Getting to Know Open Government Data: Who’s done it, how did they do,

and so what?Jim Duncan, Vermont Monitoring Cooperative

Vermont Open Data Summit || October 8, 2013

james.duncan@uvm.edu

Outline

•My background – Open Data and Natural Resources in Mongolia, Ghana and Vermont• Survey of state open government data• Themes in open government data initiatives • Lessons for Vermont

My backgroundOpen Data and Natural Resources in Mongolia, Ghana and Vermont

Open Data Initiatives in the Developing World… Why?

•Open Government Partnership• Reduced costs for technology and internet• Increased mobile usage •Demand for transparency and accountability

Sumitomo Corporation

Corruption in mining and oil• EITI reconciles company payments with

government receipts• But how to make use of that information?

Ghana – Mapping the Money• Long history of mining• New oil find held promise and peril

Photo: © Jonathan Ernst/World Bank

Ghana Open Data Initiative• Started in 2010 with help from Web

Foundation

Development of an Open Data strategy for the Government of Ghana taking into account the three layers of actors (political, public administration and civil society) and six dimensions of Open Data (political, legal, organizational, technical, social and economic). The strategy will include:

• Public policy guidelines• Data collection guidelines• Data copyright and licensing guidelines• Dataset publication process/Open Data methods• GODI Secretariat/Steering Committee guidelines• Public-Private focus groups guidelines

Establishment of an Open Data community • Intra and extra-government community building and outreach• One-time events and regular events (workshops, bootcamps, barcamps, contests…)• Collaborative online tools

Setup, development and deployment of an Open Data platform (Web site) • Requirements and standards• Implementation• Validation

Monitoring and Evaluation of the GODI• Methodology• Impact assessment• Tools

Reproduced from the Web Foundation’s Ghana Open Data Project Pagehttp://www.webfoundation.org/projects/ghana-open-data-initiative-godi/

Monitoring Vermont’s Forests www.uvm.edu/vmc

Scientific data sharing

• Some unique challenges, many are the same• Working now on increasing

discoverability, usability, standards and integration

Open Government DataSurvey and patterns at the state level

What is Open Data*

• Technically open non-proprietary

formats machine-readable

• Legally open clear license or policy free to use and reuse

•What makes Open Data REALLY nice?• Standardized, interoperable, well-

documented

* Just my take – see “Resources” for the evolution and complexity in defining this term

✔

Overall Patterns

• Around 60% of states have some sort of open data site•Majority tendto be related to finances or serve as portals to other websites

Overall Patterns – some examples

• Connecticut has multiple overlapping sites•Delaware maintains a syndication of RSS feeds• Louisiana provides slices and downloads of their Financial Accounting System

Open New York

http://data.ny.gov

•Department of Health started pilot in August, 2011• Statewide push initiated by Executive Order in January 2013• Portal launched in March, including data from several counties, schools and Albany• Two leading open data experts poached in September

Open New York

•Data discoverable from data.gov (and vice versa)• Values:• Innovation, accountability, efficiency,

local-to-federal integration and policy research

• Timeline for departments to catalog publishable data, design release plan• Affirmative licensehttp://data.ny.gov

Iowa DATAshare

• Federated data, primarily financial, educational and demographic•Unclear political context•No licensing•Data-minded initiatives, but not referencing this

http://data.iowa.gov

Themes in Open Government Data

Major Themes

•Motivations to publish data• Enabling environment • Supply•Demand • Sustainability and planning for the future

Motivation – Why Open Up Data?

•Government transparency, accountability and trust• Stimulate innovation, new products, economic growth• Increase government efficiency • Value to society of data as a public good

Enabling Environment for Open Data

• Legislation or policy• Champion to give support and cover to a movement• The grunts who make it work organizationally and technologically• Clear and timely need

Enabling Environment - Sometimes it’s legislation…

From 2013 Integrity Index, Better Government Association and Alper Services. p15. http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/729455-2013-bga-alper-services-integrity-index.html

Supply

• Principles of access and encouraging reuse•Data quality and readiness•Not all data is equal•Update frequency

Demand – Who Wants It and Why?

• Citizens • Good governance• Improve daily lives

• Businesses• make decisions• build new products

• Government• Increase effectiveness• Improve efficiency• Reduce demands

• Researchers• More rigorous research, • Stronger policy recommendations

hackvt.coml

O’Neil-Dunne 2013

Sustainability

• Tension between piloting and changing government to ‘open by default’• Small, pilot projects allow you to “fail

small, fail fast and fail forward”*• But sustaining often means cultural

change within organizations

• Use what already works within state systems• Incentives/rewards for openness

* Chris Taggart on the Rewards of Failure

Commonly-Cited Barriers• Cost-recovery• Privacy legislation• Questions around quantifiable benefits• Fears of misuse, poor quality• Mixing of open data efforts with e-

government approaches

Take-Aways and Lessons

Lessons

• Local and timely• Build comfort and buy-in early and often• True data, not just charts, PDFs, and reports•Does providing ‘data by department’ make sense to users?• Think bigger than just financial data

Thank you!Questions?

Resources

• The New Ambiguity of “Open Government”• http://www.uclalawreview.org/?p=3663

• The Benefits of a Big Tent: Opening Up Government in Developing Countries• http://www.uclalawreview.org/?p=4017

• Open Data: an international comparison of strategies• http://

www.epractice.eu/files/European%20Journal%20epractice%20Volume%2012_1.pdf

• Sunlight Foundation piece on the evolution of the concept of open data• http

://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/09/16/your-guidelines-to-open-data-guidelines-pt-2-stages-of-development/

• Catalogs of catalogs:• Maintained by US Government : www.data.gov/opendatasites• Global catalog of catalogs: http://datacatalogs.org/

• Chris Taggart on the rewards of failure:• http://www.slideshare.net/countculture/open-data-the-rewards-of-failure

• 3D High-Resolution Land Cover Example for Syracuse, NY. Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne. figshare.http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.703134 Retrieved 03:27, Oct 08, 2013 (GMT)