Developing an Open Data initiative:

Lessons Learned

Andrew Stott

UK Transparency Board

formerly Director, data.gov.uk

Senior Consultant, World Bank

Gaborone, Botswana

07 Aug 2013 v0.2

@dirdigeng

andrew.stott@dirdigeng.com

The first 3 years of data.gov.uk

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Over 9300 datasets

37 GB of geo data

Public Data Principles

Open Government

Licence

Transparency of

salaries, spending,

contracts and tenders

Four site versions, each

in response to user

feedback

UK Government Transparency Data

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For every central Ministry

and regional/city council:-

Expenditure

Senior staff salaries

Expenses

Official credit cards

Contracts

Tenders

Organisation charts

Local service &

performance data

Meetings

Leadership throughout the Organisation

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Top-level political leadership essential

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“Public information does not belong to Government, it belongs to the public.”

“Greater transparency will enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account”

Demand from business and citizens

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Also important to have passionate team!

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Policies & Legal

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Clear, common, licensing approach

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Standards

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Make sure data is re-usable

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Data Publishing – Star Quality

Put your data on the Web with an

Open Licence (any format)

Make it available as structured data

(e.g. Excel, CSV, instead of PDF)

Use open, standard formats (e.g.

XML, RDF)

Use URLs to identify things (so

people and machines can point at

your data)

Link your data to other people’s data

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Ease

of

reu

se

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Ensure Privacy of Personal Data

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Data within Government

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Focus on data on things that people care about

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It’s not just about new data

Scope for “Open Data” also includes data

previously “published” but …

in non-reusable format

with restricted licence

only aimed at specialist groups

only for payment

only in response to requests

difficult to find

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data.gov.uk contains a lot of data which

nobody knew was already published

Handling the concerns of data owners

“People hug their database, they don't want to

let it go. You have no idea the number of

excuses people come up with to hang onto

their data and not give it to you, even though

you've paid for it as a taxpayer.”

– Tim Berners-Lee

http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html 18

Release data people want

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Manage expectations, prepare for mistakes

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“We’re making a small start next

week. But eventually, it’s going to

make a big difference.”

“The information we’re publishing

next week won’t be perfect, and

I’m sure there’ll be some mistakes.

But I want to get on with it.”

UK Prime Minister 29 May 2010

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Deliver incrementally

Not all Government data is accurate

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Data Quality

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Release of data

will reveal issues

of data quality

Celebrate greater

checking of data!

Use as stimulus to

Measure

Prioritise

Improve

Using citizens to help improve data

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Promote Use of Data

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Recognise success

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Create “Heroes” of totemic data releases

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Create “Heroes” of agencies who give data

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.. and “Heroes” among developers too

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Creating Sustainable Applications

Sustainable apps come from social

entrepreneurs – helped by geeks

Do things that matter to people

Make it quick and easy to do – “while you’re still

upset about it”

Make effective use of email

Use location: input and visualisation

Build in community support, action & stickiness

Use simple design 30

Open Data Ecosystem

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Photos: @memespring,

@MadLabUK, @paul_clarke

Continuously engage with developers

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UK Open Data Institute

Develop capability of UK

businesses to exploit value of

Open Data

Engage developers/small

businesses to build Open Data

supply chains and commercial

outlets

Help public sector use its own

data more effectively

Ensure academic research in

Open Data technologies 33

UK Open Data Institute

Running 9 months

£200m/yr savings identified

5 startups incubated, 6 courses launched,

4 hackathons

27 private-sector company paying members

Over £2m of private sector funding secured

in 6 mths

1,500 visitors to London space – and

provides “neutral meeting space” for

government and entrepreneurs

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Measure!

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Measure achievement

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Measure delivery and conformance

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It’s not (just) an IT project!

CIOs can give leadership, but

CIOs/IT Directors often do not “own” the data

Key issues are business, policy and politics:

don’t let policy makers brand it as “just IT”

Keep the IT simple

‒ use Open Source (CKAN, Drupal, etc)

‒ use existing contracts/infrastructure with niche firms

‒ host data on existing websites or on public Cloud

Use revealed legacy data quality issues as

spur for improvement

‒ not as an excuse for doing nothing 38

… and the biggest lesson of all

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Overcome obstacles

practically

by doing,

not debating

Discussion?

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End

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