Once data is published online, it must be maintained, curated and loved, and this is where you come in. The Canadian Open Data (read Open Access to data) movement needs information professionals, librarians and archivists. The community will thank you for your contribution, as there has been an obvious gap in care and upkeep of Open Data in Canada (especially municipal data).
Take the following stories about Open Data and insert your skills, expertise and passion. I know the outcomes will be stronger and longer lasting if you get involved. Then start contributing by browsing any of the cities' Open Data websites. Check for standards, metadata, long-term strategies and scalable catalogues; you'll notice there is a lot of work to be done.
What can Open Data do?
My partner, Edward, was reading an article in the local paper about shawarma restaurants and their food inspection reports. He realized that this information was contained in an online database, but he wasn't able to find it until I mentioned it was called the "Eat Safe" database http://www.ottawa.ca/cgi-bin/search/inspections/q.pl?ss= home_en&qt=fsi_en. He was keen to see this data become more easily discoverable.
It just so happens that local developers are using their spare time to shed light on public information such as the Eat Safe database in ways that data owners have yet to develop, whether because of lack of time, few resources, or other reasons. Edward and I took up the challenge to get data out in the open by organizing two hackfests at Ottawa City Hall (www.opendataottawa.ca/). A hackfest is a form of community outreach event benefiting local citizens by not only educating people about data (such as the Eat Safe database), but also by building real applications and relationships between various groups in the city.
Take the example of a group of developers from London, Ontario, who built a site that repackages reports from the London-Middlesex health unit's restaurant reporting system. After uncovering the location and reporting data for local restaurants from a database, they added value to this data by mapping it onto a dynamic map and making the map available for free through a website.Web users can now access information about their local restaurants, finding out which have passed their inspections and which have infractions.
As librarians, you know better than any other professionals that if you don't use a resource, you will lose it. For about two months this past winter, the City of Ottawa's transit IT department piloted an Open Data project to share real time GPS bus data with local Ottawa developers. This data, along with the unique skill sets of the developers, made it possible to create applications that could tell a user at any stop in the city where the next bus actually was, not just when it was scheduled to arrive.
An unrecognized need - and I assure you, Open Data is an unrecognized need - is a tricky concept. You don't know you have the need until you have it, and by that time you have to hope that it's still available. Unfortunately, the citizens of Ottawa are left wondering if the bus is just around the corner because the real-time bus data pilot project ended and it looks like the data won't be available for the next little while.
What is Open Data?
Open Data has the power to transform unused information into useful tools.
Open Data is machine readable (raw in the case of geographically based information such as longitude and latitude, or aggregated in cases where data about people is involved). This data is packaged in file formats (think the opposite of a PDF) such as .shp, .csv and regular old spreadsheet files from which it can easily be extracted and analyzed.
Whatever the file format, the data must be licensed for reuse (adding value or reselling). Lots of debate exists around current Open Data licences. Check out the suggestions for improvement for the current licences on David Eaves's blog (http://eaves.ca/) or by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (www.cippic.ca/). Recollect.net is an example of a site that resells open garbage data in the form of a friendly reminder service. This service would not be possible without a licence that allows resale of data.
Open Data creates a place for new discussions of information sources such as restaurant reports and garbage and transit schedules. These new narratives are the result of greater awareness of existing but hard to find information (such as the Eat Safe database) or new ways of visualizing and interacting with this information (like mapping). The new narratives allow users to engage with their surroundings and data publishers in new ways.
Canada's Open Data scene has been expanding as the concept steadily gains popularity, from British Columbia (the forerunner both at the provincial and municipal level) to Montreal (the hopeful city). For the last three years, city councils have been declaring their data open. Influence for more openness comes from the work of other Open Data cities and the Open Data movement in the United States (www.data.gov). The Canadian government has its own portal, too (www.data.gc.ca). Another goal of sharing Open Data online is as an alternative service delivery method that removes the barriers to accessing popular electronic formats.
How can Open Data be used?
Portals, downloads, .shp files: what do you need to know to navigate the Open Data landscape? Open Data is published in portals or websites. Sites exist at the federal, provincial (British Columbia's Ministry of the Environment), local (Nanaimo, Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, London,Windsor) and international levels (World Bank). These catalogues or portals comply with standards and are made up of descriptions, metadata and links directly to data files. One format you will not find in an Open Data catalogue is a PDF file because this file type is not machine readable or open. It is impossible to easily reuse the data contained within a typical PDF file because it's an image file of the data.
Since tax dollars already go into the creation and maintenance of garbage schedules, restaurant reports and other public information, access online does not cost citizens.Where they may have to pay for the information is if entrepreneurs are successful in creating new business models where value is added to data. Several Canadian cities held contests to inspire innovation and entrepreneurship using Open Data. For examples, check out British Columbia's Apps for Climate Action (www.livesmartbc.ca/A4CA/), Edmonton's Open Data application contest (www.edmonton.ca/ city_government/open_data/apps4 edmonton.aspx) and Ottawa's Apps4Ottawa (www.apps4 ottawa.ca/). To show how popular Open Data is, the City of Ottawa contest gave out $50,000 to application developers for their hard work.
Harnessing the power of Open Data
Open Data is not a new idea. It has existed in Canada for quite some time and it will continue to be important, especially at the municipal level, for the foreseeable future. But there's work to be done and relationships to be built among government, citizens and data developers.Who knows what innovative ideas are still waiting to lift off? Are you ready?
Here are five ways to harness the power of Open Data.
1. Release your catalogue, library or organization's data
Need an application or mobile site? Don't have the funding to build your own mobile application? Curious about barcode or location-based technologies? Jump-start the creation and development process for your own projects by releasing your data. Don't forget to advertise that you're releasing it. You never know whose interest you will pique.
2. Provide data resource discovery services
Be a primary electronic information resource hub for questions like "I read about this new bike lane in the paper. How do I find the map and voting data relating to this council decision?" Be the go-to source for data set knowledge, then write, blog and tweet about your knowledge. Researchers, developers and interested citizens don't automatically know that municipal, provincial, federal or international data sets exist. Save these users time by reading up on Open Data and useful data sets. You never know when someone will be looking for just the right piece of data. Allow direct access to data sets by pulling from Open Data catalogues and include links back to the data sets. Right now, Library and Archives Canada links to its own Open Data sets and to the federal portal as well (www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/open data/index-e.html).
3. App discovery
Be a source of links to applications built using Open Data. Add applications, websites and links to your library catalogue. Market these tools by blogging about their developers, write about the applications' usefulness in your newsletters, or get users to rate apps and teach each other how to use apps.
4. Sponsor an event
Try sponsoring a contest for your local tech community or invite the community into the library by hosting a hackfest or providing space and Internet access for an event. Not sure your community is technical?Why not organize an event around data literacy?
5. Showcase examples of data journalism and visualizations
Check out the Guardian's data blog (http://www.guardian. co.uk/news/datablog), hacks and hackers' events, and examples of data visualization. Share these examples with your users and challenge them to see what discussions can come out of this information.
[Author Affiliation]
Mary Beth Baker works as an information specialist for Citizenship and Immigration Canada in Ottawa. As one of the organizers of Open Data Ottawa, she helped put together International Open Data Hack Day, when 76 cities from around the world collaborated over 12 hours to reuse Open Data.
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