I agree that it's a great thing to have Saskatoon starting up their own open data initiative, and I hope that I didn't come across as being negative about it. I would rather see them take this more cautious path of giving out the data that they already have collected and available for developers than to not open up government data at all! My main concern is the a priori assumption of what data people want, and the de-emphasis of non-service data such as council minutes. I think (hope) that this will change over time, and that this is really just a first step that would not be possible if they dove in head first. I would love to see some partnerships with institutions like the UofS who might be able to have students voluntarily move data into (more) useful formats for them.
-Liam C.
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:57:31 -0600
From: Andrew Dyck <[hidden email]>
To: civicaccess discuss <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] City of Saskatoon - open data for
developers?
Message-ID:
<[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I think it's great to Saskatoon moving in this direction and I congratulate
them in taking some first steps. In Regina, we had a little different
experience and if there are any City of Saskatoon folks watching this list
I invite them to get in contact with me to discuss.
The approach in Regina was to throw some of the data out there for
developers to use (the low-hanging fruit of course) and see what they could
do with it. This opened up a fantastic dialogue between developers and City
staff where both sides were learning about each other and how to go
forwards. Often times, developers don't know what data the City has and
they won't know how great it is to work with opendata or the potential
opportunities until they see some data. On the other hand, City staff in
Regina were excited to see the true civic engagement at our YQR hackathon
and they got excited about the possibilities.
Much of this the people on this list already know. I'm just a little
excited to see Saskatoon jumping into the open data ring and hopeful that
some of the same great relationship developers, City staff and other open
data/open gov enthusiasts in Regina have built is replicated in Saskatoon.
Cheers,
Andrew
Locked
