Dennis D. McDonald (ddmcd@ddmcd.com)consults from Alexandria Virginia. His services include writing & research, proposal development, and project management.
Much of what the EPA staff talked about involved processes and activities that are necessarily associated not only with “open data” but with any data intensive business process. Data must be managed. Systems that share data need to be coordinated. Resources need to be allocated and shared. Such requirements are not unique to “open data” but are universally relevant.
Making sure that a meaningful org chart is available, precisely because it is a public statement about responsibility, might just be one of the simplest and most direct methods we have for promoting government program transparency and accountability.