After working with several of the Missions and implementing partners, the question comes up on what happens to data once it gets submitted to the DDL. For data tagged as Public, does it enter a searchable archive similar to the DEC? Is the intent to make the submitted openly available and downloadable by the public?
2 Answers
Great questions- and ones that we try to answer as clearly as possible. We've got a slew of links on the submission page including FAQs- but how would you want the information presented so that it's easiest to access?
Once data is submitted to the DDL via the webpage(yes we are looking at easier submission methods) the data goes through a clearance process as outlined in ADS579(aka USAID's Open Data Policy) Look at the subsection: 579.3.2.5 Required Clearances and Data Publication Process
When the public data is cleared it is available on www.usaid.gov/data for use and reuse by the public.
The intention of USAID's Open Data Policy and of the Federal Open Data Policy more broadly is that any information funded by taxpayer dollars is open to the public by default- except where doing so would harm privacy or security. If there is a concern of making the data public then that needs to be documented in reporting and adhere to principled redactions.
Technically speaking, metadata is submitted to the Development Data Library (DDL).
Data may reside on other platforms and the DDL will point to wherever the data is using the downloadURL (or accessURL where appropriate).
The uploading of data happens after the metadata is submitted.
This may change as the platform evolves, but is the current state is a two step process.
All the metadata is added to http://www.data.gov/ through an automated process and the metadata is searchable, but a full text searchable index of the data is not currently available as is the case with the Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC).
usaidopentag will contain many acronyms that you don't know, just like any Stackoverflow question taggeddelphiwill contain many acronyms that most software engineers don't know. No problem. And no need to employ potentially more offensive 3-letter acronyms :-)