At the close of the 2017-18 fiscal year in June 2018, DCA’s licensed population had grown to nearly 4 million licensees.
Have you ever wondered how many physicians and surgeons are licensed to practice by the Medical Board of California? It’s 140,748. How about the number of civil engineers licensed by the Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists? 57,513.
How about a harder one: maybe you’d like to see the year-over-year increase in licenses issued to third-party logistics providers by the Board of Pharmacy? If you didn’t know, they’re responsible for safely transporting drugs for pharmaceutical companies. There are 23 in the state, and 65 more out of state but licensed to operate in California, an increase of 1.56 percent since last year. How about the number of thermal insulation manufacturers that are licensed by the Bureau of Household Goods and Services to make the materials that keep your house warm in the winter and cool in the summer? It’s 109.
It’s no secret that the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) issues licenses in more than 250 professional categories to 3.9 million Californians. But until now, the information on licensing statistics hasn’t been easy for everyday consumers to access. That changes with the launch of DCA’s Open Data Portal.
Licensing data in DCA’s Open Data Portal is sourced from DCA’s annual report.
The Open Data Portal is a publicly accessible, one-stop shop for licensing statistics and information. Users can see trends and changes in licensing data going back three years, filtered by individual board or bureau, even by individual license type. And that’s just for starters – the next phases of improvements, coming later this winter, will include enforcement data, application data, and other DCA data.
The Open Data Portal was developed in-house by DCA’s Data Governance Team, a unit within the Office of Information Services. The Data Governance Team specializes in assisting boards and bureaus with accessing their licensing and enforcement data and analyzing that data in an efficient manner to make program management or policy decisions.
Licensing data in the portal is updated each fiscal year and can also be found in DCA’s Annual Report. Enforcement and application data will be compiled from a variety of public sources.
We hope you’ll test drive the Open Data Portal and stay tuned for more features to come in the future.
