§ 23-505 Internet data set policy and technical standards.
AC § 23-505
a. Within one hundred eighty days of the effective date of this chapter, the department shall prepare and publish a technical standards manual for the publishing of public data sets in raw or unprocessed form through a single web portal by city agencies for the purpose of making public data available to the greatest number of users and for the greatest number of applications and shall, whenever practicable, use open standards for web publishing and e-government. Such manual shall identify the reasons why each technical standard was selected and for which types of data it is applicable and may recommend or require that data be published in more than one technical standard. The manual shall include a plan to adopt or utilize a web application programming interface that permits application programs to request and receive public data sets directly from the web portal. The manual shall also include guidelines for the division of large data sets into groups of smaller data sets, disaggregated by discrete time units, when technical barriers, archival necessity or practical concerns require such division. Such manual shall be updated by the department as necessary. b. The department shall consult with voluntary consensus standards bodies and shall, when such participation is feasible, in the public interest and is compatible with agency and departmental missions, authorities and priorities, participate with such bodies in the development of technical and open standards. c. Each data set on the single web portal shall include a plain language data dictionary; provided that for any data set available on the single web portal before the effective date of the local law that added this subdivision, a data dictionary shall be added to such data set no later than December 31, 2017; and provided further that for any data set made available on the single web portal on or after the effective date of the local law that added this subdivision and before December 31, 2017, a data dictionary shall be added to such data set no later than thirty days after such data set is made available on the single web portal. Such data dictionary shall provide a description for each column heading used within the data set and shall include a description of any acronym, technical term, unit of measure, range of possible values, relationship between or among columns within the data set, frequency of updates to the data set, and other information or description that can provide context to the data, such as the method of collection, a history of modifications to the data set format, data or methods of collection, or any other contextual information that the agency providing the data deems relevant or the technical standards manual requires. Such data dictionary shall be in a format and layout to be determined by the technical standards manual. The data dictionary accompanying each data set, or a link to such data dictionary, shall be included directly on the single web portal. The most recent upload date and generation date for each data set shall be included directly on the single web portal. d. The manual described in subdivision a of this section shall include a technical standard requiring every public data set containing address information to utilize a standard field layout and presentation of address information and include corresponding community district and geospatial reference data. If there is a public data set for which an agency cannot utilize such standard field layout and presentation of address information, such agency shall report to the department and to the council the reasons why it cannot, and the date by which the agency expects that it will be able to utilize such standard field layout and presentation of address information, and such information shall be disclosed in the compliance plan prepared pursuant to section 23-506. e. Every two years, the department shall review the technical standards manual and electronically submit to the mayor and the speaker of the council a report of this review, including any updates pursuant to the compliance plan required under 23-506. The department shall establish a method through which the public may comment on the technical standards manual. (Am. L.L. 2015/106, 11/30/2015, eff. 11/30/2016; Am. L.L. 2015/107, 11/30/2015, eff. 3/29/2016; Am. L.L. 2015/108, 11/30/2015, eff. 11/30/2016; Am. L.L. 2017/251, 12/17/2017, eff. 12/17/2017) Editor's note: For related unconsolidated provisions, see Appendix A at L.L. 2012/011 and L.L. 2015/108.
