Data Approach to Back to School

Tyler Podcast Episode 35, Transcript

Our Tyler Technologies podcast explores a wide range of complex, timely, and important issues facing communities and the public sector. Expect approachable tech talk mixed with insights from subject matter experts and a bit of fun. Host and Content Marketing Director Jeff Harrell – and other guest hosts – highlights the people, places, and technology making a difference. Give us listen today and subscribe.

Episode Summary:

Pauline Zaldonis, a key member of the Connecticut Open Data team, joins guest host Beth Amann to discuss data-driven work in the state of Connecticut. We cover the basics of the Connecticut Open Data Portal and the success of cross-agency partnerships in the state to empower residents with the information they need. The School Learning Model Indicators Dashboard and data surrounding COVID-19 have increased attention on the Open Data Portal, and Pauline shares how the team is thinking about resident engagement – especially as we head back to school for the 2021-2022 school year.

Transcript:

Pauline Zaldonis: So I think the pandemic definitely highlighted the need for state agencies to provide timely data to the public, and then to incorporate that data into decision-making processes. So during the pandemic agencies had to develop new systems for data collection, data-sharing, managing data, data analysis, all sorts of things related to data.

Jeff Harrell: From Tyler Technologies, it's the Tyler Tech podcast where we talk about issues facing communities today and highlight the people, places, and technology making a difference. I'm Jeff Harrell. I'm the director of content marketing here at Tyler. And I'm super glad that you joined us. Well, if you remember back on episode number 27, we introduced Beth Amann as a guest host of the Tyler Tech podcast. Well, I'm excited to say that Beth is back to guest host another exciting episode. Today she'll be talking with Pauline Zaldonis, who is a key member of the Connecticut data team talking specifically about how data and open data at open data portal can help parents as we head back to school. You're going to love this conversation with Beth Amann and Pauline Zaldonis. Beth, take it away.

Beth Amann: Thanks, Jeff. Welcome to the Tyler Tech podcast. My name is Beth Amann and I'm a marketing specialist with Tyler Technologies. And I, as Jeff said, I'm today's guest host. I am thrilled to be back to talk about open data in the state of Connecticut and how they are empowering their residents through transparency and how your local government can too. The state of Connecticut is a leader in publishing open data and leveraging the insights gained to empower folks to make data-driven decisions for themselves. The Connecticut open data portal was launched in 2014 as the state's repository for open data and has been crucial as Connecticut agencies sought to keep the public informed and engaged as we all face the COVID 19 pandemic. Pauline Zaldonis, my guest today is a key member of the Connecticut Open Data team, working as a research analyst on the data and analytics team at the office of policy and management. She and her colleagues have worked with staff at other state agencies like the state department of education and department of public health to publish their own data on the state's data portal. One of the key initiatives that OPM team worked on this past year was the school learning model indicators dashboard. As we prepare for back to school 2021, I'm excited to learn more about data-driven initiatives in the state of Connecticut and how other local government leaders can empower their residents with data to inform decision-making. Pauline, welcome to the podcast.

Pauline Zaldonis: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Beth Amann: We're really excited. Well, let's start with the basics. For those who are not familiar with the awesome data work being done in state of Connecticut, can you tell me about the Connecticut open data portal and how it is used across?

Pauline Zaldonis: Definitely. So in your intro, you gave a great quick overview that the Connecticut open data portal is the state's repository for open data. It was launched in 2014 and now it's managed by our team at the office of policy and management, that is the data and policy, analytics team. So it's the primary platform for Connecticut state agencies to make their data publicly available in a machine-readable format. So our team at OPM, we work with data publishers at other agencies to help them make their data available through the portal. So we have the role of providing guidance and support to the data publishers across agencies, but ultimately it's up to the agencies, what data they want to publish and how they want to present it. So agencies publish their data on the portal and then users access the data for a variety of different purposes. And from our perspective, we don't always know how the data is being used, but we do learn of different examples from time to time. We know that data on the open data portal is used by the local media. We've seen examples where it's been used by local health departments to develop dashboards. And it's also used by state agencies as a way to host data if they want to have data feeds for a data visualization or for dashboards. And in addition to just hosting the data, we've also started to use the data story feature, which I know we'll talk more about later on, but we liked the ability to put together a data story so we can provide context around the data, make it easier for users to find data and understand some of the context around the data. So, we've really appreciated that tool on the open data portal in Connecticut, to help us highlight different data sets and provide background information to help users understand the context.

