Data integration: benefits for government IT shops

Web services can increase efficiency, interoperability, transparency and data quality. Web service architecture is a fairly simple, reliable path to more accurate data, less duplication of effort and fewer hours spent importing and exporting data. And it can deliver what some people still believe is a pipe dream: government agencies that share information in real time. Government systems that talk to each other. Here are some reasons why government IT staffs might want to adopt web services.

• Reduce data discrepancies:  Web services can eliminate the need for multiple organizations to maintain separate copies of the same data. “Any time you have redundant copies of the data, you introduce the possibility of inaccuracy and discrepancies,” says Eric Sweden of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO). As soon as we import any dynamic dataset from a partner, it is obsolete. Without web services, we have to choose between posting outdated data in my applications or leaving the data out altogether.

• Reduce duplication of effort:  Tally up all the hours you have ever spent importing other people’s data, or exporting your data to others. Is this a productive use of your time? If you could write a few lines of code to export or import the data in small, precise batches just at the moment it is needed, wouldn’t that make your life easier? After you have imported the data, you spend hours maintaining it. Wouldn’t you rather let the database owner maintain the data, and send you pieces of it as needed? (Trust is a key factor here—data consumers need to trust not only that the data is accurate, but that the provider’s web service will always be up and running.) If nothing else, think about the FOIA requests you handle on a case-by-case basis. You could be referring all FOIA requests to a web service portal.

• Rationalize data access: Traditional data sharing arrangements often depend on personal relationships between data providers and data consumers. If you know someone who works at the county clerk’s office, lucky you! But when your friend leaves to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a master chef, you have to get acquainted with a new provider. Each time such changes occur, the data flow stops until you take the time and energy to get it going again. With web services, the servers keep on humming through reorganizations and early retirements.

• Speed up the flow of data:  Traditional import processes are too slow to be useful in any rapidly-changing situation. Emergencies are a case in point. At a time of crisis, are IT managers likely to stop their work to send out updated disks or post updated files on FTP servers? With web services, all partners can operate from the exact same data at the same moment. Governments have been criticized for lacking systems that “talk to each other.” Web services do exactly that—they communicate information, at the system level, without any costly human intervention. Even non-emergency situations sometimes call for more rapid data dissemination than traditional methods allow. In Chicago, neighborhood gentrification (a steep rise in property values and rapid conversion of apartments to condominiums) sometimes happens in a matter of months, not years. Quarterly downloads of building permits, property transaction and land use data from city and county sources might be too infrequent to allow a timely response to such changes.

• Targeted cost recovery and improved customer service:   Public agencies often charge a fee for providing data, as a way of recovering costs associated with their data systems. Web services can allow agencies to provide targeted data feeds (say, tailored to a user’s own neighborhood) for a much lower cost than they might need to charge for exporting an entire data set. This is a win-win situation, since the customer can now get regular updates from the web service, and the provider can now market to smaller customers who can afford the limited service. Each user’s login ID can determine what data, and how much data, the user is permitted to extract.