Open Data: What, Why, and How

Picnic 2010 - Amsterdam

Rufus Pollock

[Open Knowledge Foundation]
[Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow]
[Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge]
Licensed under cc-by v3.0 (any jurisdiction)

Open Knowledge Foundation Shuttleworth Foundation Emmanuel College

About the Foundation

Open Knowledge Foundation

Founded 2004 / Not-for-profit

Promoting, Creating Disseminating Open Knowledge

http://www.okfn.org/vision/

(My) Motivation

To Know and Understand Things (Better)

Such as ...

Where Does My (Tax) Money Go?

Where Does My Money Go

Requires gov spend (local + national), region codes, company info ...
(Much of which is locked up in pdfs or isn't available)

We Need the Data Raw and We Need the Data Now

http://blog.okfn.org/2007/11/07/give-us-the-data-raw-and-give-it-to-us-now/

CKAN: Find, Share and Reuse Data

ckan.net

Started http://ckan.net/ in 2007, now 1500+ open data 'packages'. More than a dozen other CKAN instances around the world.

Data.Gov.UK: Open Government Data

data.gov.uk

The Official UK Gov Catalogue (also powered by CKAN)

What?

What is 'Open'?

Open Knowledge Definition

Open Knowledge Definition

Open Knowledge Definition

Open = Freedom to Use / Re-use / Redistribute

http://www.opendefinition.org/

What Data?

Geographical, Statistical, Electoral-Legal, Financial ...

Key Point: Non-Personal

Why?

Understand and Discover Faster

Whether that's: the best way to travel to work / what stock to buy / the impact of global warming ...

(And enabling the development of tools and services to do these things – could Google exist without an 'open' web)

The Holy Trinity:
Innovation, Efficiency, Participation

AKA: Jobs and Growth, Community and Governance

But ...
Where Does the Open Data Come In?

Information is Special: Non-Rivalrous

Very cheaply copied ~ zero cost

Giving me a 'copy' of your car is a problem, giving me a copy of your data isn't

Componentization and Scaling
(Closed Data Doesn't Scale!)

Woven Ball Broken Humpty
We are Building Large, Complex (Information) Systems – Weaving Data Together To Scale We Need to Componentize - Break Things Up into Reusable Pieces But We Need to Put Humpty-Dumpty Together Again - Hard (or Impossible) if Closed

The Many Minds Principle

The Best Thing to do With Your Data will be Thought of by Someone Else

Enables a Read/Write Society

read/write society

Open data means anyone can access, analyse and contribute. No longer confined to passive consumption we can 'write' back - adding, adapting, and updating.

Lots of Ways to Fund Creation without Going Proprietary

Up-front funding, complementary services (consultancy, analysis ...), extensions etc

Data (and Content) are a Platform – You Build on Them!

How?

(Do We Build the Open Data Ecosystem?)

Get Started:

Fast, Small and Simple

Remember: KISS

Deal with Licensing

It's boring - but without it nothing else works ...

http://www.opendatacommons.org/
Legal Solutions for Open Data

Get a Catalogue

ckan.net data.gov.uk
offenedaten.de datadotgc.ca

(And keep storage and catalogue separate)

Work on Componetization

Work on key areas of 'knowledge' APIs and packaging so that reuse becomes simpler, faster and more extensive.

Engage Citizens and Developers

Openness Isn't An End In Itself - Data Has No Value If It Isn't Used

Thank-You

Rufus Pollock
rufus.pollock [at] okfn [dot] org

http://www.okfn.org/ http://ckan.net/ http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/

Credits 

tolkein_ring.jpg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ringinscription.jpg
lego.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oskay/265899811/
humpty_dumpty.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/298669543/
woven_ball.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/exfordy/387876530/sizes/s/
sim_city_airport.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42183741@N05/3890767674/in/photostream/
thomas_jefferson.jpg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_Peale-Thomas_Jefferson.jpg