Washington State Department of Transportation

Improve Access to Public Records

Problem Statement:

Help WSDOT improve access to public records: The service of an intern is proposed to assist with defining techniques to identify and proactively release data and documents that are commonly requested through the Public Disclosure Request process. The intern will engage with Records Management, IT Information Management, and the WSDOT Library to identify opportunities for building upon existing systems to facilitate safe public disclosures. This work will build upon previous UW Open Data Literacy intern work at WSDOT by continuing work with the IT Data Catalog metadata system to identify disclosable datasets, as well as working with an existing Public Disclosure Request database to identify repeatedly disclosed document sets for publication. The intern would investigate and propose extensions, revisions, or new processes for Records Management, the WSDOT Library, and WSDOT’s data catalog to accommodate proactive processing of public interest and disclosable content.

Deliverables:

The intern, depending on their findings, may deliver a variety of results: A heuristic, queryset, or technique for identifying commonly requested document sets from the Public Disclosure Request database Analysis proposals for determining risk of sensitive data in requested or proposed disclosure datasets or documents Proposed publication process (e.g., via appropriate committee reviews) for datasets based on risk assessment Techniques for improving public discovery of commonly requested disclosure content which has been proactively posted Techniques for cataloging of data and enabling discovery through the WSDOT Library Results of testing previously proposed metadata attributes for open, structured data to determine applicability for unstructured data Recommendations for implementation of proposed procedures/techniques Final technical report/summary and presentation to WSDOT of all findings and recommendations

Skills Learned:

The intern will be exposed to and be provided the opportunity to learn skills for database analysis, querying, and reporting in actual operational settings. Interns may develop business analysis skills by working with a variety of clients to accomplish overarching objectives.

Intern will work a combination of remotely and at WSDOT.

The issues that each intern should complete are as follows

• Read the Internship Agreement and agree to the terms. (You agree to the terms by responding to the issue)
• Read the Plan of Work document and begin working with your mentor to complete this document. The document must be complete 2 weeks in advance of beginning your internship.
• List dates of availability (including their start date and any known (or potential) dates of conflict)

Timeline:

• Deadline for Plan of Work:
  • Monday, June 11;
• 2 Blog Posts to be posted on ODL Medium blog (https://medium.com/open-data-literacy):
  • July 11
  • August 8
• 1x End of the Year Presentation:
  • Date TBD late August;
• Weekly updates / progress reports, etc:
  • Fridays each week of internship