Kevin Gillick

The Power of Open Data in Local government Devon County Council

Initial Inspiration

..how a tiny gland in our brains helps to choose our breakfast for us when it's cold; how each one

degree drop in the temperature leads to an extra 200 heart attacks; why flu flourishes in winter;

how our online searches can help track disease outbreaks; how supermarkets

can predict when you will want to have a BBQ; when online

dating sites see a 350% spike in traffic; and how sales of swimwear go up by 600% when the sun

shines, whatever the temperature. Channel 4 - Human Swarm 2013

In Los Angeles, the police are trying to predict crime, before

it even happens. Horizon July 2013 - The Age of Big Data

What is Open Data?

Open data is information that is

available for anyone to use, for any

purpose, at no cost.

Open data has to have a licence that says it is open data.

Without a licence, the data can’t be reused.

Good open data:

• can be linked to, so that it can be easily shared and

talked about

• is available in a standard, structured format, so that it

can be easily processed

• has guaranteed availability and consistency over

time, so that others can rely on it

• is traceable, through any processing, right back to

where it originates, so others can work out whether

to trust it

(Source ODI)

Why is Open Data Important?

For example, publishing open data can:

• increase custom for an organisation’s main (paid-for, non-data) product or service

• ease information sharing within the

organisation and with partners and customers

• help achieve other organisational goals (eg by providing a wider audience for published information)

• provide incentives for others to help maintain datasets, reducing the maintenance cost for the

organisation

• encourage innovation around the

organisation’s data (eg new analysis techniques they can take advantage of)

• help third parties to develop skills and

services which the organisation can contract rather than developing in house

Source (ODI)

Open Data in Local Government

❖ Transparency

❖ Strategic Goals - Resilient,

Healthy and Connected

Communities

❖ Service Design

❖ Innovation

❖ Cost Saving

Future Services

❖ Intelligent Services and

Organisation

❖ Respond to demand

❖ On Demand

❖ Efficient

❖ Local

❖ Better Decision Making

http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/living-online/smart-cities

How

❖ Standards

❖ Reliability of Data - Certificates

• Raw: A great start at the basics of publishing open

data.

• Pilot: Data users receive extra support from, and

can provide feedback to the publisher.

• Standard: Regularly published open data with

robust support that people can rely on.

• Expert: An exceptional example of information

infrastructure.

http://logean.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/is-your-data-5-star.html

Open Data Challenges

….Sir Tim: “It’s a constant battle of mindsets – once people

have got the open data bug they realise the benefit. They realise they’re performing a service to the country. With the original web, people could

see the benefits…”

“What’s been difficult about it has been persuading people one by one to move from an idea that 'It’s my data, I’ll protect it,’ to an open date mindset,”

he says. Overall, he believes there “is a wave of change. Certainly the overall direction is toward openness”. “as the linking starts to happen” between newly released data sets. Only then,

he argues, will the true power of the web he invented actually be realised

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/10421323/Sir-Tim-Berners-Lee-data-and-the-new-web.html

What have we done in Devon so far…

Looking for Datasets

Hackathon Event

Hack the Government

GovJam - Service Design

Data Canvas

Open Data Forum

Asking Service Users

Outcomes

Will help us discover and learn

Will help know what we don’t know

Prioritise the release of data

Inform our Open Data Strategy

Do you know what data we have?

Summary

❖ Better Data

❖ Better Services

❖ Start of our Open Data journey

Open Data…..

❖Vague but exciting!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2578521/Internet-described-vague-exciting-Tim-Berners-Lee-proposed-concept.html

XJamGov/DataLoom

❖ 3/4/5 June – Global Service Design

including Data Canvas

❖ http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/x-jam-

gov-2014-tickets-11331363413

❖ Devon Open Data Forum

❖ Kevin.gillick@devon.gov.uk