[Open-data-census] open-data-census Digest, Vol 18, Issue 3

Mon Nov 3 16:11:13 UTC 2014

Sorry to keep going on but I actually thought there were some evident
chains such as : bulk or format are null if data is not publicly available
online. Otherwise it means that one has to be able to have access to the
unavailable data to confirm evidences.

For instance, I am being told that spending government data in France exist
in reusable format and in bulk. But I cannot access the data so why should
I believe this ? Should I go to the Ministry ?

Then, there are actually some questions that consider public availability
implicitly in their definition such as for bulk [1]. Two questions are
chained then.

I hope that we will be able to sort that out before we publish anything.
Otherwise, I know there are some people ready to fire :)

Best

[1] Data is available in bulk if the whole dataset can be downloaded or
accessed easily. Conversely it is considered non-bulk if the citizens are
limited to just getting parts of the dataset (for example, if restricted to
querying a web form and retrieving a few results at a time from a very
large database).

On Mon Nov 03 2014 at 3:25:59 PM Mor Rubinstein <morchickit at gmail.com>
wrote:

> HI guys,
>
> Again, thanks for writing.
>
> The only chain that we mentioned in the tutorial is the follows:
> If the data is not available, then the system will mark the rest of the
> questions as 'no'.
>
> There is no other chain in the system, and we were expected each parameter
> to be taken into consideration independently. This is done, among the rest,
> in order to allow to different stakeholders in the open government sphere
> to understand what they need to focus on in order to improve they openness.
>
> I will update the reviewers guide, the site and the tutorial today in
> order to unsure that we will consistency and for the documentation for the
> next Index.
>
> Thank you guys for bringing it up, you are making the index better. :-)
>
> All the best,
> Mor
>
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 2:04 PM, Pierre Chrzanowski <
> pierre.chrzanowski at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Graeme,
>>
>> I think that Simon was referring to the transnational level criteria for
>> government spending data.
>>
>> @Christian, @Mor would be good to clarify chained / dependent questions.
>> It is true there is no proper guideline on that.
>>
>> All the best
>> Pierre
>>
>>
>> On Mon Nov 03 2014 at 2:20:18 PM Graeme Jones <jonesiom at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Pierre
>>>
>>> 2/ and 4/  I had a specific email exchange with Christian / Mor to
>>> clarify chained or independent (independent) to ensure consistency ;O)
>>>
>>> 3b/  I think experienced people in the #opendata community typically
>>> side with the lowest common denominator, you are benchmarking to improve so
>>> hopefully not already perfect or nothing left to do!
>>>
>>> 3b/  similarly the issue is often willing volunteers and/or unpaid
>>> hours.  I might have been able to persuade someone else to independently
>>> contribute/review Isle of Man submissions but difficult to justify
>>> unquantified unpaid hours to do the same for other jurisdictions -- last
>>> time I did submissions for about 16 countries and this time I allocated any
>>> spare unpaid hours to briefly review Jersey (ran out of time on Guernsey)
>>> but added some data on other jurisdictions such as UAE, US Virgin Islands,
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> people that know what/how to look are thin on the ground in big
>>> countries never mind little countries, hence the importance of mentors
>>> office hours initiatives etc
>>>
>>> 3b/  the push towards a localised UK OGL and financereports.gov.im were
>>> large steps in an offshore country and required *lots* of unpaid hours on
>>> lobbying, slidedecks, favours such as indirect legal opinion from HM
>>> Attorney General, frontline staff training on data cleansing, etc.
>>> sorry, perhaps I have missed something, but the financereports.gov.im
>>> microsite shows govt spending in a timescale at least as good as most of
>>> the best countries and better than most other countries and under a
>>> localised UK OGL -- the OGL in conjunction with independent criteria is
>>> largely why the Isle of Man is higher in the charts
>>>
>>> in fact the end result of a ranking last year was the Isle of Man
>>> Government requested membership of the Open Government Partnership, surely
>>> exactly what anyone in the open government movement should aspire to
>>> achieve?
>>>
>>> also scheduled discussions already include a shift to real time
>>> reporting of the national accounts with data visualisation as a
>>> minister/voter/taxpayer frontend
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Graeme Jones
>>>
>>> On 3 November 2014 12:00, <open-data-census-request at lists.okfn.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Message: 1
>>>> Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 11:20:20 +0000
>>>> From: Pierre Chrzanowski <pierre.chrzanowski at gmail.com>
>>>> To: open-data-census <open-data-census at lists.okfn.org>
