A Great Place To Find Government Data Sets

Finding a data set to mine is one of the greatest challenges to a good project. I think that there is an increased problem with finding data sets when your just taking a class like ours where your given leave way to find and explore areas of your own interest. I think that it is fair to estimate employees of large corporations and people who work in industry usually have access to large amounts of data that companies compile but restrict access as proprietary and confidential. 

The Obama administration, in a push increase the openness and access of government data, has created the web site Data.Gov. this web site allows you access to published governmental metrics and information as well as access to large data sets that you can download and mine for your own interest  The cool thing about the site is that it contains data from all branches of the administrate branch of government (DOD, State, Transportation, FEMA) and there continually adding more and more data sets to the website. And all the data is free!

These are just some of the data sets that you can download:

• Adjusted Tax Income and Wage data by State 
• The number and nationality of all officer and enlisted personal in all branches of the military.
• The number and location of all ready reserves and able reserve forces in the United States.
• The number and origin of all visas issued by the United States longitudinally for 12 years.
• FEMA declared emergencies and affected areas for the entire history of FEMA

Work Sited: www.Data.gov