A major focus of the Sunlight Labs is to push government to publish its data online. In recent months, we've gained in-depth familiarity with government data catalogs through our work on the National Data Catalog. The most prominent example of a data catalog is data.gov. Since its launch last year, a handful of states and cities have followed suit with their own efforts. As more data catalogs come online, we want to make sure their contents are open and exchangeable. We want to determine how to best structure the data catalog itself, and we want to ensure that the metadata it contains -- the data about the data -- exists in the most accessible way possible.

Last week, Clay posted three challenges for the community to tackle, and this is challenge #3. We're looking to start this conversation now and move towards consensus within a few months. I was at Transparency Camp, digging deeper into this topic, putting us on the path to make recommendations that governments can adopt quickly.