The Object Management Group and the Data Transparency Coalition Announce Partnership to Advance Federal Adoption of Data Standards
Will Work Together to Encourage U.S. Government to Adopt Data Standards

Needham, MA- 02-28-2013- The Data Transparency Coalition and the Object Management Group (OMG) today announced a partnership aimed at the adoption of data standards throughout the U.S. government. The two organizations are offering discounts to one another's members and will work together to lobby the U.S. Congress to pass legislation requiring agencies to use consistent electronic identifiers and data languages for federal spending, performance, regulatory, legislative, and judicial information.

"There have been some moves around the world to implement government transparency through data standards," said Dr. Richard Soley, Chairman and CEO of OMG. "With the coalition's public policy expertise and OMG's decades of developing and governing data standards, we will make government transparency through data standards a worldwide reality."

"Citizens deserve a transparent government, taxpayers deserve an efficient government, and civil servants need better access to their own data," said Hudson Hollister, executive director of the Data Transparency Coalition. "Only standardized data formats and models can deliver those results, and so far the federal government has too often failed to adopt them. Congress should pass legislation requiring data standards - especially nonproprietary ones that are free for anyone to use, like the ones OMG develops and governs."

One of the first acts of the partnership has been the formation of the SMART Regulation Task Force. The task force will encourage regulatory agencies to use electronic standardization to clarify their rules, facilitate cheaper compliance, sharpen their enforcement capabilities, and move toward greater transparency. SMART Regulation (which stands for: Standardized Measurable Agile Reliable Transparent) will allow regulators to write in a standardized vocabulary and format; document any confusion or conflicts that may arise during concurrent implementation of rules; and will apply a measurement system to determine costs, benefits and potential risks before implementation. To learn more, visit www.datacoalition.org/smartregulation and www.omgwiki.org/smartregulation.

The Data Transparency Coalition's first focus has been on the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act), originally proposed in Congress in 2011. The DATA Act would impose consistent data standards on all executive-branch spending data and require all of that data - grant and contract records, agencies' budget reports, and payment data from the Department of the Treasury - to be published online. The House of Representatives unanimously passed the DATA Act in April 2012 and the legislation was introduced with bipartisan support in the Senate in September. However, the Senate version was never considered in committee and the bill died with the expiration of the 112th Congress. The legislation is expected to soon be reintroduced in the 113th Congress, which came into session last month.

About OMG
OMG is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry standards consortium. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies and an even wider range of industries. OMG's modeling standards, including the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Model Driven Architecture (MDA) enable powerful visual design, execution and maintenance of software and other processes. 

About the Data Transparency Coalition
The Data Transparency Coalition is the only trade association that advocates for data reform in the U.S. government. The Coalition brings together technology companies, nonprofit organizations, and individuals to support policies that require federal agencies to publish their data online, using standardized, machine-readable, nonproprietary data standards. The coalition is steered by a board of advisors. Members include large companies such as Teradata Corporation and RR Donnelley and smaller start-ups such as Level One Technologies and BrightScope. For more information, visit http://datacoalition.org/. 

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