by Angela Guess
Patience Wait of InformationWeek reports, “State governments should begin laying the groundwork to utilize big data in ways that will benefit the public, according to a national association of state IT leaders. In a just released report on the role of big data in state government, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) is advising its members to develop an enterprise architecture and data governance policies to maximize the potential of the information their state agencies generate.”
According to the report, “The challenge is that many state government agencies are still being run as islands of information versus members of a single state government enterprise… The result is state government is not fully exploiting the data it has at hand.” Wait adds, “Large volumes of data can be used to help manage the state ‘enterprise’ and improve operations, but big data programs must be guided by practical and policy considerations, according to the report.”
Wait continues, “The NASCIO report offers recommendations on how state officials can begin to address the opportunities and challenges of big data projects. State CIOs must avoid creating a proliferation of big data initiatives that could result in ‘big data silos.’ Early efforts should be limited to well-defined opportunities.”
