Tool by the dataindex.us: “… excited to launch the Data Checkup – a comprehensive framework for assessing the health of federal data collections, highlighting key dimensions of risk and presenting a clear status of data well-being.
When we started dataindex.us, one of our earliest tools was a URL tracker: a simple way to monitor whether a webpage or data download link was up or down. In early 2025, that kind of monitoring became urgent as thousands of federal webpages and datasets went dark.
As many of those pages came back online, often changed from their original form, we realized URL tracking wasn’t sufficient. Threats to federal data are coming from multiple directions, including loss of capacity, reduced funding, targeted removal of variables, and the termination of datasets that don’t align with administration priorities.
The more important question became: how do we assess the risk that a dataset might disappear, change, or degrade in the future? We needed a way to evaluate the health of a federal dataset that was broad enough to apply across many types of data, yet specific enough to capture the different ways datasets can be put at risk. That led us to develop the Data Checkup.
Once we had an initial concept, we brought together experts from across the data ecosystem to get feedback on that concept. The current Data Checkup framework reflects the feedback received from more than 30 colleagues.
The result is a framework built around six dimensions:
- Historical Data Availability
- Future Data Availability
- Data Quality
- Statutory Context
- Staffing and Funding
- Policy
Each dimension is assessed and assigned a status that communicates its level of risk:
- Gone
- High Risk
- Moderate Risk
- No Known Issue
Together, this assessment provides a more complete picture of dataset health than availability checks alone.
The Data Checkup is designed to serve the needs of both data users and data advocates. It supports a wide range of use cases, including academic research, policy decision-making, journalism, advocacy, and litigation…Here you can see the Data Checkup framework applied to a subset of datasets. At a high level, it provides a snapshot of dataset wellbeing, allowing you to quickly identify which datasets are facing risks…(More)”
