Making state agency data more widely useful: the Iowa policy and planning data project

Abstract

This paper describes the scope, historical development, and accomplishments of the Iowa Policy and Planning Data Project (IPPDP). Inspired both by a mandate for state agencies to share their data resources for greater efficiency and by the research needs of economic development planners, the IPPDP is a cooperative effort of several Iowa government departments and units of Iowa State University. Its original long-term goal, the creation of a data dictionary, was soon set aside; however, substantial progress has been made toward its short-term goal, the development of a prototype online catalog of data files held in state agencies and offices, despite such obstacles as the limited development of cataloging standards and the reluctance of many agencies to commit the time necessary to document their holdings. More recent Project initiatives include a series of workshops to help policy analysts and planners locate relevant information on the Internet and the development of an online information server to make state-collected data readily available to community planners. The IPPDP represents a “virtual library” approach to making government data resources—many of them unpublished—more widely available.