information data as a strategic asset to inform the 
planning, design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the 
Agency's foreign assistance programs (2021 Digital Information NPRM). 
Among other changes, the 2021 Digital Information NPRM proposed adding 
a new section to the USAID Acquisition Regulations (AIDAR) at 48 CFR 
part 752 (proposed AIDAR 752.227-7x, Planning, Collection, and 
Submission of Digital Information to USAID). Proposed paragraph (h) 
refers to ``USAID Digital Information Technical Guidelines'' (proposed 
AIDAR 752.227-7x(h)) which USAID proposed to publish at data.usaid.gov/guidelines. The comment period for the 2021 Digital Information NPRM 
closed on February 14, 2022. During the comment period, several 
commenters requested access to these guidelines. In a forthcoming Final 
Rule for RIN 0412-AA90, USAID will revise the proposed text of AIDAR 
752.227-7x(h)to refer to ``USAID Digital Information Technical 
Standards'' and direct the public to the following website: 
``data.usaid.gov/standards''. Therefore, USAID will use the term 
``standards'' in this document. Through this document, USAID is making 
the full text of the ``USAID Digital Information Technical Standards'' 
available in the docket.
    USAID is soliciting public comments on these standards, including 
the proposed text of AIDAR 752.227-7x(h) (86 FR at 71224) that refers 
to these standards. Comments received as a result of this document will 
be addressed as part of the forthcoming Final Rule package. The 
finalized standards will be published as prescribed in the Final Rule. 
USAID anticipates that future revisions to these standards will be 
published in the Federal Register. USAID expects contractors to comply 
with the version in effect on the date of the award. Historical 
versions of the standards will also be available on the website cited 
in the AIDAR.

Mark A. Walther,
Chief Acquisition Officer.

B. Notice of Availability of USAID Digital Collection and Submission 
Standards

    As outlined above, USAID is announcing the availability of the 
following Digital Collection and Submission Standards:

Version: 1.0
Dated: [DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE Federal Register]

    USAID's Digital Collection and Submission Standards are a 
compendium of standards for USAID staff and contractors to use in 
support of USAID programs and operations. The standards in Section A 
are required. Section B contains recommended standards that represent 
industry best practices.

Section A: Required Digital Information Technical Standards

    (a) File Format Standards

(1) Acceptable Non-Proprietary Formats
    (i) Text and Documents
    (ii) Portable Document Format (PDF/A is preferred, however .pdf is 
acceptable)
    (iii) Plain text (.txt)
    (iv) LaTeX documents (.tex)
    (v) Hypertext Markup Language (.html)
    (vi) Open Document Format (.odt)
    (vii) Extensible Markup Language (.xml)
    (viii) JavaScript Object Notation (.json)
(2) Tables, Spreadsheets, and Databases
    (i) Comma-Separated Values (.csv)
    (ii) Tab-separated tables (.txt--sometimes .tsv)
    (iii) Comma-separated tables (.csv or .txt)
    (iv) Other standard delimiter (e.g. colon, pipe)
    (v) Fixed-width
    (vi) OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods)
(3) Audio Files
    (i) WAVE (.wav)
    (ii) FLAC (.flac)
    (iii) MPEG-3
    (iv) MP3
(4) Image Files
    (i) JPEG (.jpg or .jp2)
    (ii) Portable Network Graphics (.png)
    (iii) TIFF (.tiff or .tif)
    (iv) Portable Document Format (.pdf)
(5) Video Files
    (i) Video File (.mov)
    (ii) MPEG-4 (mp4)
    (iii) JPEG2 2000 (mj2)
(6) Geospatial Files
    (i) QGIS Project (.qgs)
    (ii) ESRI Shapefile (.shp, .shx, .dbf)
    (iii) Annotated TIFF Raster Files (.tif)
    (iv) Keyhole Mark Language (.kml)
    (v) Geographic Data Format based on JSON (.geojson)
    (vi) Google Earth GIS Format (.kml, .kmz)
    (vii) Well Known Text for Spatial Objects (.wkt)
    (viii) Raster GIS File Format
    (ix) Unidata Scientific Data Format

    (b) Subject Area Standards
(1) Narrative Text
    (i) Digital narrative text that is written in the English language, 
including narrative about USAID programs and operations, must comply 
with the Plain Writing Act of 2010 and associated guidelines and 
resources found on the federal plain language website. Because USAID 
may publish a narrative in keeping with the U.S. Government legislative 
requirements (e.g. the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act 
of 2016) and other transparency commitments (e.g. International Aid 
Transparency Initiative; Open Government Partnership) or Freedom of 
Information Act requests, the narrative must be clear, thorough, and 
descriptive to facilitate public understanding.
    (2) Geospatial
    (i) The location(s) where an activity is implemented must be 
collected at the second level administrative boundary (e.g. state, 
district, county, province) or more granular administrative boundary 
when appropriate. USAID follows the Geopolitical Entities, Names, and 
Codes (GENC) Standard and additional geospatial data standards as 
outlined in ADS 579saa ``Geographic Data Collection and Submission 
Standards.''
(3) Date
    (i) YYYY-MM-DD

Section B: Recommended Digital Information Technical Standards

    USAID recommends the following standards that have not been 
formally

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adopted as a requirement by the Agency but encouraged and recommended 
for use to improve the management, quality, and usefulness of the data. 
USAID recommends the use of the following standards when appropriate 
and practicable:
    (a) Code, Algorithm, and Analytical Files
(1) Javascript (.js)
(2) Java
(3) .NET
(4) Python (.py)
(5) Ruby (.rb)
(6) R (.r)
(7) SQL

    (b) GS1 Standards--USAID-funded programs beyond Global Health are 
strongly recommended to adopt GS1 Standards for the supply chain to 
facilitate product identification, location identification, and product 
master data of Agency-funded commodities. Additional guidance for 
implementation of GS1 Standards can be found here.
    (c) Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) for statistical 
data
    (d) CGIAR Ontologies for crop and agronomy ontology
    (e) FHIR for healthcare data exchange
    (f) ISO 8601 for Date, Time, and Time Zone
    (g) Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Standards for geospatial data. 
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international consortium of 
more than 500 businesses, government agencies, research organizations, 
and universities driven to make geospatial (location) information and 
services FAIR--Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
    (h) International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)
    (i) FAIR Data Principles--To the extent possible, USAID-funded data 
and metadata must align with data principles which are Findable, 
Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
    (j) Metadata Creation Tools:
    (1) USGS TKME--A Windows platform tool for creating FGDC-CSDGM 
which can be configured for Biological Data Profile and other 
extensions. The software program is closely aligned with the Metadata 
Parser, and can be configured for French and Spanish.
    (2) mdEditor--Create ISO and FGDC-CSDGM metadata with this web-
based tool.
    (3) Data dictionary conversion service--Convert a data dictionary 
table to/from metadata format (instructions).
    (4) USDA Metavist--A desktop metadata editor for creating FGDC-
CSDGM for geospatial metadata. Includes the Biological Data Profile 
(version 1.6). Produced and maintained by the USDA Forest Service. 
Download the USGS Alaska Science Center (ASC) Metavist User Guide [PDF] 
to learn more about the tool and ASC best practices for authors.
    (5) Microsoft XML Notepad--A simple intuitive user interface for 
browsing and editing XML files. Does not automatically produce FGDC-
CSDGM records but allows easy editing and validation of existing 
metadata records. See Advanced Users to learn how to configure this 
tool.
[FR Doc. 2023-06998 Filed 4-13-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6116-01-P