>>>> Cc: "okfn-fr-members at lists.okfn.org" <okfn-fr-members at lists.okfn.org>,
>>>>         "Simon Chignard - data.gouv.fr" <simon at data.gouv.fr>
>>>> Subject: [Open-data-census] Serious inconsistencies in the application
>>>>         of      the methodology
>>>>
>>>> Hi list, I am forwarding a message from Simon Chignard who is concerned
>>>> about the lack of quality and consistency in the current submissions.
>>>>
>>>> I think his feedbacks should be carefully taken into account for the
>>>> reviewing process.
>>>>
>>>> Best
>>>> Pierre
>>>>
>>>> Ps : text below is a Google translate from email wrote in French to okf
>>>> france members list
>>>>
>>>> ---
>>>> Hello all,
>>>>
>>>> I spotted this weekend which seems to me to be serious inconsistencies
>>>> in
>>>> the application of the methodology of the Open Data Index since 2014. I
>>>> alert you that the question of the reliability of the tool.
>>>>
>>>> 1 / An example: the assessment of open Zipcodes / Postcodes.
>>>>
>>>> Consider the postal code file for Spain, Sweden, Canada and France.
>>>>
>>>> In these four countries, the situation is the same: a more or less
>>>> public
>>>> operator (Correos, Postnummer, Canada Post and La Poste) sells, on
>>>> demand,
>>>> the postal code file.
>>>>
>>>> Yet, these are the scores on the same file:
>>>>
>>>> Zipcode / Canada: 55%
>>>> http://global.census.okfn.org/entry/ca/postcodes
>>>>
>>>> Zipcode / Spain: 45%
>>>> http://global.census.okfn.org/entry/es/postcodes
>>>>
>>>> Zipcode / France: 10%
>>>> http://global.census.okfn.org/entry/fr/postcodes
>>>>
>>>> Zipcode / Sweden: 55%
>>>> http://global.census.okfn.org/entry/se/postcodes
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2 / What is at issue
>>>>
>>>> The question posed here is that of chaining or independence criteria.
>>>>
>>>> In France we (collectively) have considered that the criteria chained.
>>>> This
>>>> means that if the data is not available then we put red all other
>>>> criteria.
>>>> However, in all other countries I could see they took each criterion
>>>> separately. They consider that given legally sold and closed may still
>>>> be
>>>> available online, be current, be downloaded in bulk, etc ...
>>>>
>>>> I took the example of Zipcodes but there is the same problem for other
>>>> evaluations, for example here:
>>>> http://global.census.okfn.org/entry/si/companies
>>>>
>>>> 3 / An assessment that differs between countries
>>>>
>>>> When we look in detail on the evaluation, we also see that the
>>>> application
>>>> of the criteria is more or less strict.
>>>>
>>>> An example: Zipcode / Slovania: 55%
>>>> http://global.census.okfn.org/entry/si/postcodes - the commentary
>>>> states:
>>>> Data is available from Post of Slovenia, purpose is hidden in HTML
>>>> format,
>>>> not available in bulk and Additional skills are needed to extract it.
>>>> Geodetska uprava (Slovenian equivalent of UK Ordnance Survey) resells
>>>> bulk
>>>> data with GIS Additional information.
>>>>
>>>> Just scrap the data then it deserves a score of 55%?
>>>>
>>>> One for the road: Finland / Spending: 90%
>>>> http://global.census.okfn.org/entry/fi/spending - Certain assets data
>>>> are
>>>> available on Finnish data portal Avoindata.fi. More information from
>>>> Netra
>>>> Will Be ouvert in the future.
>>>>
>>>> There was clearly a problem for the application of the methodology
>>>> described, for evaluating a current and non-availability "in the
>>>> future."
>>>>
>>>> 3 / A reviewer who is also the editor for a country
>>>>
>>>> I looked in detail ratings for the Isle of Man, who gets such good
>>>> scores
>>>> for Government Spending file (100%).
>>>> That evaluation and comment:
>>>> http://global.census.okfn.org/entry/im/spending
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The proposed link is this one: http://financereports.gov.im - it in no
>>>> way
>>>> corresponds to the criteria of the methodology.
>>>>
>>>> The problem seems even more serious for this country - and unlike the
>>>> response Mor was Peter - it is one and the same person who proposed the
>>>> evaluation and validated once.
>>>>
>>>> 4 / Why is that a problem?
>>>>
>>>> It was therefore clearly major inconsistencies in how to apply the
>>>> criteria
>>>> for each country. But if the goal is to produce a ranking of countries -
>>>> not to assess individually), it is a problem. And even a serious
>>>> problem to
>>>> the extent that 10 places to play close to 10%!
>>>>
>>>> The only solution, to me it seems, is that the OKF can ensure that the
>>>> assessment is consistent for all countries .. if it is the credibility
>>>> of
>>>> the ranking is questioned.
>>>>
>>>> Simon
>>>>
>>>> PS: also the issue had already been raised in 2012 for the
>>>> classification
>>>> of W3C
>>>> https://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/euopendata/2013-February/001153.html
>>>> - so I do not feel that the only problem is discovered now.
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>>>> End of open-data-census Digest, Vol 18, Issue 3
>>>> ***********************************************
>>>>
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