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CHHS Open Data Handbook

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handbook-765503_960_720An important but sometimes lesser-known portion of the CHHS open data effort is the associated Open Data Handbook. The handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the defining structures, procedures, technologies, and resources associated with the Data Portal:

  1. Introduction—The big-picture purpose of the handbook, key open data technical terms, and implementation phases.
  2. Governance—The overall open data governance model, governance structures, administrative roles and their levels, the various process stages (proposal, review, approval), and legal issues.
  3. Guidelines—The specifics of publication, in terms of data table identification, prioritization, underlying aggregate info, interested stakeholders, legal issues, value of the data, associated metadata, descriptive info, tags/keywords, data standards, geocoding, and more.
  4. Disclosure—Key security, privacy, regulatory, and aggregate data considerations, including ownership rights, and resolution of inaccurate data.
  5. Use—How the public can and should use the Data Portal, including vectors for soliciting public input, data table types and definitions, API access technologies, terms of use for the data, and mobile app considerations.
  6. Glossary—An extensive glossary of key open data concepts, terms, and technologies.
  7. Resources—A wealth of associated open data catalogs, conferences, coding gatherings, consultants, funding foundations, literature, news resources, city/county/state/country data portals, data visualization tools, and more.
  8. CHHS Open Data Handbook GitHub Project—A GitHub repository for the Open Data Handbook, providing open access to the handbook.

The handbook is based on and builds upon the New York State Open Data Handbook, which was made available for public use. Beyond the CHHS Open Data Handbook’s primary practical function to guide CHHS open data publishing, the document is also a general tool for any parties interested in providing public access to online data. The Handbook’s GitHub project allows free access, recommendations, and and re-uses of this important resource.