EPA Data Web 2.0 Wiki Pilot
Table of contents
Disclaimers and Legal Notes
This site is not managed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
This is only a pilot and demonstration site for technology reasons.
This website has been created solely for technology demonstration purposes as part of the 2008 EPA Environmental Information Symposium. Content presented on this site represents the contributions of symposium participants. EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of information provided on this site or any linked site. Participation in and information provided for this exercise by EPA employees does not constitute endorsement by EPA or any of its employees of the sponsors or products presented on the site. Please be aware the privacy protection provided on the EPA.gov domain may not be available on this site.
Background:
Enterprise Architecture is evolving to Business Transformation to demonstrate value in actually changing the business processes of organizations. Data Architecture is evolving to a more comprehensive activity to support business transformation in actually doing model-driven data applications for organizations. Data Architecture means looking at all of the information (data) in the enterprise in a structured fashion, even the “unstructured data”.
Data Architecture means working to make it easier to bring key information about the same real-world entities and transactions together. Our initial objectives were to see if this Web 2.0 Wiki can be useful in bringing about collaboration across EPA Metadata and Data Architecture. A longer range goal is to see if this Web 2.0 Wiki could be used as an Enterprise Metadata Management and Data Application Development Tool (e.g. data and metadata mashups).
It has also been suggested that EPA's National Dialogue be transformed from "tell us how to improve access to show how how you are using EPA data" by opening up Wikis for public posting of EPA data stories and uploading of file attachments, creating incentives for participation and interaction, and learning what we can improve upon. This could produce a Wikipedia-type compilation of EPA data use and reuse! Show me the data! (like the famous line "Show me the money" from the movie Jerry Maguire)
Ultimately, data quality is a function of usage, not collection or processing…the more you use data the better it gets, the less you use data the worse it is…data that is never used cannot be correct. The same is true with data models, if you don’t use them you can’t be sure they’re any good. (Source: Ken Orr, Data Architecture for Business Architects.) The EPA Statistics Users Group and the EPA Quality Staff are among the most experienced EPA data users (see below).
Purposes:
- Make Data Architecture is analogous to Product Architecture: How do we design our data so that we can produce more and more data products faster and cheaper. (Source: Ken Orr, Data Architecture for Business Architects.)
- Help people use EPA data to collaborate and built applications.
- Bring together the following: Traditional data modeling (David Hay); Ontologies (John Sowa and Arun Majumdar); and Semantic Web (Jim Hendler and Dean Allemang) using Web 2.0/3.0 Wikis for bookkeeping and collaboration on all of this that would have the added advantage of attracting younger people to this area.
- Take the enterprise view that all the Segment Architectures gives us the “ontology” (context) for doing the data modeling (which the Segment Data Architects should do for their segments and then share them with all the others), and then we can collaboration – semantic Web enable this using the Web 2.0/3.0 Wikis and other tools.
Structure and Interface:
| Concept | Defintion | Specific Example | Comments |
| Federal Enterprise Architecture Data Reference Model | The Data Reference Model (DRM) describes, at an aggregate level, the data and information supporting government program and business line operations. This model enables agencies to describe the types of interaction and exchanges occurring between the Federal government and citizens. | Web 2.0 Wiki | Continue to be the leading implementor. |
| Federal Geospatial Data Sharing | An EPA / DOI / USDA / NOAA Community of Practice around Federal Geospatial Data Sharing has been established to explore and document ways in which information is currently being shared across these enterprises, percieved barriers to data flows, with a goal to establish enhanced geospatial data sharing capabilities among the federal community in the future. | Web 2.0 Wiki | Kevin Kirby |
| EPA Data Classification Model | EPA Data Areas and Data Classes. Draft September 8, 2004. | Web 2.0 Wiki | Trying to find out the author and status of this document. Excellent beginning of an ontology! |
| Data Architecture for Business Architects | Looking at all of the information (data) in the enterprise in a structured fashion, even the “unstructured data” and working to make it easier to bring key information about the same real-world entities and transactions together. (Source: Ken Orr) | Recent Training (see Ken Orr Institute Pilot Web 2.0 Wiki - Blog -restricted access) | |
| Web 2.0 | A term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. (Source: Wikipedia) | Recent Training: Web 2.0 Introduction for EPA | Kol Peterson |
| National Dialogue | Discussions to produce a comprehensive multi-year strategy document. (Source: EPA Web Pages-see next column) | Web Page (external) Web Page (Internal) | Susan Smiley |
| EPA Strategy for Access to Environmental Information | A multi-year strategy for improved use of data and information. (Source: EPA Web Pages-see next column) | Media Wiki (Internal) | Brand Niemann |
| Indicator | A numerical value derived from actual measurements of a stressor, state or ambient condition, exposure, or human health or ecological condition over a specified geographic domain, whose trends over time represent or draw attention to underlying trends in the condition of the environment. (EPA 2008 Report on the Environment Glossary) | Concentrations of Ozone-Depleting Substances | Denise Shaw |
