Enterprise Data and Geospatial Governance

Data is an Asset
Caltrans has adopted a set of data governance goals that recognize data is an important agency asset as a consistent with AASHTO's Core Data Principles. Much like our physical assets, data needs to be maintained - good stewardship of data involves ensuring that data are of sufficient quality to serve the intended purposes.

Data Value
Increase the value of agency data for decision making by establishing and supporting data stewards responsible for improving data relevance, quality, usability, discoverability and accessibility.

Data Sharing
Maximize sharing of existing data across agency business units by building awareness of agency data resources and encouraging data re-use.

Data Literacy
Build agency staff awareness of available data sources and capabilities to make effective use of data.

Data Efficiency
Reduce data redundancy by establishing single authoritative sources for data elements and encouraging collaboration across business units on new data collection or acquisition efforts.

Data Consistency
Increase data consistency and interoperability through standardizing data definitions and formats.

Data Protection
Protect sensitive and confidential data from unauthorized access.

Open Data
CTDATA follows practices defined in the California Open Data Handbook and publishes data classified as public by our data stewards to the California State Open Data Portal and California State Geoportal, as applicable.

This page contains links to the various documents related to the enterprise data and geospatial governance either created by Caltrans or the State of California. Documents are classified as policy, data governance practices, and data standards.

Policies are overarching rules defined by Caltrans on it operates and treats data as an asset.

Practices specifies how Caltrans treats, collects, and stores data to ensure consistency and quality.

Element Standards are agreed upon definitions for basic units of information unique to the Caltrans

Data Policy

Caltrans Deputy Directive 120 - Enterprise Data Governance

State Administrative Manual Section 5160 - Open Data

Data Practices

DGP - 01 Data Quality Management Plan Implementation (PDF)

DGP - 02 Caltrans Metadata Standard (PDF)

DGP - 03 Caltrans Data Dictionary Standard (PDF)

DGP - 04 Linear Referencing (PDF)

Data Element Standards

DES - 01 - Location Specification - County, Route and Postmile (PDF)

DES - 02 - Agency (State, Local, and Transit) ID (PDF)

DES - 04 - Location Specification - Coordinates (Replaces Latitude and Longitude) (PDF)

DES - 05 - Location Specification - State Odometer Measure (PDF)

Caltrans has defined data documentation standards and guidance which are to be followed by staff and its consultants when creating corporate data. These resources support and promote consistency in how we document and share information related to data assets. The Data Documentation Guide (DOCX) has been created to explain how to create and maintain documentation of datasets and systems that complies with Caltrans standards.

Each section of the Data Documentation Package covers a separate topic area for which templates are listed below. The Data Assessment, Governance Scoping and Initiation Guide (DOCX) provides a method to determine which deliverables are needed and extends to tasks beyond simply documenting an existing or proposed dataset or system.

Templates:

• Data Catalog (DDP-02) (XLSX) - fields needed to create entries for the Caltrans data catalog.
• Corporate Data List (DDP-03) (XLSX) - list of data elements proposed or approved for designation as “corporate data” and designated authoritative sources of these elements.
• Data Element Standards (DDP-04) (DOCX) - existing or proposed data element standards that apply to data within the defined scope.
• Dataset Metadata (DDP-06) (XLSX) – documentation of dataset(s) packaged for end user consumption (addresses geospatial and non-geospatial data). For GIS data, please refer to Appendix E of the Data Documentation Package for a crosswalk of metadata fields to the ISO 19139 metadata fields.
• Business Data Glossary Terms (DDP-07) (XLSX) - definitions of business terms represented by data entities or attributes.
• Data Dictionary (DDP-08) (XLSX) – information about each data element. For GIS data, please refer to Appendix G of the Data Documentation Package for a crosswalk of data dictionary fields to the ISO 19139 metadata elements.
• Business Rules (DDP-09) (XLSX) - rules that can be used to provide extended documentation of individual data elements or validate data element or dataset contents.
• Data Quality Management Plan (DDP-10) (DOCX) – documentation of quality control and quality assurance measures applied to data as it is created/collected, maintained in systems, and exported for reporting or other purposes.