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Agency Feedback and Participation
Draft for discussion and revision by the DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team and the Data.gov team.
This page describes the proposed approach for agency feedback and participation in the DCAT-US v3.0 maintenance process.
Agency participation helps ensure that DCAT-US v3.0 maintenance decisions are informed by real implementation experience, metadata management practices, validation results, harvesting considerations, and agency operational needs.
The DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team governs schema maintenance decisions. The Data.gov team at GSA maintains the DCAT-US repository and coordinates the maintenance cycle.
Agency feedback helps the DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team and Data.gov team understand how proposed schema changes, documentation updates, field clarifications, validation changes, or deprecation notices may affect agency implementation.
Agency feedback may help identify:
- Practical implementation impacts
- Metadata field interpretation issues
- Validation challenges
- Harvesting or display considerations
- Documentation gaps
- Migration concerns
- Examples or use cases that should be reflected in guidance
- Potential unintended consequences of proposed changes
- Agency cohorts that may benefit from targeted implementation support
Agency participation is especially important when proposed changes may affect existing data.json implementations, harvest source transitions, or agency metadata workflows.
The maintenance process does not require every agency to participate in every maintenance meeting.
Instead, the DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team and Data.gov team may invite a focused subset of agencies to provide feedback during specific maintenance cycles, release planning discussions, or annual retrospective activities.
This approach is intended to keep discussions manageable while still ensuring that feedback reflects a range of agency implementation contexts.
The initial agency feedback group should include a representative mix of agencies based on implementation relevance, catalog complexity, metadata volume, and technical approach.
Recommended categories include:
- Early DCAT-US 3 implementers
- High-volume Data.gov publishers
- Agencies with complex or specialized metadata
- Agencies using different metadata management approaches
- Agencies with active harvest source transitions
Agencies that are actively implementing or preparing to implement DCAT-US 3 should be included because they are likely to identify practical implementation issues quickly.
These agencies may provide feedback on:
- Field interpretation
- Validation issues
- Metadata structure
- Transition from DCAT-US 1.1 to DCAT-US 3
- Harvest source setup
- Documentation gaps
- Implementation blockers
Agencies with large numbers of datasets or complex metadata inventories should be included because changes to the standard may have significant operational effects for them.
These agencies may provide feedback on:
- Scalability of proposed changes
- Operational burden across large catalogs
- Validation trends
- Implementation timing
- Metadata quality challenges
- Impact of changes across many records
Agencies that publish specialized data should be included to ensure the maintenance process considers diverse metadata needs.
Examples may include agencies that publish:
- Statistical data
- Scientific data
- Geospatial data
- Regulatory data
- Research data
- Restricted or controlled access data
- Public-use and non-public data with complex access considerations
These agencies may help identify:
- Edge cases
- Field-level ambiguity
- Gaps in implementation guidance
- Complex access or use restriction scenarios
- Metadata modeling issues
- Crosswalk or documentation needs
Agencies use different approaches to produce and manage DCAT-US metadata. The feedback group should reflect this diversity.
Agency approaches may include:
- Inventory.data.gov
- Agency-managed catalog systems
- Custom JSON generation workflows
- Enterprise data inventory platforms
- Manual or semi-automated metadata processes
- Vendor-supported catalog tools
- Internal data governance or inventory platforms
Including agencies with different technical approaches helps ensure proposed changes are practical across multiple implementation environments.
Agencies actively transitioning to DCAT-US 3 harvest sources or submitting harvest source change requests should be considered for feedback participation.
These agencies may provide timely feedback on:
- DCAT-US 1.1 to DCAT-US 3 transition issues
- Validation results
- Harvest source configuration
- Path A and Path B transition considerations
- Source URL changes
- Harvesting frequency and timing
- Implementation support needs
Each participating agency should identify representatives who can speak to both policy and technical implementation.
For smaller agencies, one person may cover multiple roles.
The metadata or data inventory lead is typically responsible for agency metadata standards, data inventory management, or catalog coordination.
This role may provide feedback on:
- Metadata field interpretation
- Agency inventory processes
- Data governance impacts
- Metadata quality considerations
- Implementation planning
- Documentation needs
- Coordination with agency data stewards or program offices
The technical implementation lead is familiar with the agency’s metadata generation process, JSON file, catalog platform, or harvest source.
This role may provide feedback on:
- Metadata file generation
- Schema validation
- Harvest source configuration
- Technical feasibility
- System impacts
- Automation or tooling concerns
- Transition from DCAT-US 1.1 to DCAT-US 3
- Effects of proposed schema changes on existing workflows
The policy or data governance representative is familiar with agency open data, governance, compliance, or related policy requirements.
This role may provide feedback on:
- Policy alignment
- Agency reporting needs
- Governance implications
- Cross-office coordination
- Implementation risk
- Internal approval or adoption considerations
- Communication needs within the agency
Each participating agency should identify a primary point of contact for maintenance-related communication.
