Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Key Words: Application Program Interface (API), Public Data, Information Collection, Knowledge Management, Public Engagement, Public Finance and Government Transparency

Abstract – Aggregation of public data is emerging as a powerful force in the business, non-profit, and government sectors. Since the 1960’s public institutions have gathered large quantities of data, much of this data was only accessible to academic and government officials. The establishment of online databases ushered in an age of access, with terabytes of previously unreachable data frames released for public consumption. A new phase of public data is emerging, with application program interfaces (API’s) automatically cross walking data between the public and private sectors. This paper explores the emerging role of API generated aggregated data at the State level. Examining three key areas: (1) How the knowledge management technology and aggregation is changing how governments collect data, (2) Addressing management concerns of data quality and the associated loss of public engagement, (3) How aggregated data is changing the notion of public reporting burden. This paper uses a series of different sources including the United Nations Open Data portal (API), Data.Gov, United States Data Cabinet Open Data Project, the California Open Data Portal, and LA Data Portal to understand the role of aggregated data for information collection, public engagement and government management and decision making. Furthermore, this paper presents a content analysis of published literature identifying the history of state government’s role in collecting data and examining the differences between early adopters from differing sectors: government, for-profit, and non-profit entities. We use a systems approach to understand the relational nature between aggregated data’s effects on decision making vs. random survey sampling. We conclude with a set of observations suggesting ways in which governments can better leverage aggregated data to improve knowledge management at a state and local level.