May 21, 2015

Open Data: Movement or a Joke?

@davecaraway

First got into the open data scene by scratching my own itch: how to build a mapping application that required a lot of different data points, all of which turned out to be difficult to get access to.

Open Data: Digital information which is available in a non-proprietary, machine-

readable format to use and modify without restriction. It preferably can be read within a

browser using javascript.

• Common, Non-proprietary, Machine-Readable Formats

• JSON, JSONL, XML, CSV, HTML• CSV is the most common format

• PDF is NOT an open data format• Micro$oft office is NOT an open data format** PDF and Word are the most common publication formats by government **

• Open Data is delivered two ways• flat file• web service (also called API or application

programming interface)

• Open Data can be used to • power an application• create a visualization• write journals / articles / papers

• Any person, company, organization, government CAN produce open data

• So far, federal government has lead the way on open data

• Open Government Initiative (2009): Whitehouse.gov/open

• Transparency promotes accountability

• Participation allows people to contribute ideas

• Collaboration encourages cooperation within government and with industry

• Data.gov launch in May 2009 with 47 datasets

134,349 datasets & collections349 citizen apps

90 agencies409 APIs

(As of December 2014)

MetaData: Data ABOUT the data such as • who produced it• how often it’s updated• how to ask for updates• who to report problems to

Project Open Data

• Open Data Policy (2013)

• Open data as the default

• Agencies to create comprehensive data

inventories

• Data.gov harvests data inventories

• See: https://project-open-data.cio.gov/policy-

memo/

Is open data a movement? Yes

Is open data a joke? Depends on who you ask

State and local government are all carrot, no stick- open data is vulnerability- constituents don’t ask for or utilize

the available data

Open data that’s produced has questionable reliability, low responsiveness- industry offers much better reliability

than government, but why should they offer data for free?

- The same question could be asked of open source software and hardware.

• Open data should be fluid and ongoing

• Open data should be expected and demanded if not present

• Open data should be useful, curated, clean and comprehensive

fogmine.com@davecaraway