Open Data PresentationElaine Gamble, Managing Director,

Corporate Communications, City of LondonAt the University of Western Ontario

February 10, 2011

“The way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable. And the way to make it accountable is make it transparent so the American people can know exactly what decisions are being made, how they’re being made, and whether their interests are being well served.”

Barack Obama (January 21, 2009). Remarks by the President in Welcoming Senior Staff to the White House. The White House. Retrieved May 13, 2010, from http://www.whitehous.gov/the_press_office/REmarksofthePresidentinWElcomingSeniorStaffandCabinetSecretariestotheWhiteHouse.

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What is Open Data?

Open data is a philosophy and practice requiring that certain data are made available to the public, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control, for free and in a machine readable format.

Why do it?The goal of open data is to make government open, accessible and transparent and encourage more participation in government.

Many examples also show it can save government money.

David Eaves:

http://eaves.ca/2010/04/14/case-study-open-data-and-the-public-purse/

What happens with Open Data?

Benefits of Open Data• Demonstrates commitment to transparency,

accountability, innovation

• Provides developers and others with free access to data in a usable/re-usable format

• Creates opportunity to use data in new and innovative ways that government may not have considered or have the expertise or time to create

• Contributes to the strength and vibrancy of the digital media economy within the City

What happens with Open Data?

From demographic information by neighborhood to the best towns to find a job to seeing the environmental health of your community–these applications provide citizens with the information they need to make decisions every day.

Challenges for Government• Corporate culture – from control to open government

concept• Policy – from a “fee for data” to a “free data” policy• Legal considerations – privacy, intellectual property,

liability• Resources – scope, managing expectations and

sustainability• Branding and accuracy – potential confusion of who’s

responsible

Requests for Data Sets• Transit data

• Boundary files, wards, official planning areas, city limits

• Election results by ward and poll

• Tree census and tree inventory data

• Budget and financial statement info

Criteria for Consideration• Public: Is the data already publicly available?

• Cost/time: To obtain and convert the data to a raw format?

• Privacy: Can it be released under privacy legislation?

• Security: Does the data represent a security threat?

• Public Interest: is there a threat to the public interest?

• Third party contractual obligations which would prevent release?

• Legislation: Is it compliant with any other legislation?

Latest Update• ‘Beta’ website launched in September 2010• Internal consultation – inform, educate• Evaluate human resources and costs associated

with expanding the initiative• Liaise with members of the community• Look at new and existing data sets to determine

future releases

Other Sources

Karim Lakhani, Robert Austin, Yumi Yi. Data.gov. Harvard Business Review, May 13, 2010. Accessed January 24, 2011 from: http://www.data.gov/documents/hbs_datagov_case_study.pdf.

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