The agency point of contact may help:
- Coordinate agency feedback
- Route questions internally
- Confirm agency availability for meetings
- Share agency examples or implementation concerns
- Respond to follow-up questions
- Review release notes or deprecation notices
- Communicate relevant maintenance updates within the agency
Participating agencies should understand that maintenance feedback meetings are working sessions, not general information sessions.
Agency participation may vary by cycle depending on the issues under review.
Agencies invited to participate in maintenance feedback should be prepared to:
- Attend selected feedback meetings, where possible
- Review materials before meetings, when provided
- Provide feedback on proposed schema changes or clarifications
- Share implementation concerns or examples
- Identify likely impacts to agency metadata workflows
- Respond to follow-up questions, if needed
- Help identify documentation, FAQ, or guidance needs
- Raise implementation blockers or timing concerns
- Review proposed deprecation notices, if applicable
For agencies participating in a maintenance feedback cycle, the expected time commitment should be limited and predictable.
A typical commitment may include:
- One 50-minute feedback meeting per release cycle, if needed
- 30–60 minutes of preparation or follow-up per cycle
- Additional time only if the agency is reviewing a specific issue, providing an implementation example, or responding to follow-up questions
Agencies may be invited to participate for an initial one-year maintenance cycle covering:
- Cycle 1 spring release
- Cycle 2 summer release
- Annual retrospective
After the first year, the DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team and Data.gov team may revisit the participant list and decide whether to:
- Continue with the same agency participants
- Rotate participation
- Expand participation
- Add agencies with emerging implementation needs
- Invite agencies based on specific issues under review
Agency feedback meetings may be held when input is needed on proposed schema changes, documentation updates, deprecation notices, implementation blockers, or validation trends.
These meetings are intended to gather practical implementation feedback before final maintenance decisions are made.
Agency feedback meetings may be used to:
- Review proposed non-breaking schema changes
- Discuss potential breaking changes or deprecation notices
- Review implementation impacts
- Gather feedback on field clarifications
- Discuss validation or harvesting issues
- Review draft documentation or examples
- Identify migration guidance needs
- Identify recurring agency blockers
- Confirm whether proposed release timelines are realistic
Agency feedback meetings may include:
- Selected agency metadata or data inventory leads
- Selected agency technical implementation leads
- Selected agency policy or data governance representatives
- Data.gov team members
- DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team representatives
- Documentation contributors, if relevant
- Schema team representatives, if relevant
Agency feedback meetings may occur as needed.
A typical cadence may be:
| Timing | Purpose |
|---|---|
| February or March | Gather feedback on Cycle 1 issues, proposed clarifications, or deprecation notices |
| June | Gather feedback on Cycle 2 issues, eligible breaking changes, migration guidance, or annual retrospective topics |
| July | Support annual retrospective discussion, if needed |
Agency feedback meetings may not be needed for every cycle.
Agency feedback meetings should generally be limited to:
- 50 minutes for standard feedback discussions
- 60–90 minutes if reviewing multiple high-impact issues or retrospective findings
A typical agency feedback meeting may use the following agenda.
- Confirm meeting purpose
- Review the issues or topics being discussed
- Clarify expected feedback from agencies
- Identify the relevant release cycle
- Summarize the issue status
- Explain whether the issue is a bug, enhancement, question, documentation update, or potential breaking change
- Present the proposed schema change, documentation update, clarification, or deprecation notice
- Explain why the change is being considered
- Identify affected fields or schema areas
- Discuss how the proposed change may affect agency metadata workflows
- Identify whether current agency implementations would need to change
- Discuss validation, harvesting, or display impacts
- Identify any technical or policy blockers
- Gather examples or edge cases
- Identify whether updated documentation is needed
- Identify whether migration guidance is needed
- Identify whether examples should be added or updated
- Identify whether the issue should become an FAQ topic
- Summarize feedback received
- Identify follow-up actions
- Confirm whether additional agency input is needed
- Confirm how feedback will be shared with the DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team
Agency feedback should be documented and used to inform maintenance decisions.
Potential outputs include:
- Agency feedback summary
- Implementation impact notes
- Identified agency blockers
- Documentation update recommendations
- FAQ topics
- Migration guidance needs
- Examples or edge cases
- Issues requiring additional review
- Issues requiring revised release timing
- Issues requiring deprecation notice language
- Issues that should be deferred
Use the following structure to summarize agency feedback:
Meeting Date:
YYYY-MM-DD
Release Cycle:
- Cycle 1 Spring Release
- Cycle 2 Summer Release
- Annual Retrospective
- Other
Issue or Topic:
GitHub issue link, field name, schema area, or documentation topic.
Participating Agencies:
List participating agencies and roles, if appropriate.
Summary of Proposed Change or Discussion Topic:
Briefly summarize the issue, proposed change, clarification, or documentation topic.
Agency Feedback:
Summarize feedback received from agencies.
