1. The Uses of Open Data
Andrew Stott
UK Transparency Board
formerly Director, data.gov.uk
& UK Deputy GCIO
@dirdigeng
Skopje, Macedonia andrew.stott@dirdigeng.com
21 March 2012 0.91

2. A World of Open Data
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3. 3

4. Federal Government, USA
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5. United Kingdom Government
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6. Australia
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7. Moldova
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8. Kenya – first in Africa
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9. World Bank
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10. London, United Kingdom
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11. City of Vancouver, Canada
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12. City of Rennes, France
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13. City of San Francisco, USA
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14. City of Vienna, Austria
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15. A World of Open Data
Now over 200 governmental Open Data sites
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16. Some UK Examples
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17. New economic and social value
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18. Cleansing and organising data
Business Intelligence from item-level
purchasing data 18

19. Information services to the public
Weather, transport and
public facilities among
most downloaded
Smartphone Apps 19

20. Data Mining
 Prescription data
 Patient outcome
data
 Longitudinal health
records
 Pupil-level
education records
20

21. Operational efficiency/optimisation
Real time info on road delays and roadworks allows
logistics efficiency 21

22. Financial Products
 Weather Risk
Management
(US: $4bn annual
contracts value)
 Flood insurance
on detailed
topography and
river records
22

23. Customer attraction and retention
estate
agents/
realtors
Financial
services
builders and
other local
services
Local house prices attract potential customers 23

24. Public Service data as a hub for civil
engagement
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25. Improving Public Services
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26. Nation-wide Crime Data
Vision: CrimeArrestConvictionSentence 26

27. Crime Data to your mobile phone
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28. Crowd-sourcing to improve official data
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29. Government is a data user too
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30. Transparent and Accountable
Government
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31. Transparent and Accountable Government
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32. Pressure to justify and restrain costs
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33. Transparency promoting sustainability
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34. Public scrutiny of contracts
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http://www.otvorenezmluvy.sk/

35. Data Journalism
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36. Lessons learned
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37. Top-level political support essential
“Greater transparency “Public information
will enable the public does not belong to
to hold politicians and Government, it
public bodies to belongs to the
account” public.”
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38. Strong civil society ―demand-side‖ vital too
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39. Passionate team important too!
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40. Deliver incrementally
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41. Ensure clear, common, licensing
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42. It’s not (just) an IT project!
CIOs can give leadership, but
 CIOs/IT Directors often do not “own” the data
 Key issues are business, policy and politics:
don’t let policy makers brand it as “just IT”
 Keep the IT simple
‒ Established open source (eg CKAN+Drupal)
or commercial products (eg Socrata)
‒ use existing contracts/infrastructure with
niche firms
‒ host data on existing websites or on public
Cloud 42

43. Don’t accept ―no‖ — work out ―how‖
 It’s held separately by n different organisations, and we can’t join it up
 It will make people angry and scared without helping them
 It is technically impossible
 We do not own the data
 The data is just too large to be published and used
 Our website cannot hold files this large
 We know the data is wrong
 We know the data is wrong, and people will tell us where it is wrong
 We know the data is wrong, and we will waste valuable resources
inputting the corrections people send us
 People will draw superficial conclusions from the data without
understanding the wider picture
 People will construct league tables from it
 It will generate more Freedom of Information requests
 It will cost too much to put it into a standard format
 It will distort the market
 Our IT suppliers will charge us a fortune to do an ad hoc extract
43

44. It’s not just about new data
Scope for “Open Data” also includes data
previously “published” but …
 in non-reusable format
 with restricted licence
 only aimed at specialist groups
 only for payment
 only in response to requests
 difficult to find
data.gov.uk contains a lot of data which
nobody knew was already published 44

45. The importance of location
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46. Data Quality
 Release of data will
reveal issues of data
quality
 Celebrate greater
checking of data!
 Use as stimulus to
 Measure
 Prioritise
 Improve
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47. Continuously engage with developers
Photos: @memespring, 47
@MadLabUK, @paul_clarke

48. .. and highlight applications, not data
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49. Open Government Data Re-Use Model
Government Business/Civil Society Consumer
Government should not do
more than strictly necessary
Improve Gov data
Aggregation Processing,
Marketing
Data Creation and editing and End Use
and delivery
Organisation packaging
Specialist Specialist Specialist Specialist
Services Services Services Services
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50. Open Data Institute: its mission
 Develop capability of UK
businesses to exploit value of
Open Data
 Engage developers/small
businesses to build Open Data
supply chains and commercial
outlets
 Help public sector use its own
data more effectively
 Ensure academic research in
Open Data technologies
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51. Summary
 Open Data has Triple Objectives:
Transparency + Public Services + Economics
 Varied, innovative business/social models
 ―Push‖ and ―Pull‖ of data
 Business and Civil Society engagement is
essential
‒ Important to grow open data “ecosystem”
 Data flow can be both ways
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52. Questions?
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53. End
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