Data offers agencies so many possibilities for better-informed decision-making. Here are five opportunities.
Employee skills. Assess your staff’s data literacy levels, then develop programs to fill the gaps, including online and individual agency learning programs. Strengthen employees’ ability to read, understand, work with and communicate with data.
Real-time data. Identify where your mission priorities and data resources are misaligned, decide what “real time” data collection means for you, and work with a vendor to craft a system tailored to your needs.
Open data. Consider what freely distributed, well-maintained public data can further your agency’s goals, encourage and appreciate public data collection that supports those objectives, and provide data context if needed.
Data equity. Use existing datasets to identify groups that struggle to access services and programming, and give underserved communities digital and paper forms, in multiple languages, to collect their information. Conduct ongoing data collection and analysis.
Citizen science. Choose a volunteer project of community significance and partner with federal, state, local and nonprofit entities as appropriate. Take advantage of existing apps and other tools, and let citizen scientists know the concrete results of their work.
This article appears in our guide, “Data Intelligence: New Possibilities for Data-Based Decision-Making.” To learn more about everyday applications of data, download it here:
Great information!