Implementation Impacts:
Describe potential impacts to agency metadata workflows, validation, harvesting, or existing data.json files.
Documentation or Guidance Needs:
List any needed documentation updates, examples, FAQs, or migration guidance.
Risks or Blockers:
List any known risks, blockers, or timing concerns.
Recommended Next Steps:
List recommended follow-up actions.
Related Links:
- GitHub issue:
- Pull request:
- Documentation:
- Meeting notes:
Agency feedback does not replace the governance role of the DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team.
Instead, agency feedback supports better decision-making by providing information about:
- Implementation feasibility
- Operational burden
- Timing needs
- Validation impacts
- Documentation needs
- Potential unintended consequences
- Agency readiness
- Migration support needs
The DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team may use agency feedback when deciding whether an issue should be:
- Approved for PR
- Deferred
- Closed as won’t fix
- Treated as documentation update only
- Returned for more information
- Included in a future release cycle
- Released with deprecation notice
- Released with additional migration guidance
Selected agencies may also be invited to participate in the annual retrospective.
The annual retrospective occurs in July as part of Cycle 2.
Agency participation in the retrospective helps identify:
- Recurring implementation blockers
- Common validation errors
- Field-level confusion
- Documentation gaps
- Training or office hours needs
- Patterns across agency cohorts
- Priorities for the next maintenance cycle
Agencies may be asked to provide feedback on:
- What worked well during DCAT-US 3 implementation
- What was difficult or unclear
- Which fields caused the most confusion
- Whether validation results were actionable
- Whether documentation was sufficient
- Whether examples were useful
- Whether release communications were clear
- Whether timelines were reasonable
- What support would be useful in the next cycle
Agency feedback for maintenance may come from dedicated feedback meetings or from existing DCAT engagement forums.
Office hours may surface recurring implementation questions, validation issues, or field interpretation concerns.
These may become:
- GitHub issues
- FAQ topics
- Documentation updates
- Candidate issues for future maintenance cycles
The monthly information sharing session may be used to:
- Share release updates
- Present proposed changes
- Demonstrate updated guidance
- Discuss implementation patterns
- Gather high-level agency feedback
- Identify agencies interested in deeper maintenance participation
CDO Council channels may be used to:
- Share release notes
- Announce deprecation notices
- Communicate grace periods
- Gather agency implementation questions
- Support broader awareness of maintenance activities
For the first year of the maintenance process, participation should be treated as a pilot.
The first-year participation pilot should help determine:
- Whether the right agencies are participating
- Whether the feedback meeting cadence is appropriate
- Whether agencies have enough time to review materials
- Whether feedback is useful for maintenance decisions
- Whether agency roles are clearly defined
- Whether documentation and FAQ needs are being identified
- Whether the process should be expanded or adjusted
At the end of the first year, the DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team and Data.gov team should consider:
- Did agency feedback improve issue review or release decisions?
- Were participating agencies representative of different implementation contexts?
- Were agency commitments reasonable?
- Were materials provided early enough for useful review?
- Were agency blockers captured and addressed?
- Were documentation needs identified?
- Were FAQs updated based on recurring questions?
- Should additional agencies be invited?
- Should the participation model rotate annually?
- Should any meetings be combined with existing engagement forums?
https://github.com/GSA/dcat-us/issues
Use this issue tracker to request or discuss changes to the DCAT-US metadata standard itself.
https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us-3-implementation/
Primary reference for agencies implementing the DCAT-US 3 metadata standard.
https://github.com/GSA/dcat-us/wiki/DCAT-US-3-Technical-Implementation-FAQ
Frequently asked questions related to technical implementation of the DCAT-US 3 metadata standard are posted here as they are developed.
https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us-3-updates/
Use this page for meeting schedule updates and related DCAT-US 3 engagement information.
https://touchpoints.app.cloud.gov/touchpoints/ffb7e9d0
Use this form to request a new DCAT-US 3 harvest source or a change to an existing harvest source.
Use this site to view current agency harvest sources.
https://harvest.data.gov/validate/
Use this tool to test whether a proposed or updated harvest source is expected to pass validation.
Questions about Data.gov harvesting or resources.data.gov documentation can be directed to:
- DCAT-US 3 Implementation Resources
- Agency Workflow for DCAT-US 3 Harvest Source Requests
- Inventory.data.gov Access
- Harvest Source Review and Validation
- Harvest Source Change Requests
- FAQ Overview
- DCAT-US 3 Technical Implementation FAQ
- Harvest Source Request FAQ
- Inventory.data.gov Access FAQ
- Meeting FAQ
- Tracking and Issue Routing FAQ
- DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team
- DCAT IMT CHARTER
- Maintenance Process Overview
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Issue Triage and GitHub Workflow
- Semi-Annual Release Cycles
- Agency Feedback and Participation
- Release Communications and Outreach
- Annual Retrospective
- Maintenance Meeting Schedule
- Maintenance Templates