EPA Data Governance Council Meeting Summary - September 27, 2021 Data Visualization and Analytics Challenge • EPA's Office of Mission Support (OMS) announced the Data Visualization and Analytics Challenge. • The challenge allows EPA employees to propose current data questions and/or problems that may be addressed using existing analytical and visualization tools, such as: o The Data Management and Analytics Platform (DMAP) o Qlik o GeoPlatform • Applications to the challenge can be submitted through November 1, 2021. • Question and Answer sessions will be held on October 5th and 18th. Chief Data Officer (CDO) Updates • Data Inventory Subcommittee Update o The Data Inventory Subcommittee is working to ensure the Environmental Dataset Gateway (EDG) is a comprehensive inventory, o The group reviewed the Registry of EPA Applications, Models and Data Warehouses (READ) to identify data assets not catalogued in the EDG. o Over 70 gaps were identified. The next step is to work with Information Management Officers (IMO) to validate findings and fill all inventory gaps in the EDG. • Review the status of ongoing activities on the DGC Updates tab of the DGC Team site. Data Governance and Strategy • What we've been doing: The Past to Today: Assessment, Evaluation and Opportunity. o The last year, we have been focused on assessing our workforce and internal systems and inventories. ¦ Assessing data skills of EPA workforce. ¦ Building a better data inventory. ¦ Evaluating metadata management software solutions. ¦ Assessing data and data related infrastructure maturity. ¦ Data Governance Council meetings. ¦ ITPR data discussions. • What's coming: Designing a Future: Aspirations, Strategies and Foundations. o Data strategy, o Data governance plan, o Communications - external and internal. o Realizing data/metadata management and governance in DMAP. o Connecting data governance with IT architecture o Building staff skills and data maturity. • Framing a data strategy - brainstorming opportunities o Questions for discussion: EPA Data Governance Council Meeting Summary 1 September 27, 2021 ------- ¦ What are your data goals? ¦ Where is it easy for us/you to do better? ¦ Where can we get creative? o Discussion: ¦ There is an opportunity to better leverage 0365 tools that EPA currently has. ¦ One of the Superfund data goals is to focus more on how data is shared with the public. There are so many tools. There is an opportunity to set consistent standards on how data is shared, which would help the public with the process of finding datasets. ¦ There is an opportunity to utilize barcoding or RFID technology to improve efficiency in capturing supply-chain data. ¦ From a legal perspective, a lot of the experiences of forcing things into standard formats are constraining us. Modernizing this process would be a huge benefit. ¦ It would be great to have robust metadata to connect between legislation, regulations, CFS, etc. Laws and Regulation Services (LRS) attempts to do some of that within EPA. ¦ There is an opportunity to work closely with the RPMs to understand data management and give them clear guidance on how to get data in the right format. ¦ There is an opportunity to gather all the requirements for an environmental data management solution at the enterprise level. • EPA's Chief Architect is working on an application rationalization related to SCRIBE and EQulS. ¦ From an enforcement data standpoint, it is important to understand foundational data elements, especially when the federal portal is also used for state information. ¦ EPA needs a systemic way to look at unstructured data and how to migrate to the cloud. ¦ Formalizing the data steward role would be a great benefit. EPA Data Governance Council Meeting Summary 2 September 27, 2021 ------- |