Fwd: [OpenDataBC] New OpenDataBC Portal
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Fwd: [OpenDataBC] New OpenDataBC Portal
 
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Re: Fwd: [OpenDataBC] New OpenDataBC Portal
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Re: Fwd: [OpenDataBC] New OpenDataBC Portal
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Thanks for the feedback Glen. I agree that the license you mention is not open. I disagree with the assertion that the OpenDataBC site should only include data that is open. Here’s my thinking: The OpenDataBC site was created before any of these publishers had data portals. By the standard you are proposing, none of the data on the site would have been considered open at that time. I realized that when we first created the site; however, it seemed to me that it made sense to draw attention to the folks who were at least attempting to share information freely, even if the license under which the data was provided did not meet the definition of "open" (http://www.opendefinition.org). Here we are almost five years later and we have come a long way. We have some licenses and some data portals and quite a lot of data that is both accessible and readable. Admittedly, we are still not yet at a place where there is a lot of data that would meet the definition of “open”. However, I believe we are moving in the right direction, and I believe we will get there eventually. The Province of BC was making quite a bit of data available online before they started using the term open data and long before they had a license or a portal. OpenDataBC pointed to what we thought was the best of it, to draw attention to data that was being released in a usable way, even though they hadn't yet worked through the process of formalizing everything. In the time since OpenDataBC first launched, Saanich has gone from publishing no data to putting up a catalogue and making a decent attempt at a license. Not perfect yet, not open by our standard, but it's something. Another example: when several major Canadian cities (including Vancouver) started publishing their data, they used licenses that included a clause whereby if you used the data and the city was sued as a result, you would be liable for all damages to the city. While we really disliked the license, they did publish some amazing data and we thought they were moving in the right direction, so we published the data on the OpenDataBC site because we wanted to help draw attention to the data itself. I think of all of this as a "work in progress". We're not there yet. Should we start removing data from the catalogue because publishers haven't quite gone far enough yet? I don't think so. I say we keep encouraging and educating folks until the vision is realized. So, you're right, OpenDataBC contains not only open data but other data as well. I think the Open Data community is still served by highlighting data that, while the right intention is there, is still not quite meeting standards. It’s also important (and sometimes required) to publish the terms along with that data so people know what they are getting. On the other hand, I think it's important to acknowledge publishers that have met the standard and whose data is open, such as data published under the OGL-Canada, or PDDL (Kelowna), etc.. Ideally the datasets that actually meet the definition will have the open data icon somewhere in the metadata, to set them apart. We are planning to add that in a future release. Thanks again for raising this important point. Maybe we should put something on the site somewhere that the site includes links to both open data and data that is accessible under more restrictive terms, and how to tell the difference. On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 10:22 AM, Glen Newton <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Fwd: [OpenDataBC] New OpenDataBC Portal
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Hi Herb, I am not un-sympathetic to your position. :-) >On the other hand, I think it's important to acknowledge publishers that have met the standard and whose data is open, such as data published under the OGL-Canada, or PDDL (Kelowna), etc.. Ideally the datasets that actually meet the definition will have the open data icon somewhere in the metadata, to set them apart. We are planning to add that in a future release. I think this is a reasonable and responsible approach. >Maybe we should put something on the site somewhere that the site includes links to both open data and data that is accessible under more restrictive terms, and how to tell the difference. From the perspective of explicitly communicating the status of the license to a possible data user, I would advocate having an icon that indicates that the data is _not_ Open. Example: the first 10 results are not Open: if only Open licensed sites have the icon, I will not have seen the icon, and assume (as you are running an Open Data site) that the data is all properly Open Data licensed. This would also act to effectively "name-and-shame" those that did not have a proper Open Data license. [And, after all, I think people are getting impatient with me ranting about this all of the time! :-) ] I realise that you might see this as a negative approach, but I think we are now at a time where few organizations have any excuse for not having an Open Data license. BTW the site is excellent and thank you and your team for doing this work! Constructively, Glen :-) On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 11:46 AM, Herb Lainchbury <[hidden email]> wrote:
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