| Statistics Users Group | The EPA statisticians that are widely scattered throughout the offices of the EPA, supporting our air, water, pesticide, toxics, or research programs. Examples of what they do include designing surveys for a variety of situations, such as national aquatic assessments or requirements of emergency coordinators; attributing risk to environmental stressors; developing experimental designs to assess genetically modified organisms; predicting ozone levels; recalling cars for excess emissions; designing and implementing a motor vehicle tampering survey; reviewing correlations between blood lead and environmental lead; modeling occurrence of bacteria; and evaluating airport de-icing fluids. Source: Statisticians and the EPA: What’s the Connection?, Amstat News, May 2008) | See Meeting Agendas | Barry Nussbaum |
| Quality Systems | Manage the quality of its environmental data collection, generation, and use to ensure that our environmental data are of sufficient quantity and quality to support the data's intended use. Under the EPA Quality System, EPA organizations develop and implement supporting quality systems. Similar specifications may also apply to contractors, grantees, and other recipients of financial assistance from EPA. (Source: EPA Web Page) | 2008 EPA Conference on Managing Environmental Quality Systems Web Site | Reggie Cheatham |
| LandView User Group | LandView has its roots in the CAMEO software (Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Operations). CAMEO was developed by the EPA and the NOAA to facilitate the implementation of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. This far-reaching law requires communities to develop emergency response plans addressing chemical hazards and to make available to the public information on chemical hazards in the community. This product contains both database management software and mapping software used in the CAMEO system to create a simple computer mapping system involving two programs - MARPLOT® and LandView. The MARPLOT mapping program allows users to map Census 2000 legal and statistical areas, EPA Envirofact sites, and USGS Geographic Names Information (GNIS) features. The LandView database system allows users to retrieve Census 2000 demographic and housing data, EPA Envirofacts data and USGS GNIS information. The GNIS contains over 1.2 million records which show the official federally recognized geographic names for all known places, features, and areas in the United States that are identified by a proper name. Source: LandView Web Page | ||
| EPA Region 5 | A regional office of the US EPA with a focus on the Midwest and Great Lakes that ensures decisions and actions are consistent with the EPA Administrator's principles of Results and Accountability; Innovation and Collaboration and Best Available Science; the Agency's emerging work in Eco-Regions; joint priorities negotiated with states and tribes and finally, the measures used to track the Region's annual performance. | Working on Water Wiki. | Zenny Sadlon |
| Public and Private EPA Data User Groups | Washington, DC Citywide Data Warehouse | Cambridge Semantics (password required) CIO's Learning Wikis: Democratizing DataSee Time to Set Our Data Free: Web - Now Government - 2.0? Centrifuge Systems See Next Generation Information Visualization | TBA |
| More to be added |
Other Web 2.0 Wikis:
| EPA Web 2.0 Team | Implementation Matrix | July 24, 2008 |
| EPA Wiki Pilot | Improved Access to EPA Information: Before and After with Web 2.0 | July 24, 2008 |
| EPA Metadata Pilot | Enterprise Data Architecture and Implementation: Federated, Faceted, Semantic Search of Both EPA Metadata and Data with Governance | July 24, 2008 |
| EPA Data Architecture Pilot | Tutorial | July 24, 2008 |
| Gov 2.0 Wiki | Tutorial | July 24, 2008 |
| E-Rulemaking Pilot | Tutorial | July 24, 2008 |
| Geospatial Line of Business Pilot | Tutorial | July 24, 2008 |
| EPA Ontology | Tutorial | July 24, 2008 |
Tutorial
This Wiki: Slides
Mindtouch Deki Wiki User Manual: Wiki and PDF Formats
Also see Architecture and Features (complete with Demo Video Gallery) for more information.
Here are some tips on getting started with this wiki:
Contribute content
Create mashups
Deki Wiki supports boatloads of extensions - these are little features which allow you to embed content from other websites. For example, you can embed Google Maps, Windows Live Maps, AND Yahoo! Maps, all on the same page. You can also dynamically manipulate images using our ImageMagick extension.There's so much you can do, so learn all about available extensions in your Deki Wiki by clicking the "Extensions List" tab (when the editor loads), or by viewing the Extensions page on OpenGarden.
Let us help you
Create an OpenGarden account
OpenGarden is for anybody who wants to participate in the growth of Deki Wiki - creating a free account gives you access to our community forums, our bug tracker, and to our wiki. Feel free to drop in, ask questions, or contribute.- Tag page
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- What links here
Files 6
| File | Size | Date | Attached by | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | BNiemann07072008.ppt Business Transformation: US EPA Enterprise Data Management, Brand Niemann, Senior Enterprise Architect, July 7, 2008. Preparations for an EPA Workshop. | 515 kB | 20:47, 24 Jul 2008 | Admin | Actions | |
| BNiemann07082008.ppt Tutorial with 14 steps for setting up the Wiki by Brand Niemann, July 8 and 14, 2008. | 2.72 MB | 12:15, 15 Jul 2008 | Admin | Actions | |
| | CBP02012010.xls No description | 27.45 MB | 19:56, 1 Feb 2010 | Admin | Actions |
| CBPMetadata02012010.txt No description | 3.42 kB | 19:27, 1 Feb 2010 | Admin | Actions | |
| DavidMcComb06222008.pdf No description | 955.45 kB | 21:35, 14 Aug 2008 | Admin | Actions | |
| Next Generation-Information-Visualization-WP.pdf No description | 5.49 MB | 18:29, 28 Jul 2008 | Admin | Actions | |