Maine.Gov DataShare – Calling for Your Data

By Kimberly Duplisea, InforME

DataShare, the Maine.gov award winning open government initiative, has recently launched enhancements that make posting and searching for data more user-friendly.  Created in May 2009, DataShare provides a centralized location for the public to find and obtain free public state data through various searching options including searching by keyword, agency, category, and now a one-stop to view key pages for agency data on other Maine.gov agency websites. 

To facilitate the posting of new agency data on http://www.maine.gov/data , InforME has developed a few methods that can be utilized by agency representatives.  The first is an automated FTP process whereby the agency will post data files to a specific location on InforME’s web servers and InforME will schedule an automated job to pick that up and post live.  The other option allows agency representatives to provide InforME with a webservice that will allow InforME to run an automated job to pick up the data on a frequency to be determined by the agency.  Once posted, the agency will have the ability to edit any data details through a new agency administrative interface. 

For more information on DataShare or to learn more about posting your agency files on it, please contact Kimberly Duplisea at kim@informe.org.