CITY OF CALGARYOpen Government Data Overview

Walter SimbirskiOpen Data Strategist

January 28, 2014

Content Open Government Data

What is Open Government Data? Why the interest?

Open Data at City of Calgary Our mission Where are we? Where are we going?

What is Open Government Data? Data that is collected by a government and made available to

the public At no cost (to the user/public) Under the same terms and conditions for all users With no restrictions on how it can be used Through a common portal Common conditions that may be applied include:

Attribution - Give credit Share alike

Subject to legislation such as privacy It should be machine readable and in non-proprietary formats

5 Stars of Open Data (Tim Berners-Lee)

★ make your stuff available on the web (whatever format)

★★ make it available as structured data (e.g. excel instead of image scan of a table)

★★★ non-proprietary format (e.g. csv instead of excel)

★★★★ use URLs to identify things, so that people can point at your stuff

★★★★★ link your data to other people’s data to provide context

Why Open Government Data? Openness and transparency Improved access to information Foster collaboration with other organizations

or agencies Allow citizens to develop applications City of Calgary Triple Bottom Line Policy

Considers economic, social and environmental implications in decision-making processes

State of Open Government Data 372 Open Data Catalogues world wide 49 Open Data Catalogues in Canada

Source datacatalogs.org

How is open data being used? Fighting Corruption

“Montreal group hacks away at corruption one spreadsheet at a time” - The Canadian Press on Sunday, November 18, 2012

“Billions lost in charity scandal” – The Toronto Star, November 12, 2002 Generate new business and develop new products and services

http://www.opendata500.com/ “Warren Buffett Uses Open Government Data” - www.nextgov.com

Emergency operations Adopt a hydrant/sidewalk/tsunami siren… Social welfare such as locating homeless services and shelters Public Safety - http://www.publicengines.com/ Universities, real estate boards, open maps, reporters…

Examples

Example Source - New York Times

Examples - Source New York Times

History of Open Data at City of Calgary Commercial Data Dial Up Service introduced in 1993 Open Data Service

Pilot (Public Data) 2010 launched with Cityonline 2011 – Updated from Public Data to Open Data

License revised to remove commercial restrictions 2013 – launched data.calgary.ca

Downloads have increased more than 1000% (now over 10,000 downloads monthly)

Currently 139 data sets 2014 – dedicated resource for Open Data

data.calgary.ca - Features

data.calgary.ca

Cost of Open Data – Free data? City of Calgary corporation

Tangible assets > $60 billion Employees > 13,000 Distinct services > 500

Adding data to the Open Data Catalogue Find data steward Determine suitability of data for Open Data (status of data, structure of

data, privacy impacts, current data uses) Establish mechanism(s) for data delivery Data preparation (formats, geo-reference, scrub private information) Create an entry in the catalogue manager On average 40 person hours (over a number of weeks) are required to add

a data set to the catalogue

Future of Open Data at City of Calgary Increase the number of data sets

Open by Default Expand the scope of data sets

Crowd sourcing and external partners (business groups, etc.) Make it easier to find Open Data

Engagement Citizens, developers, data analysts, data users Internal Business Units

Updates to website Continue to improve user friendliness based on surveys, focus groups and usability studies Increased level of integration with other resources while providing a clearer indication of services

with respect to user types (Professional vs Developers vs Citizens) (calgary.ca/cityonline.calgary.ca/data.calgary.ca)

Work with open data interest groups Standards for licensing and data Other municipalities and government groups Data for Good

What is your primary reason for using open data?

Response Chart Percentage

Developing web applications

15%

Media (e.g. news) 15%Academic research 10%Personal interest in civic data

51%

Open Data research 21%Other, please specify... 

23%

What type of Open Data datasets interest you the most?

Response Chart Percentage

Count

Mapping data 82% 33Census information or other statistics

38% 15

Land use information  40% 16Environmental data 48% 19Scheduling information (e.g. waste pick up)

12% 5

Financial information  25% 10Other, please specify... 

18% 7

Total Responses 40

Calgary Top Data Sets Census data (aggregate vs individual data sets) Transit schedules Floodplain Business Licenses

Top Data Sets – Other Municipalities Medicine Hat – Cemetery listings (61,477),

Recreation classes (2,523) Edmonton – Snow removal (16,484), Election

results (2,420) New York City – WIFI hotspots (51,245),

Subway entrances (25,121) Chicago – Employee names/salaries (215,069),

Building permits (113,426)

How to keep information flowing Feedback

Negative and positive Wants/needs

Be realistic but if you don’t ask… If you have done anything interesting let us know.

THANK YOU