by Angela Guess

According to a recent release out of the governor’s office, “Governor Wolf launched OpenDataPA to enhance access to valuable information by creating a central repository to share the commonwealth’s data with the general public. Citizens, researchers, media, and developers can now browse through the first-released datasets at data.pa.gov, the home of OpenDataPA. ‘Since day one of my administration, I have been committed to making state government more open and transparent,’ said Governor Tom Wolf. ‘That’s why I signed an executive order to release agency data to the public in an open, accessible format, and today, am launching OpenDataPA. One of our most valuable and underutilized resources in state government is data. Our goal is to make data available in order to engage citizens, create economic opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs, and develop innovative policy solutions that improve program delivery and streamline operations’.”

The release goes on, “OpenDataPA has three main goals: (1) Accountability – OpenDataPA is the next step toward making Pennsylvania government more open to citizens. With the first datasets released, citizens will be able to track the progress of goals related to Governor Wolf’s three governing objectives — Schools That Teach, Jobs the Pay, Government That Works — in an interactive, simple format. (2) Modernization – A vast improvement over the static agency reports of the past, OpenDataPA will both release newly collected datasets and consolidate datasets from other state agency websites to create a one-stop shop for all of the commonwealth’s open data. (3) Innovation – OpenDataPA strives to be a source of innovation for citizens, entrepreneurs, civic developers, researchers, and policy makers who can manipulate the data we will be releasing to discover economic opportunities, create government applications, and make data-driven decisions.”

Read more at Governor.PA.gov.

Photo credit: PA.gov