Beyond the Headlines: What's Really Happened in 2025 to data.gov, Open Data, and Data Leadership

Read our Blog: Taking Stock of Federal Open Data in 2025

Overview

The Data Foundation held a virtual discussion examining the actual changes to federal open data infrastructure in 2025. Amid widespread speculation and competing narratives about government transparency, this webinar provided documented analysis of what has actually occurred with data.gov, agency open data plans, and federal data leadership positions, and what that means for federal open data activities moving forward.

Drawing from six months of Evidence Capacity Pulse monitoring and real-world implementation experience, our experts will present verified findings about federal data access, leadership transitions, and policy changes. Speakers examined concrete developments, including the growth in data.gov datasets, leadership vacancies across Chief Data Officer and statistical official positions, and the release of new agency open data plans required by the OPEN Government Data Act.

This session aimed to cut through speculation with factual analysis while identifying specific opportunities for improving government data accessibility and gathering community input on priority datasets.

Speakers

• Amanda Cash, Senior Director, Center for Data Policy, Data Foundation
• Hyon Kim, Senior Fellow, Data Foundation; Former Program Director, data.gov
• Christopher Marcum, Senior Fellow, Data Foundation; Former Senior Statistician and Senior Scientist, OMB
• Sara Stefanik, Director, Center for Evidence Capacity, Data Foundation (moderator)

Resources

• Monthly metrics remain available at https://data.gov/metrics/
• M-25-05 implementation uncertainties
  • DCAT 3.0 questions–schema at https://doi-do.github.io/dcat-us/
• New harvester and catalog in beta
  • Team Board at https://github.com/orgs/GSA/projects/11

• M-25-05 Memorandum: https://whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/M-25-05-Phase-2-Implementation-of-[…]-2018-Open-Government-Data-Access-and-Management-Guidance.pdf

• Federal CDO Council FAIRness Project: https://www.cdo.gov/fairness-project/