Open Data
What, Why, How

Sofia, 2011-06-05

Rufus Pollock @rufuspollock[.org]

Open Knowledge Foundation Shuttleworth Foundation

The Open Knowledge Foundation

Open Knowledge Foundation

Founded 2004 / Not-for-profit

Build Communities and Tools to
Help People Create, Use and Share Open Information
http://www.okfn.org/vision/

Sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata

Community based, with 15+ projects and workings groups

ckan.net

CKAN the Data Hub software and community

data.gov.uk

CKAN powers data.gov.uk and more than 30 other sites

OpenSpending.org and WhereDoesMyMoneyGo - Mapping Government Spending Around the World

openspending.org

http://opendatachallenge.org/ 20k Euro

OKCon - http://okcon.org/
Berlin 30th June-1st July

Background

Snow Cholera Map Snow Cholera Map

Cholera - 1854 - John Snow

Bicycle Maps

Bicycle Accidents

Today We Find Ourselves in the Midst of a Revolution

Policy Innovation

Driven by
Necessity (Info Glut)
and
Possibility (Info Tech)

Government's Have Been Innovating on Policy

Recent Policy

data.gov.uk

... we're going to rip off that cloak of secrecy and extend transparency as far and as wide as possible. By bringing information out into the open, you'll be able to hold government and public services to account. You'll be able to see how your taxes are being spent. Judge standards in your local schools and hospitals. Find out just how effective the police are at fighting crime in your community."

David Cameron, 2010

And Not Just the UK!

US, Finland, Norway, Poland, Netherlands, ...

What?

What does Open Mean?

Open Data button Open Data button Open Data button
OpenDefinition.org

http://opendefinition.org/

OpenDefinition.org

"A piece of content is open if anyone is free to use, reuse and redistribute it - subject only, at most, to a requirement to attribute or share-alike."

Anyone means Anyone!
(So no restrictions on commercial use etc)

2 Key Aspects

1. Legal Openness
2. Technical Openness

1. Legal Openness - Use an Open License

Permit anyone to use, reuse, and redistribute
Only possible reservations: attribution and share-alike (and quasi-integrity)

OpenDataCommons.org

OpenDefinition.org/licenses/ - conformant licenses

2. Technical Openness

Raw, Machine-readable and an Open Format

What Data?

Transport, Geodata, Statistics, Electoral-Legal ...

Key point: Non-Personal Data!

(E.g. Train times, station locations, spending breakdowns, national laws ...)

Why?

The Holy Trinity:
Innovation, Efficiency, Transparency

AKA: Jobs and Growth, Community and Governance

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

Innovation
In Products and Services

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

Fixing is Faster with Open Data
(And You Don't Repeat Yourself)

To many eyes all bugs are shallow

Est 6% of all bus-stops in NAPTAN wrongly located

Transparency and Efficiency

Where Does My Money Go

Where Does My Money Go?

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

Woven Ball Broken Humpty
We're Weaving Data Together To Scale We Need to Componentize But We Need to Put Humpty-Dumpty Together Again - Not Possible if Closed

How?

Deal with Licensing

OpenDataCommons.org

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

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

Get a Catalogue

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

KISS: Keep it Simple (Stupid!)

Don't worry (too much) about e.g. formats, schemas etc

Starts with what is easy and expand

Issues: Control and Misuse

Data has always been misused.

Government can still play a role in interpretation.

As a democratic society we must trust in informed public discourse

Tools and Infrastructure

What Exists at the Moment is Mostly Closed!

Componentized, Distributed, Collaborative
Development of Open Data
'The Debian of Data'

Engage Citizens and Developers

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

Conclusion

Enables a Read/Write Society

read/write society

Unlocking a Vast Potential for
Innovation in Products and Services

The Googles of the Future

Thank-You

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

http://okfn.org/
http://ckan.net/
http://openspending.org

License and Credits

License

Creative Commons Attribution License v3.0 (all jurisdictions)

Credits 

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
stick_figure_male.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/15036
stick_figure_female.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/15040
city_icon.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/20145
city_icon.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/20145
sumer-ur-pot.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seriykotik/122518602/
hollerith-tabulator.gif: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/census-tabulator.html (orig from IBM)
ibm-machine-city-hall.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_virginia/2898506631/
census-1801-example.jpg: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~alan/family/images/census/1801_example.jpg
itoworld-openstreetmap-2009.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterito/3054501076/