How do I get questions answered that aren't on this list?
Email data@cdc.gov and that mailbox is monitored by Brian and Linda. When they answer your question, they'll probably add it to this list.
What is Open Data?
OMB Memo M-13-13 Open Data Policy defines open data as "publicly available data structured in a way that enables the data to be fully discoverable and usable by end users." (p5) with seven principles of public, described, accessible, reusable, complete, timely, managed post-release. Note that there are other, more broad definitions used by other communities (eg OpenDefinition) but Open Data used by CDC will refer to the OMB definition unless otherwise noted.
How do I add featured content to my category?
If your userid has publisher permissions, you can update the category's featured content with data sets, articles, or other items of interest related to your data. You can also write up a description for your category using Markdown to add minimal html like links and formatting. Socrata has a nice tutorial page with training on how to do this.
How to I use data on Data.CDC.gov?
Every data set has a page describing the data and how to get to it with specific examples to browse online, access via an API, or through a wide variety of visualization and analysis packages.
How do I add data on Data.CDC.gov
If you are a current user, there are tutorials below on how to add, improve, tag with metadata, update, etc. your data. Most data stewards upload their excel or csv directly through the web site, and you can also update data via the Socrata API. And we have some tools for automatic uploads. Contact data@cdc.gov for more info. Only authorized CDC data stewards can add and modify data sets on Data.CDC.gov. Please email data@cdc.gov to request access. Each data steward represents the program that owns the data set and coordinated with their respective organizations with the agency.
Relevant Law, Rule, and Regulation
M-17-06, Policies for Federal Agency Public Websites and Digital Services - November 8, 2016
M-13-13 — Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies - May 9, 2013
M-10-06, Open Government Directive - December 8, 2009
List of Socrata Tutorials That I've Found Helpful
- Featured Content For The Data Catalog - How to update categories with featured content items.
- Using The Platform - How to open up and work with data sets in lots of tools (Tableau, R, Plotly, PowerBI, etc.)
- Data Visualization - How to work with data sets specifically for visualization
- Locating The API Docs for a Dataset - how to work with the Socrata API for each dataset
- Access Socrata Data Using OData - Specifically through the Open Data Protocol API standard
- Metadata API - How to read the data about data sets via an API
- Socrata "Primer" A Dataset's Landing Page - How to navigate around each data set's landing page.
- How to upload a dataset via the Web User Interface