In December 2016, the City of New Orleans approved its first ever Data Policy, laying out the goals and ideals that the City aims to achieve with regard to cataloging and opening City data. The policy also requires that we track our accomplishments and challenges, and publish our progress publicly in a report to the Chief Administrative Officer. We are excited to release this first annual report!

Progress Highlights

• Identify Data Coordinators and begin a Data Inventory
  Three-quarters of all departments are engaged in the data inventory process. Twelve departments have completed their inventories which is well above our initial expectations - you can view the dataset here. 
• A process was created for identifying sensitive and protected data.
• A process was formalized to identify, score and approve datasets for publication.

Next Steps

• Continue to help departments inventory their data and publish wherever possible.
• Create a formal community outreach program to help citizens use the data we publish and also to identify datasets that may not currently be available, but valuable to the community.
• Improve data analysis capability within City Hall to drive data-driven decision making.

The City of New Orleans Data Policy was created with the help of the Sunlight Foundation, What Works Cities and engaged City leaders by codifying best practices from open data research. The pillars of great open data programs are laid out in the policy and each year we will examine our progress toward them and adjust our process and resources as necessary. There's a lot of work to be done and we're actively growing our data program every day!

Read the 2017 annual data report