"Information is a national asset"

The federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the CIO Council have released a set of IT Architecture Principles for the U.S. Government, according to a story in Federal Computer World.

The Architecture Principles (PDF) are intended to support "a single Federal Enterprise Architecture to achieve operational excellence for the American public."

The Introduction includes a basic statement of purpose:

Government coordination depends upon consistent decision making across multiple business units, departments and projects. But a natural tension exists whenever more than 100 agencies and thousands of sub-agencies and programs must work together as one. An enterprise-wide architecture tries to create a framework for effective decision making across multiple business units. Otherwise, independent groups decide alone resulting in inconsistency, information islands, isolated business processes, and inefficient technologies. This mixture is a recipe for poor performance.

Among the seven principles is one that sounds a theme familiar to NSGIC members: "Information is a national asset."

The rationale for this principle speaks of the importance of "a well-informed citizenry" and notes that "accurate information is critical to effective decision making, improved performance, and accurate reporting."

Among the implications of this principle are several that reflect lessons learned by NSGIC members about geospatial data coordination:

• Government must "identify authoritative sources of high quality information, and agencies to provide access to specified data and information."
• This may require some "restructuring" of data sources.
• The federal government will need a strategy "to promote cost effective data sharing with other levels of government."