[okfn-discuss] An interesting question about open data for local government.

[Daniel Schuman]

I would suggest these 10 open data principles as a good starting point:
http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/ten-open-data-principles/

In October 2007, 30 open government advocates met in Sebastopol, California
to discuss how government could open up electronically-stored government
data for public use. Up until that point, the federal and state governments
had made some data available to the public, usually inconsistently and
incompletely, which had whetted the advocates' appetites for more and
better data. The conference, led by Carl Malamud and Tim O'Reilly and
funded by a grant from the Sunlight Foundation, resulted in eight
principles that, if implemented, would empower the public's use of
government-held data.

We have updated and expanded upon the Sebastopol list and identified ten
principles that provide a lens to evaluate the extent to which government
data is open and accessible to the public. The list is not exhaustive, and
each principle exists along a continuum of openness. The principles are
completeness, primacy, timeliness, ease of physical and electronic access,
machine readability, non-discrimination, use of commonly owned standards,
licensing, permanence and usage costs.


(follow the link for more detail
http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/ten-open-data-principles/0
Daniel

Daniel Schuman
Director | Advisory Committee on Transparency<http://transparencycaucus.org/>
Policy Counsel | The Sunlight Foundation <http://sunlightfoundation.com/>
o: 202-742-1520 x 273 | c: 202-713-5795 | @danielschuman


On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Zach Beauvais <z.beauvais at gmail.com> wrote:

>  For formats, I agree that being too prescriptive can be a problem as
> standards evolve. However, some simple recommendations could go a long way:
>
> * Don't use PDFs
> * Use something open and common (e.g. csv over excel)
> * Do your best to describe your data
>
> Maybe just asking for well-used web standards would be a plus.
>
> -Z
>
> --
> Zach Beauvais | @zbeauvais <http://twitter.com/zbeauvais>
> z.beauvais at gmail.com
>  <http://zacheauvais.com>http://zachbeauvais.com
>
> On Wednesday, 10 October 2012 at 18:46, Mr. Puneet Kishor wrote:
>
>
> On Oct 10, 2012, at 7:47 AM, Luis Villa <luis at tieguy.org> wrote:
>
> Isn't the correct answer "specifying any particular formats or
> specifications is a recipe for having an obsolete bill within years or
> months"?
>
>
>
> Not necessarily. As I noted on the Quora page, formats come and go, and
> there is no doubt better and more suitable formats will be invented in the
> future. More important than specifying the format is to insist that
> whatever format is used, it should be free, open and well documented, and
> if it requires any tools to use it optimally, the tools should also be
> free, open and well documented.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 7:42 AM, Zach Beauvais <z.beauvais at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Quora sent me this question [1], which I think is of interest to the OKFN:
>
> If you were making a bill about open data for a local government, what sort
> of specifications and formats would you include in the bill?
>
> And it's starting out with a few interesting answers in situ.
>
> This subject might be a good post/paper for people to pass on to civil
> servants/local representatives with a step by step guide to transparency?
>
> Best,
> -Z
>
> [1]:
>
> http://www.quora.com/Open-Data/If-you-were-making-a-bill-about-open-data-for-a-local-government-what-sort-of-specifications-and-formats-would-you-include-in-the-bill
>
> ---
> Zach Beauvais | @zbeauvais
> z.beauvais at gmail.com
> zachbeauvais.com
>
>
>
>
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