[Open-data-census] government nuances and standard options

[Laura James]

Richard,

Good points and we're aware that it's tough to compare countries at the
detail level - which is why the overall results of the census aggregate
openness across a set of datasets.

We hope to develop the census for city and regional data as well as the
national focus this autumn, which should help a much more detailed and
nuanced picture of the open data situation in a country become clearer, but
this will be a later phase (late 2013 / 2014).

Adding a "not applicable" for a given dataset for a country (eg transport
for Canada) is an interesting idea - I'll add that to the github issues
list.

Laura


On 4 October 2013 20:57, Richard Akerman <scilib at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have to say when I first saw the census I assumed "Transport
> Timetables" for Canada meant at any level of government.
>
> By designing the survey to measure national-level, with the language
> "Timetables of major government operated (or commissioned)
> *national-level* public transport services (specifically bus and
> train)." the census is rewarding countries with a strong
> centrally-directed national transportation infrastructure.  There
> doesn't seem to be a "not applicable to government structure" option.
> The messaging around what the Census is measuring needs to be really
> clear.
>
> It's great that the Census now has editing and review options, but I'm
> not sure what would apply to Canada.
> I could argue exist yes, digital yes, public yes, free unknown, online
> yes, machine-readable no, bulk yes?, open unknown, up-to-date yes.
> http://www.viarail.ca/en/plan-your-trip/customize-your-train-schedule
>
> But in Canada the national train service is an independent crown
> corporation.  Is that "government operated"?  The distances are large
> and the trains are slow, so most people fly.  From Halifax to Montreal
> there's not a train every five minutes, or every hour.  There's one
> train once a day three days a week.
>
> http://www.viarail.ca/sites/all/files/media/pdfs/schedules/Summer2013/VL24458_4970-13_Timetable2013_ETE_30-31.pdf
>
> On the other hand, Canadian municipal transit systems are well-used
> and many have open data, as in e.g. City of Ottawa
> http://www.octranspo1.com/developers
>
> My concern is that if the Census is presented as a national-level
> summary for comparison and policy-making, it's going to look like
> Canada lags at Transport Timetables, when it's actually just because
> the most-used transportation modes where most of the open data is
> available are at a different level of government than the national
> government, or are of a different type (airlines).
>
> --
> Richard Akerman
> scilib at gmail.com
> http://scilib.typepad.com/
>
> Twitter: @scilib
>
> _______________________________________________
> Open-data-census mailing list
> Open-data-census at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-data-census
>



-- 
*

Dr Laura James

CEO  | skype: laura.james  |  @LaurieJ <https://twitter.com/LaurieJ>

The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>

Empowering through Open Knowledge
http://okfn.org/  |  @okfn <http://twitter.com/OKFN>  |  OKF on
Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/OKFNetwork> |
Blog <http://blog.okfn.org/>  |  Newsletter<http://okfn.org/about/newsletter>

**

**

*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-data-census/attachments/20131005/e6c0e7a6/attachment-0001.htm>