Open Government Data in Italy: state-of-the-art and future challenges

Raimondo IemmaNEXA Center for Internet & Society

Politecnico di Torinohttp://nexa.polito.it

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license 3.0 Unported.

NEXA Center vs OpenGovData

● LAPSI thematic network / www.lapsi-project.eu

● Open-DAI project / www.open-dai.eu

● EVPSI project / www.evpsi.org

● Piemonte Region policy support (dati.piemonte.it)

What is Government Data?

Public Sector Information (Directive 98/2003/EC)All information held by a public sector organisation, i.e. a

government department or any entity which is majority owned and/or controlled by a Public Administration

→ as a direct outcome of its institutional mandate (e.g. firm registry);

→ as a 'by-product' of the public task (e.g. list of postal codes).

What does Open Data mean?

“A piece of content or data is open if anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it - subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and share-alike” [Open Data definition provided by the Open Knowledge

Foundation]

→ technological aspects, meaning that datasets are machine readable and made available in open formats [ref. '5-stars' model by Tim Berners-Lee];

→ legal aspects, meaning that datasets are not subject to intellectual property rights or other legal constraints preventing from copy, redistribution and reuse.

OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA

=

PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION

MADE AVAILABLE FOR REUSE

AS OPEN DATA

“Web entrepreneurs assemble and sell content and applications and advertising, based on data. With those efforts they make our lives more convenient and they keep authorities accountable.”

Neelie Kroes (Open Data strategy launch, 12th dec 2011)

The objectives of the PSI Directive are to “facilitate the creation of Community-wide information products and services based on PSI, to enhance an effective cross-border use of PSI by private companies for added-value information products and services and to limit distortions of competition on the Community market.”

PSI Directive, recital #25

Creation of services that reuse Open Gov Data (integration of different sources, mashups, etc.)

Some players use (Open) Gov Data as a resource to provide services

- Business information

- Consultancy

- Business intelligence

No-profit projects, usually peer-produced (and bottom-up), aimed at enhancing transparency and efficiency.

And also:

- Live applications

- Visualisations

- Catalogues

- Data journalism

- (...)

As of now...

Some tangible commitment at European, national and local level:

● EU 'Open Data Package'; EU open data portal; EU open data license.● Open Data web catalogues, e.g. http://data.gov.uk● Open Data communities

As of now...

Still most of the PSI is not yet Open Data, for several reasons:

● benefits are not perceived;● ongoing agreements with third parties;● funding schemes tbd;● cultural barriers;● ...

In Italy ● PSI principles adopted by Law (Dlgs 196 / 2006)

● PSI portals + Open Data strategies at different administrative levels

● dati.gov.it (National platform)● dati.piemonte.it (first regional portal)● opendata.comune.fi.it (local level, Florence)● dati.camera.it (Linked Open Data)

● Public consultation on the Digital Agenda, including Open Data as a topic / http://adi.ideascale.com

● Map of the Italian legislation on Open Datahttp://g.co/maps/xhz59

● Apps competition ended in April: www.appsforitaly.org

Open Gov Data in Italy: some figures (as of April 2012)

Credits: dati.gov.it, FormezPA

Licensing

Datastores

4 tips to knock on doors...● Identify the data you need (and their holders)

● Reuse communities enable critical mass

● Ask for legal and technical interoperability:→ licensing schemes (enabling reuse)→ open formats

● Key concept: available for someone should mean available for everyone[some data have been already released to specific

players, e.g. Google for transport data]

Thank you!

Raimondo IemmaNEXA Center for Internet & Society

Politecnico di Torinohttp://nexa.polito.it

raimondo.iemma[AT]polito.it

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license 3.0 Unported.