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Connecticut expands open-data outreach, improves metadata to boost public access
Summary
The Connecticut Data Analysis Technology Advisory Board reported March 20 on outreach and metadata work to make state datasets easier to find and use, citing an Open Data Week event with more than 100 agency attendees and follow-up materials to be shared with the board.
The Connecticut Data Analysis Technology Advisory Board on March 20 said state officials have expanded public outreach and improved dataset documentation to make state-collected information easier for agencies, nonprofits and the public to find and use.
Scott Collin, chief data officer and chair of the board, said the state held an Open Data Week event and a separate webinar series to reach audiences that state government does not regularly contact. “We did an open data webinar with the data collaborative,” Collin said, and the state also ran an Open Data Week event for agency staff that drew “a little over a hundred people” from many agencies.
The board said the state has worked to fill gaps in metadata—the documentation that describes what a dataset contains, how it was collected and its limitations. Pauline Zaldonis, the state’s open-data coordinator (not present at the meeting), led an audit of metadata across portals and helped produce a year-in-review document collating recent open-data efforts.
Vendors who support the state’s Open Data and Geo Data portals demonstrated artificial-intelligence tools that let users query datasets conversationally—examples included asking for school graduation rates or locating mapped assets—though Collin said Connecticut has not yet implemented those tools locally. The board emphasized that AI navigation tools will require thorough metadata to function reliably.
Thad Demkowski, a board member, praised the outreach: “It’s great to see the steps that the state is taking to really promote data usage education,” he said.
The board plans to distribute the Open Data year-in-review and the slide materials from the March events to members and to continue outreach to expand use of the state’s portals and training resources.
