[open-government] More than eightly formats for open

[Pia Waugh]

Hi all,

I have to concur with Michael's point below:

On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 9:11 PM, Hausenblas, Michael <
michael.hausenblas at deri.org> wrote:

Nevertheless, IMO, no standardisation effort, neither OData nor W3C's RDF
> will ever make all the formats in use go away. Why? Because they are
> useful, usable or simply simple.
>

I believe the path to open data in governments involves several angles:

1) Procurement rules that require compliance to standards, that require
exit costs and interoperability costs be taken into account, and that
require open data be built into the systems architecture from day one
rather than as an afterthought. This should also be the case with broader
interoperability for systems across govt to be able to be aggregated and
presented in a citizen centric way, thus proactive data disclosure and
citizen centricity become two key ideas for procurement.

2) Transcoding of existing data - If we require open standards to get
started, then we will always be held ransom to our most legacy system, and
there are MANY legacy systems in government. Thus we need to be realistic
about dealing with legacy systems and data through interoperability
interfaces that can transcode or interpret data across systems. Sometimes
it is simply not feasible to make a system or its data standards compliant,
and not feasible to replace it, but we can come up with clever ways to
interface with legacy systems.

3) Proactive data disclosure - getting data out publicly not just for the
public good, but so departments across a government can more easily and
appropriately access data across government. Often there are privacy
implications for sharing data even internally, so proactive public
disclosure ends up being a somewhat effective strategy for sharing data
across government for better policy and planning outcomes.

4) Culture change - encouraging the broader public service, including
leaders, to run with open data is vital. Many in the public service do come
from a perspective of public good, so they'll likely agree in principle,
but it is important to also make the case that transparency is the best
defence for the public service in our work to serve the public. It makes it
easier for us to engage with the public, build trust, get public input on
policy development and achieve more peer reviewed evidence based results,
from which if the relevant Minister then chooses to go a different way, it
is a more public discussion as to why. Open data also helps mitigate the
rising costs of Freedom of Information requests. So gaining a culture of
open data in government could be further improved by recognising and
promoting the benefits for the public service itself.

Standards are helpful, but only a small part in achieving greater
transparency across government, and because the practicalities of getting
open standards across an entire organisation are probably impossible, given
legacy systems, it becomes an easy excuse to not move for those who are
trying to avoid change. Meanwhile, we can often interpret closed standards
data, even if with degradation. Many archivist organisations (particularly
those in government) have many tools for transcoding proprietary data into
open standards for sustainable preservation. For instance the National
Archives of Australia built Xena (http://xena.sourceforge.net/) for exactly
this purpose. We can use such tools to interface legacy data whilst putting
in place the culture change, proactive data policy and procurement
guidelines for new data.

Just a few thoughts. I'm really looking forward to the discussions next
week.

Cheers,
Pia Waugh

Australia
Open Government Policy Advisor
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