some (poetic) notes about Federal Open Data - Montréal discussion

[Karl Dubost]

I was participating this morning with a few others to an open data discussion moderated by David Eaves and the participation of Sylvain Latour on Open Data and the Federal Government. David asked me to send my notes. I think someone else took also notes.

Share !


The morning was beautiful, the tree leaves gold, floating moments with a strong desire to follow this beautiful person passing by the windows. But… hey we were here to discuss open data. So I took notes.

I removed the name of the 15 participants, because I'm not sure they are comfortable having their names shared on the mailing-list and archived until the dawn of times^W Web.


# Open Data


## Participants

(…)

## What are the type of features you would like to see on data.gc.ca ?

(break out in small groups and then list à la Prévert following our discussions)

* API for Data catalogs (metadata) [geeks]
* Web interface for accessing the data [citizens]
* Data Bulk download
* Persistent identifier
  "Don't break the past. Plan for the future."
  http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Persistence
  http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html
* Site Owner/Manager contacts information
  "Hello I want to speak to a human person"
* Public Issue Tracker
  "My questions and the handling of them is public"
* Transparency on data which are not available
  "Show me what I can't access/see and why"
* Data Access Policy in time
  "OK. I can access these data, but in the future? What is the scheme for accessing them. Think updates on the information"
* Better identification of the contained information.
  "Metadata are keys. Schemas are important."
* Open to citizen participation.
  "Let me fork that data sets and upload it back to the system.
   Keeping the source, but having enriched versions by other people.
   Is quality on issue? Is chaos an opportunity?
   Is there a need for peer reviews."
* Legal framework for massive sharing.
* Metadata now, even if data are imperfect.
* More social features on the sites.
  "Give me a human to talk with, give me a way to share."
* Dedicated Federal Gov Human resources for open data
  "0 CAD budget is not a solution. Software doesn't solve everything."
* Information about data outside of the current site.
* Linked data, linked data, linked data.
  "If data have persistent URIs, are well identified,
   have defined schemas, etc… Well, we can play baby."
* Data griot, curator.
  "People who have the ability to talk about the data.
   to dig the well and introduce it to people on a blog.
   See http://blog.bnf.fr/gallica/ for example"


A good reference of walk the talk is what has been done by Paul Downey @psd and his team for GDS
  http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/
  They didn't only created a wonderful work, they also talked about everything they were doing during the modifications.

The GDS Design Principles should be in all administration offices.
 https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples

        • 1 Start with needs*
        • 2 Do less
        • 3 Design with data
        • 4 Do the hard work to make it simple
        • 5 Iterate. Then iterate again.
        • 6 Build for inclusion
        • 7 Understand context
        • 8 Build digital services, not websites
        • 9 Be consistent, not uniform
        • 10 Make things open: it makes things better





## What are the data that you would need

* Infrastructures (roads, walkable, navigable, etc ways)
* Transports
* Data schema (for enabling more creation, participation)
* Immigration data
* NPO and Corporations Information - Intercorporate Ownership
* Spending and Budget data
* Postcode (ahahah lalalala)


## Some discussions

There's a need to have a strong and better definition inside government services about the public commons. Data should not be by contract sold to private corporations and making them inaccessible to the public.

Using the user input, searches on data.gc.ca not for Marketing SEO but improve the data organization and/or missing information for finding it.

The new site *should* be available at the end of June. Using opensource tools from Open Knowledge Foundation. W3C WCAG and Mobile Friendly.


### Other questions

We didn't have time to address these two questions.

* What would be the interesting standards to use?
* What are the data licenses required for the data?



--
Karl Dubost
http://www.la-grange.net/karl/

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[Glen Newton]

Awesome!

One thing I would like added to your initial list:
- Data provenance: where the data came from; the data flow &
transformations (if any) from raw to what I am getting. What was taken
out is included in this...