Beth Amann: It sounds like you guys are providing context for a variety of stakeholders, that you're providing context for the agencies that are learning how to use the portal and publish their stuff. And then through those features on the platform, providing context to those who are viewing it. So, I'm sure that everyone is very appreciative of the role your office plays in sharing this information within the past year, like you and I have talked a couple of times about how the open data portal has been leveraged. And we've seen a rapid dependency across the board with other local governments, the dependency on open data portals like this to keep the public informed, COVID cases, testings, and vaccine data, all sorts of stuff. And you alluded this stories feature that you've been able to use and the dashboards that agencies have employed. So, when COVID hit, again, I'm leading towards the answer because I know how it's been used. It seems like there was a large ask of the open data team. So how did you work with departments to publish data, to help people get the context they needed? How did you work with departments when COVID became a serious topic that all of us were interested in learning more about?

Pauline Zaldonis: When the first cases of COVID were being identified in Connecticut, we didn't have a system in place for publishing this kind of public health data publicly on a daily basis, in the middle of a pandemic. So, at the end of March 2020, the department of public health, they were publishing data about the metrics were the number of cases, hospitalizations, deaths from COVID. So they were producing this data in a daily report that was made available as a PDF document. So it was a document that was released in the governor's press releases, and it was published on a state website. But there was such a huge demand for the data about the pandemic. So the state really needed a place to host that data centrally, something outside of just daily PDFs. So our team at OPM started to work with DPH to take the data that was included in these PDF reports and to publish that data as data sets on the open data portal. So that's really how our team got involved in the work of publishing data on COVID on the open data portal in Connecticut. So we worked with DPH to create a bunch of datasets with data from DPH was data at the state county town level. So we worked with them to develop a process for updating those data sets and to try to automate those sorts of data updates where we could. And like you mentioned, this was also where we started to use the data story tool on the portal. So with all this, we had a bunch of different datasets about COVID. So we developed a landing page, basically a data story that served as a landing page for all of our COVID-19 data resources. So the idea was, it was the landing page where we could give information about all the data that was being made available and provide some context, and point people to different data resources. And then over the course of the pandemic, we also added data from other agencies. So, during the summer of 2020, for example, so the Connecticut state department of education, they worked with the department of public health on some public health metrics about learning model indicators for the 2021 school year. So, a learning model indicator basically means like if a school will be operating in person or remotely or using a hybrid model. It was another example where a lot of information was released in a PDF report. And so, we saw another opportunity to use the open data portal as a way to make data available to the public. Well, to the public and also to decision-makers. I should say, in Connecticut decisions about learning models, they were made at the local school district level. And so the state provided guidance and they provided a set of public health metrics to guide decision-making, but ultimately the decisions were made at the district level. So, this was another example where we were able to use the data story to publish the public health metrics that were meant to guide decision-making for local school districts, for families, for all sorts of folks. And in addition to making the data available through the portal, we also were able to provide some visualizations and some context about the different metrics. Because there was such a demand for data about the pandemic. The open data portal has definitely become like a hub for bringing together all the different data resources relating to COVID trying to centralize them in one place.

Beth Amann: That's great that you were able to see several opportunities to move from stagnant views, PDFs that you can't really interact with to getting things on the open data. We talk a lot about data-driven decisions. And I think sometimes it's easy for folks to think about that as a government-only tool, I guess. Like if you, the government entity have the data then only you are informed and empowered to make the decision, and that's not it. Connecticut's a great example that you, like you said, it's local people who are making the decisions for their schools. The parents are going in and looking at the data and making decision. Like, "Let me see how my school district is doing. Let's see how the town next to is doing. Let's see how comfortable I am sending my student into school right now."

Pauline Zaldonis: Definitely. We use the dataset nominations page on the open data portal. And people often write in with just questions in addition to nominating datasets. And we would get questions from parents or folks who've worked at local schools and people are definitely using it to try to find information, what's going on in their town, what's going on in their district. So we definitely heard a lot of that.

Using the School Learning Model Indicators Dashboard

Beth Amann: It's weird to think that this was something Connecticut developed in 2020 with the intention of serving the 2020 school year. And here we are back to school 2021, the school learning model indicators dashboard from my understanding is sticking around since it was so useful. But what is staying? What is growing? Do you think the school learning model indicators dashboard will be used for a while, pandemic or no pandemic?

Pauline Zaldonis: Oh, that's a good question. We're definitely still updating the learning model indicators, the data set, and the page, we never stopped. We continued updating it throughout the summer. I think the assumption in Connecticut is that schools will be operating in person for the coming school year for the most part, but the metrics will still be helpful for local decision-making and for awareness. So we've continued updating the metrics through the summer. And as far as I know, we're going to continue updating them for the foreseeable future. I'm not sure, you can imagine the world post-pandemic what will happen, but we'll definitely continue to update them. And the Connecticut state department of education has also been publishing some other interesting data. They publish monthly attendance reports for schools. They did that through the 2020/2021 school year. And I believe they'll continue to collect and publish that data. Even though most students are expected to be in person, I think students will sometimes be remote for a variety of different reasons. So this data collection will help to give more insight into patterns of student attendance.

 

Beth Amann: It feels like there's been an opportunity and an interesting shift in attention on these data portals. Like we mentioned, we've seen a rapid adoption already across local governments. But for Connecticut, the Connecticut open data portal has gotten so much attention. Not only these families and students learning about how they can use it as a reference, but the state agencies using it with an increased rate. The governor was using some of the open data dashboards in daily briefings during the pandemic. And I know that you have seen a huge spike in data requests. You mentioned that data nomination form and how people would just use it to say, "I want to see more about this," or even ask a simple question. What are you hoping comes out of this shift in attention on the open data portal and increased adoption?

Pauline Zaldonis: Traffic on the portal has definitely increased because of the pandemic with a lot of the COVID data driving that, I think. So, one thing that I think we have improved on the portal because of this increased traffic, is our ability to work across agencies, to be responsive to the increased volume of questions and data requests that we've been receiving. So like you mentioned, we get many more data requests that are coming in through the portal than we did before the pandemic. And we've definitely gotten better at responding to those and to publishing the data that is being requested when we can. So I think my hope is that people continue to engage with the portal and they keep asking questions and telling us what data they want to see. And then another thing I think that will come from the increased attention to the portal is that now we're working to clean up the open data portal in Connecticut to make it more usable. We don't want people to come to the portal and then to be frustrated that they're not able to find the information that they're looking for. So right now we are in the middle of a spring cleaning-type project. So, we're working with agencies to retire old datasets, update data, make the portal easier to navigate so that folks can find things they're looking for. So that was something that came out of, we knew that we were getting a lot more traffic on the portal and we really wanted to make sure that we were putting our best foot forward. And I think we will continue to strive to make the open data portal more user-friendly and I definitely hope that work will continue. I think we could improve some of the completeness of our metadata. So I think that might be a good future project that I hope we will undertake.

Beth Amann: And we talk about these data-driven decisions, but if your data isn't clean, if your data isn't up to date, then what are you making decisions with? If you're looking at something from 2004, that's not going to help you make a decision in 2021. If you have data from 2004, that's already in handy, I'm one, impressed. But two, if that's the most up to date, I am concerned.

Pauline Zaldonis: Right.

Leveraging an Open Data Portal

Beth Amann: The metadata of it too, that is such an important part to these open data portals being able to better search and query the portal and understand how the stuff is there and what's going on. I think that's awesome that you all are, like you said, putting your best foot forward. The open data portal, it has a lot more than just the school learning model indicators. There is tons of information about government efforts in a variety of areas. So, even just looking at data data.ct.gov, which is you're a listener to go and look at the portal. You see, a variety of information from housing and development and transportation to environmental and natural resources, you mentioned a nomination form, but are there ways that residents can be leveraging an open data portal and request information outside of those back to school topics?

Pauline Zaldonis: Definitely. Yeah. I totally second your call to people to go check out the open data portal, data.ct.gov. I think the best way would probably be just starting with our data catalog. You have the ability to search for keywords that are of interest. So, that's probably the best place to start to browsing the data catalog, searching for keywords, for COVID data. We have a landing page, like I mentioned, it's data.ct.gov/coronavirus. So, from there you can link. Over the course of pandemic, we've added many more data sets than only public health data. We have data from the state department of education, from the department of correction, from the department of children and families. So, all that information is linked to from that landing page. And then in general, if you don't find what you're looking for, you can go to the data set nominations page, which you mentioned, it's data.ct.gov/nominate. So that's where you can post a question or you can post a request to ask if data can be made available. And then our team will see if that data is available, we'll check with the whichever agency would have that data and we

Beth Amann: What's the process like when you are requesting this data of other agencies, if they don't have it handy? How do you go about partnering with them to get that request fulfilled for the residents asking for that data?

