Ozark Living

OZARK LIVING • NOVEMBER 2017 • 39 By Dave Woods Ozark Living Magazine Cory Scott gets excited when he starts talking about data and his company, DataScout, LLC. What to many might be a mind numbing subject reserved for computer nerds and data geeks, Scott and his team have turned it into a thriving business. DataScout, LLC takes large amounts of raw information and records from municipalities, counties and openly available sources and transforms it into organized, searchable, user friendly information for public and governmental use. A diffi cult job that all started with one challenge. How to get people large amounts of accurate information in a user friendly way so they can make informed business decisions. "We identifi ed a pain point in the data industry," Scott said. "It was identifi ed in conjunction with some so ware we provided to the government sector with county assessors. e pain point was that you had real estate professionals and others in business calling government offi ces asking for certain records to be delivered sometimes using Freedom of Information Act requests. e governmental offi cials, such as county assessors, collectors and clerks were not technically trained and were unable to simplify the complicated problem at the time. Scott's team could. " e counties could not provide that information digitally at that time because many did not have the information technology professionals or the ability to extract electronic data. " he said. "At one point you could only get that information by calling in or walking in and asking for a copy. DataScout was able to provide the data in a consumable format online for the public." Many types of professionals and the general public o en spent a great deal of time and eff ort requesting, arraigning for hard copy records and information to be copied, picked up or sent in the mail. Scott's solution was to transform all of those records into searchable information available through a single portal. e result: actDataScout was born. eir goal has been to have a one stop shop for all county offi ces in Arkansas under an open data platform. "Real estate agents and appraisers fi nd the information valuable," Scott said. "Locally we have appraisers, real estate agents, foresters, banks, title agents and all kinds of professionals using the information. Initially, it was public records in electornic format that was sought from county assessors or county tax collectors. Now users are asking for more, including Circuit Clerk land records such as deed and survey document images, as well as, County Clerk data such as marriage licenses and voter databases. If the county has it and request it to be accessible on the web, we assist them with that." "Real estate agents and brokers can utilize our information as one of their data resources to look up comparable properties when they are developing their 'opinion of value'. It can be used when they are looking for off market sales or trying to get a general feel for a neighborhood. ey may be trying to get an idea about trends of a particular property in a neighborhood. So, they are utilizing the information in ways we never dreamed of when we started." e information now accessible through the actDataScout.com portal includes building types, square footage, out buildings, construction types and condition, tax owed and paid, and deed images. Members of the general public can access useful information on their own properties, too. "You can check and see if your property valuation was correct," Scott said. "If you needed to fi le a dispute you can see that information. Real estate professionals who want to see it for transactional information for base history on a dwelling or look at the actual characteristics of a dwelling and it's ownership." Scott points out that the information contained in these public records was always available, just not necessary that easy to access. Scott praised the county offi cials with whom he works. "It diff ers from county to county," Scott pointed out. " eir appraisal staff s are pretty good. Internally they do a really good job auditing here in Arkansas. I feel comfortable in Arkansas with what is being provided from the public records." Scott is clearly proud of the product and service DataScout has created, particularly the mapping viewer. "We have, through our geospatial division, developed an internal mapping viewer with which you can access parcel boundaries and other geographical layers and data points through," he said. " at's one of the things we did early on was to make data dynamic and interactive, geographically. With the viewer you can see parcel boundaries, attributes and layers while utilizing measurement and editing tools. With it the public is really able to see geographically what the data is saying about a piece of property." For local access, go to actDataScout.com and you can access information on properties in Washington County, Crawford County, Carroll County, Franklin County and Madison County in Arkansas. About DataScout DataScout, LLC is an Arkansas-based technology company that designs and maintains web-based programs and applications for government offi ces in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, as well as for business professionals. e company's product line includes DataScoutPro.com, actDataScout.com, ScoutAssess.com, and a variety of in-house designed government websites. In 2005, the company released actDataScout. com as a tool for Arkansas counties to increase the transparency of the assessor records to their constituents. Seventeen counties were involved in the fi rst release of the site. As of 2017, actDataScout.com represents 80 elected offi cial offi ces across Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Courtesy actDataScout.com Data driven Local company works to simplify access to public records, information

• Cover