Maryland Department of Information Technology Launches Redesigned Open Data Portal

For immediate release:
March 28, 2019
Contact:
Patrick Mulford - patrick.mulford@maryland.gov
410-697-9495

Improving Transparency, Efficiency and Effectiveness in State Government

Crownsville, MD - The Maryland Department of Information Technology today announced the launch of the updated and redesigned Open Data Portal - opendata.maryland.gov. With this updated Portal, Maryland is continuing its commitment as a national leader in open data. The Portal has been updated with a focus on user experience, by streamlining and reorganizing data category tiles to drive the end user to the data they need. Additionally, the Portal now includes enhanced story features, which combines narrative content, data visualizations, and media inputs to tell a better story of how data driven and evidence-based information are supporting initiatives to better the lives are citizens in Maryland and beyond.

“Under the Hogan administration there are more Marylanders, than ever before, using Maryland’s Open Data Portal. Interest in open data has expanded throughout the world and with over 8,500 unique users accessing Maryland’s Open Data Portal per month, our state is no different,” said Michael G. Leahy, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Information Technology. “Demand for greater transparency, accessibility, and ease of use continues to grow and the citizens of Maryland expect data to be available to them as fast as they request it.”

In addition to the Open Data Portal, the State of Maryland has expanded its portfolio for internal data management by adopting Socrata’s Connected Government Cloud (SCGC) platform. SCGC provides self-service single point of access to different data sources across the state in a secure environment. This platform enables the state’s 129 agencies to store, analyze, visualize, and publish data within their agencies, between branches of government, and to the public through the Open Data Portal.

Since 2014, Maryland has been committed to making open data available to the public in ways that make the data easy to find, accessible, and usable, in support of the State Open Data Act. This has been accomplished through Open Data Portals, providing the public access to download, directly connect to, and visualize data made available from the state. Annually, the State’s Open Data Portals supports 60,000 unique users accessing roughly 1,300 publically available datasets.