Pauline Zaldonis: We work with... There's a role at executive branch agencies in Connecticut called the agency data officer and the agency data officers have really been key partners in handling data requests related to the pandemic and also just in general. So the agency data officers are the point people for handling data requests that come into the agency. So for instance when we started working with all the DPH data, we worked closely with the agency data officer from DPH [inaudible 00:17:09], who was great. And so, every executive branch agency has an agency data officer. I'm actually the OPM agency data officer. I mentioned Gary. And so this is where the network of people when a data request comes in, that's the person that I reach out to. So, if there's a DPH question, I'll reach out to Gary. Or if the question comes in for education data, I'll reach out to the agency data officer there. So the process it's mostly just the data request comes in and then I'll send an email or a team's chat to ask the data officer from whichever agency might have that data. And then they will do whatever internal processes they have for managing data requests. If it's available, then I'll typically work with them to either... If it's something that could be published on the portal, we'll work together to create a new data set on the portal. Or sometimes it's something that already exists somewhere outside of the portal, but it is publicly available. So just pointing people to where they can find the data.

COVID-19 Impact on Data Management and Open Data

Beth Amann: It's really awesome that there are these agency data officers. I was not familiar with that as a role. Maybe that's just me not knowing it, but I know that Connecticut has a chief data officer Scott Gaul. And so it's really cool to know that there are data representatives within each agency and that there is a push for data-driven efforts within all those agencies, not just run by Scott and by your team within OPM, that there is a data-driven effort across the state. So, that's really cool. And I'm sure that Scott appreciates the support and that you appreciate the support across the full state. We've talked about, there's so much more on the open data portal for residents to explore, but there's also probably more for government to do, even though Connecticut is absolutely a leader and doing so much. And I even just learned something brand new right now with the agency data officers. Connecticut, the state published a state data plan for 2021 to 2022 detailing how to approach data stewardship use and access. It wasn't just saying, "Look at all the fancy things that we've done," but saying, "Here's our commitment. Here's what we plan to do for the future." And so, there was even a whole section on data and COVID. So, separate from the increased attention on the open data portal, do you think that the COVID-19 pandemic, just by the fact that there was a whole section on data and COVID in this plan has prompted any lasting changes to how the state approaches data management and open data?

Pauline Zaldonis: I think so. So I think the pandemic definitely highlighted the need for state agencies to provide timely data to the public and then to incorporate that data into decision-making processes. So, during the pandemic, agencies had to develop new systems for data collection, data sharing, managing data, data analysis, all sorts of things related to data. And I think many of these changes will continue after the pandemic. I know on our team, we have some action steps from the state data plan. Ones that come to mind related to this conversation are related to open data. I know we are working to develop an approach to prioritize high-value data sets for the open data portal and to ensure that the data on the portal is useful and current. So this goes along with the effort I mentioned before to put our best foot forward to clean up the open data portal. We're also working to improve the user experience in general of the portal. Like I mentioned before, we want to improve the metadata, if possible improve navigation, and use tools like data stories that will help provide context around the data. And then a third piece of this is that we're working to improve our ability to provide more daily or real-time updates through automated feeds to the portal. This is a great way to make sure data doesn't get stale just to automate the update process. That's the goal. So, those are some of the next steps for our team that I think where these are changes that came out of the necessity to publish more data, you make sure the data is current, create automated data feeds on the portal, things that came out of the pandemic. And I think other agencies also have many lessons learned that will improve the state's ability to leverage data in the future.

Beth Amann: Yeah, that's awesome. You mentioned high-value datasets. What's an example of a high-value dataset?

Pauline Zaldonis: So high-value data set basically a data set that's essential to the functioning of the agency. So, for instance, at OPM, we have a number of data sets that would be essential to the management of various programs. So, for instance, one big data set that OPM compiles annually as our municipal fiscal indicators data. So it's ton of municipal indicators from the towns in Connecticut, that OPM compiles. And then we make this available. It's actually a project that's in flux. It used to be made available in annual access database, but we're translating it over to the portal. But it's a lot of different metrics. So, that's been an interesting project. So that would be an example of a high-value dataset for OPM because we're required to produce these indicators every year. It's essential to the team that works on that project. So, that's just one example.

Getting to Know Pauline

Beth Amann: That's great. We've reached the end of our formal questions, but I am a guest host. So I get to do some crazy things sometimes. So I wanted some fun. I want to do a lightning round if you're up for it.

Pauline Zaldonis: Sure.

Beth Amann: Okay, cool.

Pauline Zaldonis: Let's do it.

Beth Amann: I was like, so I'm going to ask just quick questions and then you just give the first thing that comes to mind. Ready?

Pauline Zaldonis: Okay, let's do it.

Beth Amann: Okay. What is the most random dataset on the open data portal?

Pauline Zaldonis: Oh, I don't want to call out any random data sets. I feel like if something, it seems random, maybe it's a sign that it needs to be updated or needs more context, or needs to be retired. I don't know.

Beth Amann: A beautiful answer. Well then let's shift it just quickly. What's your favorite dataset on the open data portal?

