[OpenSpending] spendingdata.org: Developing a standard for transaction-level spending data

[Friedrich Lindenberg]

Chris and everyone,

thank you very much for those comments and the general support.

I think you're right, Chris, to say that procurement information will
be more complex than we expect it to be at the moment - I personally
haven't worked with actual contracts information yet and would be keen
to get my hands on a sample dataset.

I've also started consolidating the various bits of feedback that are
beginning to come in on an etherpad:

http://wdmmg.okfnpad.org/standard-feedback

My current feeling is that the best way to continue this process will
be to both work on a core set of fields and to broaden our mapping of
related data sources that will serve as reference data and mapping
information in this (such as the CPV that Chris just pointed at).
Everyone: please add any references you may have related to this to
the pad!

Many thanks,

  - Friedrich

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 2:44 PM, Chris Taggart <countculture at gmail.com> wrote:
> Friedrich
> Great idea. Couple of points/suggestions:
> 1) Might be good to have a couple of sample files or transactions up there
> to show with some real data
> 2) I think it's important to distinguish between transaction data and
> non-transaction data (the intro page mentions contract spending). Contract
> spending could mean lots of different things, but I'd take it to mean, more
> or less, a potential obligation to spend a sum based on a signed contract,
> essentially an accrual, which is a completely different sort of accounting,
> and in fact potentially it is actually a commitment or perhaps a liability
> (I am not an accountant, but have come across this sort of thing before). It
> might be that there's a set of terms that could be used for accrual
> accounting (accounts), and cash accounting (transactions) and also
> commitments (contracts, planned spending), but I think it would be good to
> recognise in the intro we're talking about different things.
> 3) There are also various e-procurement vocabularies that may (or may not)
> be relevant, e.g http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Procurement_Vocabulary
>
> Chris
>
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> On 9 July 2012 22:01, Friedrich Lindenberg <friedrich.lindenberg at okfn.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> we've been considering the idea of creating a reference format for
>> spending data for a while now. It's a good idea: what if many
>> governments - on different levels - were to release their spending in
>> a uniform, compatible format? Governments would have it easier to
>> figure out how to their publish data. Techies like us could begin to
>> build tools for analyzing the data that truly scale. NGOs and think
>> tanks could easily see what's in the data, without having to embark on
>> a technology project first. Eventually, the data could even become
>> comparable across different environments, raising many interesting
>> questions.
>>
>> We'd like to invite you to brainstorm with us: how would a simple,
>> pragmatic standard for spending data look? Through the recent GIFT
>> report, we've surveyed lots of similar initiatives [1] and collected
>> some rough ideas. Building on this, we're now looking for your support
>> in contributing your ideas against this straw man:
>>
>> http://openspending.org/resources/standard/index.html
>>
>> It's by far not concrete enough to actually build a validator ("rough
>> consensus and running code"), but with all of your help I'm hoping
>> that we'll get there quickly. If we can build support for such an
>> idea, we can convince some of those countries who have already opened
>> up their data to use better formats to do it; while giving concrete
>> guidance to those who are only now starting to share their spending
>> data.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>>  - Friedrich
>>
>> [1] http://openspending.org/resources/gift/index.html
>>
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