EPA Data Governance Council

Meeting Summary - October 26, 2020

Data Discussion Takeaways

•	The Chief Data Officer (CDO), Chief Architect, and Chief Geospatial Officer conducted data discussions
with EPA Regions and Program Offices. The Data Governance Council received a briefing summarizing
the results of the effort.

•	Nearly all programs and all regions were included in the data discussions. However, in depth
conversations have not yet taken place with the Office of Research and Development (ORD), Office of
Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), Office of Inspector General (OIG) or Office of General
Counsel (OGC).

•	The DGC discussed several topics including the Agency's approach for tracking data management
spending and its relationship to Agency FITARA processes, EPA's approach for gathering citizen science
and drone data, and challenges related to EPA's facilities data.

•	The DGC also discussed opportunities for improving data quality.

o A suggestion was made to contact statistical agencies to see how they approach data quality.

For example the US Census,
o It was noted that EPA has efforts underway to map data to other biomedical lexical and
ontological resources.

o It was noted that the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology put out a new report on "A
Framework for Data Quality".

Data Skills Assessment

•	The Data Skills Assessment is progressing with development of the survey.

•	Eleven participants from a branch within the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM)
provided feedback on their experience taking the survey.

o The participants represented a range of grades, job positions, and years of service,
o Feedback included defining terms clearly and increasing consistency in answers (i.e. Likert scale).

•	Region 1 will pilot the survey before Agency-wide rollout.

o The pilot communications plan includes a virtual campaign, creating email templates, and

encouraging management interactions to build support,
o The pilot will begin in January 2021.

•	Upcoming Activities include the following:

o Reviewing the draft survey with EPA's Labor and Employee Relations (LER).
o Implementing the pilot communications plan.

o Capturing the questions to be addressed in analysis of survey feedback,
o Meeting with the Interim Capacity Assessment Team to discuss common goals and avoid
duplication efforts.

EPA Data Governance Council Meeting Summary

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October 26, 2020

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Data Call for U.S. GEO

•	EPA's Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) requested assistance in responding to the US Group on Earth
Observations (USGEO)'s inter-agency data call on the purchase of non-Federal environment or
geospatial data.

•	DGC members were asked to provide information about geospatial data they purchase from non-federal
sources. The deadline for collecting this information is Monday. November 9th.

•	The US Group on Earth Observations (USGEO) is a subcommittee under the National Science and
Technology Council that coordinates Federal activities related to earth observations and Earth system
data management. More than a dozen agencies, including EPA, participate in USGEO.

•	USGEO is working to develop best practices for procuring non-Federal environmental and geospatial
data.

•	To avoid duplicative entries, OAR asked that the region or national program that procures the data be
the one to report it.

Action Items

•	The CDO will organize an overview of the Environmental Dataset Gateway (EDG) for a future DGC
meeting.

•	The CDO will reach out to the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP)and ORD to set
up data discussions.

EPA Data Governance Council Meeting Summary	2	October 26,2020

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