ODL project builds foundations for future of innovative WSDOT data catalog
I worked this summer with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) on the initial stages of a business analysis of the department’s Data or Term Search (DOTS) tool.
As I wrote in my first and second blog posts on this Open Data Literacy internship, DOTS is a data catalog — an inventory of physical data objects and related metadata managed by WSDOT’s Data Management Services team — linked to a taxonomy of important business terminology.
This tool serves its technical, data-expert audience well, as it promotes data and metadata consistency across the business. DOTS falls short, however, with those at WSDOT who aren’t data experts, as it does not always provide clear business context or a clear pathway to learn more about the content represented by that data.
The full business analysis being conducted by WSDOT focuses on those limitations. To better inform that analysis, I took a step back from DOTS to consider the organization’s information-seeking behavior, as well as its information and data needs. In addition to ongoing discussion with technical stakeholders and my own research, I leveraged two investigative pathways:
- In-depth interviews with 6 WSDOT librarians: These information experts are a great entry point to learn about the information needs and information-seeking behavior of patrons from WSDOT and the public.
- Data analysis of DOTS search logs and library patron help tickets: I used the statistical programming language R to conduct relevant exploratory data analysis on these rich data sources and build a robust list of internal stakeholders for the full business analysis.
Key takeaways from these investigations: Patrons of WSDOT libraries are largely internal; WSDOT librarians are heavily siloed and see few data-related information requests; librarians lack exposure to WSDOT data and data-related tools, but they recognize the importance of that knowledge and are eager to embrace it; data-related requests likely are being made from business unit to business unit, with facilitation more by IT rather than by librarians.
Based on this work, I delivered the following, which inform and dovetail into the full analysis of DOTS:
- Reports from librarian interviews, including recordings and transcripts
- Data analysis reports, including list of internal stakeholders
- A draft of a targeted business analysis survey to be delivered to internal stakeholders
- A report of suggested potential development for DOTS based on observed information/data needs and information-seeking behavior.
I recently presented my work to WSDOT stakeholders in Olympia. Response was positive, with intriguing questions raised about how the large state organization should manage knowledge at an enterprise level and where DOTS fits into that puzzle. Stakeholders also recognized the importance of the work from an open data perspective. Though analysis and development of DOTS is internally focused at this time, better understanding of the data and metadata that WSDOT curates — and DOTS catalogs — will help business stakeholders more effectively determine what data the department can, and should, publish as open data.