Pauline Zaldonis: Oh, what's my favorite data set? We have a data set of state licenses and credentials. So giant dataset of anything that has a business license or credential in the state. People use it for all kinds of things. Like someone made a request recently to publish a filtered view of all the breweries in Connecticut.

Beth Amann: Cool.

Pauline Zaldonis: Which there are a lot of great breweries in Connecticut. And so, you could create a filtered view of breweries or of grocery stores of all kinds of anything that would have a license or credential. So that's a really useful and fun dataset.

Beth Amann: I love that one. Okay, next question. What are you most excited about in Connecticut right now, government or otherwise?

Pauline Zaldonis: I'm going to go otherwise and say I'm very excited that the Connecticut sun is having a very great season. That's our WNBA team, they're playing so well. They're so fun to watch. I'm very pumped for them and I'm very happy that the WNBA is back now after they went on vacation for the Olympics.

Beth Amann: We love that. Okay, next question. What were you working on before this call?

Pauline Zaldonis: Cleaning some data. I was doing some data cleaning, cleaning up some address data so that we can geocode it.

Beth Amann: We love that. What is the best idea you've stolen from another government?

Pauline Zaldonis: We had to develop a process for retiring data. So New York City has a data set of all their retired datasets, which is something we stole. We now have a data set of all the datasets that we're retiring from our open data portal. So it's very meta. It's also interesting.

Beth Amann: I like that. You can still find it, but not in the way in which you intended to find it. Okay, next question. Favorite thing to do in Connecticut.

Pauline Zaldonis: I have to shout out the pizza of Connecticut. I love to eat pizza in Connecticut. I don't know if you're familiar, but New Haven-style pizza is really good.

Beth Amann: I know.

Pauline Zaldonis: I don't know if you know, but I think it's the best. But I know that's a hot topic for some people.

Beth Amann: I love that that is the favorite thing, the favorite thing to do is eat pizza. I am on board with this.

Pauline Zaldonis: I live in Western Massachusetts, and the pizza here is not the same. So, it's true. I get very excited when I can eat pizza.

Beth Amann: Amazing. Going back to our back to school thoughts, did you like back to school as a student?

Pauline Zaldonis: Yes, I think so. I really love to plan. So I liked getting my little planner, getting everything ready.

Beth Amann: My microphone is currently sitting on my planner, so I understand entirely.

Pauline Zaldonis: Nice.

Beth Amann: Final question. What advice would you give to local government leaders starting to publish open data for the first time?

Pauline Zaldonis: Well, one piece of advice I would give is to make sure that there's a plan in place for keeping data sets that are published, updated, and then try to automate these updates where possible. Obviously, I've talked about this a lot in this interview, it's on my mind, we're working to clean up the portal and we're retiring some assets that were published in 2014, and then maybe that were never updated after that. So yeah, that's definitely important, encouraging your data publishers to have a plan for keeping data up to date and very automating data feeds where possible, that'll make a really big difference in making sure your open data portal is up to date. And it also, when you can automate things, it saves time in the long run.

Beth Amann: We do love an automated system in life. Oh my goodness. Well, thank you for doing the lightning round with me. I think that was fun. I want to thank you so much for joining me on this podcast and for talking through what's happening in Connecticut with open data. I think you all are doing some really exciting work and I love the partnerships across agencies. It's really exciting to know that there's so much going on with open data in Connecticut and across agencies. So, thank you so much. Can you remind us one more time in case they didn't hear us say it beforehand where our listeners can find Connecticut's open data portal?

Pauline Zaldonis: Yes. You should go check out our Connecticut open data portal at data.ct.gov.

Beth Amann: Perfect. And we will put that in the show notes as well. Pauline, thank you so much for joining me. I hope you get the best piece of pizza soon.

Pauline Zaldonis: I hope so too. Thank you so much. This was really fun.

Jeff Harrell: Well, thank you, Beth and Pauline. And real quick note, after we recorded the podcast, we learned that the Connecticut department of public health and education will not be updating the school learning model indicator dashboard for the fall. And then you can visit data.ct.gov for data resources from all Connecticut state agencies. Well, I want to think Beth for guest hosting and doing such a great job and for Pauline, and for helping us understand how the state of Connecticut is using data in an open data portal, really help parents as students go back to school. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode. We launch a new episode every other Monday. We've got lots of great topics planned. So please subscribe to the Tyler Tech podcast and leave us a review. If you enjoy the podcast, leave us a review. Again, this is Jeff Harrell, director of content marketing with Tyler Technologies. Thanks for being here, until next time, we will talk to you soon.