Opening data for public use is as much a political issue as a technological issue, said panelists on June 14 at OpenGovDC in Washington. The idea of openness is encouraged government-wide, and mandated by President Barack Obama's Open Government Directive, which required agencies to increase transparency. But too often agencies are opting for quick wins driven by their public affairs departments, said Eric Gundersen, president of Development Seed.

"An open data plan should actually be much more focused on efficiency wins for the organization, efficiency wins for spreading the word, not just doing these competitions. Sometimes we work with federal staff that are much more focused on getting some communications wins around the competition. It's not really integrated into their overall [developer] outreach," said Gundersen.

Choosing what to release and what not to release also relies on agency resources. The data that gets the most attention will likely be the data that gets released, or at least released first, said Jason Hoekstra, technology solutions advisor at the Education Department.

In order to move open data beyond a communications exercise and get the most out of the investment in data liberation, Gundersen suggests agencies focus on who the audience is going to be.

"It's difficult for us to really find out who is on the other end," said Hoekstra. "Raising awareness about how folks are using our data helps fine-tune our next visions as we produce more data sets and make it more accessible."

Gundersen said agencies may want to start using the data to find efficiencies in their own internal processes. Using the data within the agency will help those facilitating data release better identify deficient data sets.

Jennifer Cohen, senior policy analyst at the New American Foundation, a group that uses massive amounts of DOE data for policy analysis, stressed the need for a timely release of data and better labeling of government data.

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