[okfn-discuss] Open data in Portland

[Jonathan Gray]

It looks like there are moves towards open data in Portland, Oregon!

Jonathan


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sromalewski <sr218 at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 10:45 PM
Subject: [open-government-nyc:272] Portland adopts policy of
publishing structured data, and other  opendata notes
To: Open Government NYC <open-government-nyc at googlegroups.com>



Portland is the latest major city to officially adopt a policy of
publishing "structured standardized data", among other things.  See
http://siliconflorist.com/2009/09/30/portland-oregon-open-city-officially-embracing-open-data-open-source/
and http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/city_of_portland_oregon_officially_backs_open_stru.php

Another item on open data that came up today is a publication of the
National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO),
titled "A Call to Action for State Government: Guidance for Opening
the Doors to State Data".  Here's the direct link:
http://www.nascio.org/publications/documents/NASCIO-DataTransparency.pdf

I also noticed that the Politicker had a piece about Bloomberg's
"review" of his own Mayor's management reports (http://
www.politickerny.com/5484/bloomberg-numbers).  He's quoted in the
piece disparaging the idea of publishing raw data.  But it's
disingenous.  I commented (http://www.politickerny.com/5484/bloomberg-
numbers#comment-33963) that you could easily change the mayor's quote
at the end of the piece to 'The best way to reveal something is to
publish the raw data, and that'll give watchdogs the ability to
analyze it for themselves.'  It's called transparency.

And publishing raw data doesn't preclude publishing summary numbers
and/or analysis.  That's what happens in the scientific world all the
time -- you publish your article and make your data available along
with it -- so others can check your numbers and replicate your
results.  If they can't replicate them, maybe something's wrong and
you need to go back and redo your analysis.

Just my 2 cents.
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-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org