The Department of Conservation, the entity responsible for regulating oil and gas, has begun the process of moving from paper to an automated and intelligent data capture system. The department has about 10 million pieces of paper, encompassing about 60 percent of the department’s data. Not having the data digitized precludes consistent analysis.
The department is one of the first state entities to embrace the process, partly because of how relevant the oldest data still is and partly because “99 percent of our data is public,” CIO Catherine Kendall said last week at the California Tech Forum.
“By taking advantage of taking the open data portals, it’s fantastic," Kendall said. "It will be easier for us on public-records requests. But we also have a responsibility for knowing what’s in our data. There’s a risk with putting it out there, making sure that we understand it."
Knowing the data will help the state provide a better customer experience, customizing searches and making government more transparent, she said.
The state has made a “business play” to automate digital services, according to Kendall.
“We have a lot of processes that we do digitally today, but there is still a lot of paper out there,” noted Joe Yankle, director of public sector strategic alliances for Kodak Alaris.
The department’s relevant data can go back to its origins because gas wells can survive up to 100 years. Kendall is focusing her department on knowing that data and moving from paper to electronic, structured information.
“Valuable data, valuable information is trapped in paper. All I can think about is how much valuable information is captured in those slides,” Kendall said.
That structured data does not include document capture, which is the scanning of paperwork.
“It’s a big opportunity for government organizations to become more efficient and cost effective if they can figure out how to harness that data, how to better use that data,” Yankle said.
The unstructured data and data chaos that many state agencies face include medical records, physical mail, web pages, images, email and forms. Without structured data, the state cannot be as data driven as it should be, according to Kendall.
Eliminating as much human intervention as possible will allow for more data analysis, reduce the growth of unstructured content and allow for data-driven decisions, even to the point of preventing problems. It will also make information searchable and help departments realize what data is actually relevant.
Benefits of automation include:
- Less on-premise data storage is necessary
- Less money is spent on data storage
- Better customer experience
- Audit readiness
- Improve HR abilities
- Open and transparent government
- Improved compliance
- Reduced labor
- Improve processing and information delivery
