Open Data, Open City | Martin Prosperity Institute

[Karl Dubost]

FYI

On Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:21:31 GMT
In Open Data, Open City | Martin Prosperity Institute
At http://www.martinprosperity.org/insights/insight/open-data-open-city

Open Data, Open City
September 21, 2010


With the economic collapse of 2008 came an
intensified interest from the public in the
governing and behaviour of large institutions,
both public and private. Spurred by this enhanced
scrutiny, the open data movement, which sees data
as both a tool for accountability and a source of
innovation, has been amplified. As part of the
Cities Centre’s Toronto 2010 Election Series we’ve
looked at the positive externalities of open data
and prepared Open Data, Open City, which
establishes the value of political debate on
municipal data policies.

Open Data Will Open Ideas

The availability and use of data by and for the
public is an emerging municipal issue as cities
realize the many benefits of “opening up” their
data. Municipalities collect extensive data about
the city and its residents, and the practice of
freely sharing this data online is gaining ground
in cities across the country and around the world.
Vancouver and Washington, D.C. both have official
open data policies, and many other cities are
launching their own open data initiatives. “Data”
here means everything from statistics to address
lists and recycling schedules, from information on
election results by riding, to the locations of
schools or streetlamps. Since such information is
important for both the governance and
understanding of a city, a clear policy on how
that data is stored, used, and presented to the
public is necessary.

Open data is socially beneficial in three
important ways: the first is that access to and
sharing
of data can increase the population’s data
literacy—a skill necessary for success in the
digital economy. The second is that open data
allows for the production and widespread
dissemination of new and creative research
motivated by the public’s ingenuity. The third is
that it reinforces both political and bureaucratic
government accountability. Of all of these reasons
to support open data, the production of new
knowledge is one of the most compelling. The
public sector spends billions annually to invest
in expensive research & development initiatives
with unpredictable returns. The open data movement
has already demonstrated its anomalous ability to
invent practical interpretations of seemingly
innocuous datasets. Toronto software developer
Mark Headd used data sets on location and space
availability of child care centres to create a
daycare search by postal code using texting or
Twitter. This year, Jeff Aramini, a former
epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency of
Canada, developed HealthAndSafetyWatch.com, a
website that tracks product and food recalls using
aggregated federal and provincial open data in
combination with media monitoring software. One of
the most famous Toronto-based open data projects
is MyTTC.ca, a trip planner “born out of a desire
for free, open access to transit data”
(myttc.ca/about). Examples of useful manipulations
of open data abound and span a spectrum, from
generic public service tools to highly specialized
proprietary applications. What these programs have
in common is their reliance on flexible, open
data.


The move to open data in Toronto (and across
Canada) could enhance journalistic reporting,
university-level research, and encourage the
creative exploration of city-level data and trends
by engaged citizens. In an election where
financial concerns are on the tip of every tongue,
data should be considered as a municipal asset
that will create value for every citizen. The
government’s embracing of the philosophy and
practice of open data supports the formulation of
new ideas and the identification of new trends and
relationships at a low financial cost and is in
line with compulsory accountability.

For more on the value of open data systems,
examples of municipal open data leaders and
associated policy ideas, see the full discussion
paper.

--
Karl Dubost
Montréal, QC, Canada
http://www.la-grange.net/karl/