Open Data Plans

Open data plans are strategic documents within agencies' Information Resource Management (IRM) plans that describe how agencies will identify, manage, and publish data assets as publicly available open data. Required by the OPEN Government Data Act (44 U.S.C. § 3506(b)(2)) and detailed in White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo M-25-05 (released January 2025), these plans must address processes for data collection in open formats, methods for analyzing how users value government data, procedures for evaluating and improving data quality, and identification of "priority data assets" where disclosure in the Federal Data Catalog would be in the public interest. Agencies must publish updated plans annually with designated points of contact to assist the public.

Open data plans operationalize the "open by default" principle of the Evidence Act, which requires that agency data assets be made publicly available in open, machine-readable formats unless there are specific reasons—such as privacy concerns or national security—not to do so. Open data plans are critical infrastructure for evidence-informed policymaking: they ensure that researchers can access data needed for evaluations, enable reproducibility of research findings, reduce barriers to evidence generation, and support public participation in building knowledge about what government programs work.

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