IT experts are urging state governments to begin laying the foundations so that big data can be utilized for the public good at the earliest opportunity.

The report, Is Big Data a Big Deal for State Governments?, was put out by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) last month, and advises states to create data governance policies and enterprise architecture as soon as possible, so that authorities can better utilize the big data generated by their agencies.

According to the report’s authors, while there are some notable exceptions, state governments have largely failed to embrace big data, as they lack the enterprise architecture and data management disciplines to support such projects:

“The challenge is that many state government agencies are still being run as islands of information versus members of a single state government enterprise. The result is state government is not fully exploiting the data it has at hand.”

Big data could potentially be used in many applications, helping the state to manage its “enterprise” and improve the efficiency of various operations. However, the report cautioned that state governments first of all needed to have a legal framework for using big data in place, as it should be guided by policy and practical considerations.

“To prevent big data from becoming a ‘big quest,’ there must be rational, defensible reasons for pursuing it, and there must be a discipline for governing and managing the associated investment of people, finances, and technology.”

By carrying out these kinds of careful evaluations first, state governments will be able to build a better case for securing funding for big data programs, which will have to compete against other issues like cloud computing, modernizing legacy systems, cybersecurity and data center consolidation.

In order to address the challenges and opportunities that come with big data, the report offered a number of key recommendations for officials. It said that early efforts should have a clear focus on well-defined opportunities, while officials should avoid the urge to create a large number of initiatives that could quickly become unmanageable.

In addition, IT teams will need to carefully monitor any data that is collected by the state’s various agencies, as it’s important that security and privacy issues are carefully assessed, especially when collecting data on citizens.

With state governments engaging in ever-more partnerships with private sector companies, the development of enterprise architecture will soon be of critical importance. These partnerships will only become more common, and the data they generate will in turn allow for better performance metrics.