Great stuff!
Thanks,
 Glen


On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 7:16 PM, Karl Dubost <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I was participating this morning with a few others to an open data discussion moderated by David Eaves and the participation of Sylvain Latour on Open Data and the Federal Government. David asked me to send my notes. I think someone else took also notes.
>
> Share !
>
>
> The morning was beautiful, the tree leaves gold, floating moments with a strong desire to follow this beautiful person passing by the windows. But… hey we were here to discuss open data. So I took notes.
>
> I removed the name of the 15 participants, because I'm not sure they are comfortable having their names shared on the mailing-list and archived until the dawn of times^W Web.
>
>
> # Open Data
>
>
> ## Participants
>
> (…)
>
> ## What are the type of features you would like to see on data.gc.ca ?
>
> (break out in small groups and then list à la Prévert following our discussions)
>
> * API for Data catalogs (metadata) [geeks]
> * Web interface for accessing the data [citizens]
> * Data Bulk download
> * Persistent identifier
>   "Don't break the past. Plan for the future."
>   http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Persistence
>   http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html
> * Site Owner/Manager contacts information
>   "Hello I want to speak to a human person"
> * Public Issue Tracker
>   "My questions and the handling of them is public"
> * Transparency on data which are not available
>   "Show me what I can't access/see and why"
> * Data Access Policy in time
>   "OK. I can access these data, but in the future? What is the scheme for accessing them. Think updates on the information"
> * Better identification of the contained information.
>   "Metadata are keys. Schemas are important."
> * Open to citizen participation.
>   "Let me fork that data sets and upload it back to the system.
>    Keeping the source, but having enriched versions by other people.
>    Is quality on issue? Is chaos an opportunity?
>    Is there a need for peer reviews."
> * Legal framework for massive sharing.
> * Metadata now, even if data are imperfect.
> * More social features on the sites.
>   "Give me a human to talk with, give me a way to share."
> * Dedicated Federal Gov Human resources for open data
>   "0 CAD budget is not a solution. Software doesn't solve everything."
> * Information about data outside of the current site.
> * Linked data, linked data, linked data.
>   "If data have persistent URIs, are well identified,
>    have defined schemas, etc… Well, we can play baby."
> * Data griot, curator.
>   "People who have the ability to talk about the data.
>    to dig the well and introduce it to people on a blog.
>    See http://blog.bnf.fr/gallica/ for example"
>
>
> A good reference of walk the talk is what has been done by Paul Downey @psd and his team for GDS
>   http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/
>   They didn't only created a wonderful work, they also talked about everything they were doing during the modifications.
>
> The GDS Design Principles should be in all administration offices.
>  https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples
>
>         • 1 Start with needs*
>         • 2 Do less
>         • 3 Design with data
>         • 4 Do the hard work to make it simple
>         • 5 Iterate. Then iterate again.
>         • 6 Build for inclusion
>         • 7 Understand context
>         • 8 Build digital services, not websites
>         • 9 Be consistent, not uniform
>         • 10 Make things open: it makes things better
>
>
>
>
>
> ## What are the data that you would need
>
> * Infrastructures (roads, walkable, navigable, etc ways)
> * Transports
> * Data schema (for enabling more creation, participation)
> * Immigration data
> * NPO and Corporations Information - Intercorporate Ownership
> * Spending and Budget data
> * Postcode (ahahah lalalala)
>
>
> ## Some discussions
>
> There's a need to have a strong and better definition inside government services about the public commons. Data should not be by contract sold to private corporations and making them inaccessible to the public.
>
> Using the user input, searches on data.gc.ca not for Marketing SEO but improve the data organization and/or missing information for finding it.
>
> The new site *should* be available at the end of June. Using opensource tools from Open Knowledge Foundation. W3C WCAG and Mobile Friendly.
>
>
> ### Other questions
>
> We didn't have time to address these two questions.
>
> * What would be the interesting standards to use?
> * What are the data licenses required for the data?
>
>
>
> --
> Karl Dubost
> http://www.la-grange.net/karl/
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

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http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
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_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss