[okfn-labs] Update on PublicBodies.org - a URL for every part of Government

Thu May 2 12:38:25 UTC 2013

That's fantastic.

There's been quite a lot of feedback in the issues:
https://github.com/okfn/publicbodies/issues

And e.g. Friedrich has dug up a list of Slovenian government entities:
https://github.com/okfn/publicbodies/issues/14 (how on earth he came
across that i don't know!)

Rufus

On 2 May 2013 10:13, Michael Bauer <michael.bauer at okfn.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Will look at it. Actually I have a source for public bodies in Austria I
> might want to put in.
>
> Michael
>
> On Wed, May 01, 2013 at 11:17:48AM +0100, Rufus Pollock wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> This is an update on PublicBodies.org - a Labs project whose aim is to
>> provide a "URL for every part of Government":
>> <http://publicbodies.org/>
>>
>> Full post here:
>> <http://okfnlabs.org/blog/2013/05/01/publicbodies.org-an-update.html>
>>
>> PublicBodies.org is a database and website of "Public Bodies" -- that
>> is Government-run or controlled organizations (which may or may not
>> have distinct corporate existence). Examples would include government
>> ministries or departments, state-run organizations such as libraries,
>> police and fire departments and more.
>>
>> You run into public bodies all the time in projects like OpenSpending
>> (either as spenders or recipients). Back in 2011 as part of the
>> "Organizations" data workshop at OGD Camp 2011, Labs member Friedrich
>> Lindenberg scraped together a first database and site of "public
>> bodies" from various sources (primarily FoI sites like WhatDoTheyKnow,
>> FragDenStaat and AskTheEU).
>>
>> I and Friedrich have recently re-done the site converting the sqlite
>> DB to simple flat CSV files:
>>
>> - Main github repo: <https://github.com/okfn/publicbodies>
>> - Example raw CSV: <https://raw.github.com/okfn/publicbodies/master/data/gb.csv>
>>
>> The site itself is now super-simple flat-files hosted on s3 (build
>> code [1]). Here's an example of the output:
>>
>> - European Parliament: <http://publicbodies.org/eu/european-parliament.html>
>> - Associated JSON API (with CORS!)
>> <http://publicbodies.org/eu/european-parliament.json>
>>
>> The simplicity of CSV for data plus simple templating to flat-files is
>> very attractive. There are some drawbacks such as changes to primary
>> template resulting in a full rebuild and upload of ~6k files so,
>> especially as the data grows, we may want to look into something a bit
>> nicer but for the time being I think this works well.
>>
>> Thoughts and suggestions very welcome!
>>
>> [1]: https://github.com/okfn/publicbodies/tree/master/site
>>
>> ## Next Steps
>>
>> There's plenty that could be improved e.g.
>>
>> * More data - other jurisdictions (we only cover EU, UK and Germany) +
>> descriptions for the bodies (this could be a nice crowdcrafting app)
>> * Search and Reconciliation (via nomenklatura)
>> * Making it easier to submit corrections or additions
>>
>> The full list of issues is on github here:
>> <https://github.com/okfn/publicbodies/issues>
>>
>> Help on these most definitely wanted! Just grab one of the issues or
>> get in touch ...
>>
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