Hey all!
I submitted the open data piece on the
Industry Canada Digital Economy Consultation.
Please take some time to vote and distribute within your networks and institutions! It just takes a few seconds.
We are at a tipping point on this issue in Canada and your few seconds could open up our data resources.
Open access to Canada's public sector information and datahttp://de-en.gc.ca/2010/06/10/open-access-to-canadas-public-sector-information-and-data/
I created it under the theme of Canada's Digital Content.
Here is the text:
Create a data.gc.ca for Canada’s public sector
information (PSI) and data in parallel with the excellent
NRCan GeoConnections model (e.g. GeoGratis, GeoBase,
Discovery Portal).
These PSI & data should be shared at no cost with
citizens, be in accessible and open formats, searchable
with standard metadata, wrapped in public domain or
unrestricted user licenses, delivered within an an open
architecture infrastructure based on open standards,
specifications and be interoperable. It should be
governed with open government principles whereby data
& PSI are shared first and arguments to restrict are
made only for legitimate privacy and security reasons
which should also be disclosed. It should have a
permanent home and include both the right combination of
multi-departmental (e.g. CIC, INAC, HRSDC, NRC, NRCan,
etc.) inputs, trans-disciplinary human resources (e.g.
Librarians, archivists, scientists) along with IT
specialists & engineers. It should be built in
consultation with Canadians to ensure it is designed with
user needs and useability in mind. (This is how the
GeoConnections program built the Canadian Geospatial Data
Infrastructure).
The Government of Canada produces administrative data
for the purpose of program delivery (e.g. Canada Student
Loan, location where new Canadians land, the number and
location of homeless shelters, etc.), and it produces
data for the purpose of governing for example: the data
collected by Statistics Canada (e.g. Census &
Surveys, National Accounts); Environment Canada (e.g. air
& water quality, location of brown sites); Canada
Centre for Remote Sensing (e.g. satellite and radar
imagery); Industry Canada (e.g. corporate registry);
Canada Revenue Agency (e.g. Charities dbase); National
Research Council (e.g. Scientific data); SSHRC (e.g.,
social science research data) and more. These data have
already been paid for by Canadians via taxation, and the
cost of selling these data back to citizens on a cost
recovery basis is marginal or more expensive (e.g. Cost
of government to government procurement, management of
licences, royalties, government accounting and etc.)
relative to the benefits & reduced overhead of
delivering these data at no cost. Furthermore, Canadians
often pay multiple times for the same data, since each
level of government also purchases the same data, federal
departments purchase these data from each other and there
are examples where municipalities purchase the same data
multiple times from Statistics Canada. This is not only
a waste of taxpayer money it goes against the principle
of create once and use many times and of avoiding the
duplication of effort.
Data & PSI are non rivalrous goods where sharing
and open access to these does not impede other from doing
so. Open access stimulates research and IT sectors who
will have the resources they need for the creation of new
data R&D products (e.g. Applications) and services
(e.g., web mapping), evidence based decision making (e.g.
Population health), and informing public policy on a
number of key Canadian issues (e.g. Homelessness,
housing, education). In addition, evidence from Canadian
City Open Data Initiatives (e.g., Vancouver, Edmonton,
Toronto, and Ottawa) have demonstrated that the cost and
time to find and access data & PSI within government
have been greatly reduced since finding these are easier
and negotiating access becomes a non issue, which in turn
brings savings to citizens and greater efficiencies
within these institutions. Finally, participatory and
deliberative democracies include the active engagement
and inputs from citizens, civil society organizations,
the private sector, and NGOs along with their government.
Making these data available increases the collective
knowledge base of Canadians and stimulates public
engagement, improves efficiencies, and fuels innovation.
These are already our (citizen’s) data &
PSI, why not share share them with us and enable citizens
and the government to work together to stimulate
Canada’s economy, create innovative industries and
formulate evidence based public policy.
I will also prepare a formal submission. Do you have anything to add to a formal submission.
There is under that theme a research data item that is related that could also use some votes.
I will post the text and the urls at
datalibre.ca
Cheers
Tracey
--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
Locked
