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Making Data More Accessible »

Open Data Principles

Why Is This Idea Important?: Except in cases where there is a legitimate privacy or national security interest, government data should be available for re-use by the people who paid for it. It's important that the data be machine-processable in bulk so that outside programmers can create new, more useful interfaces to it, much as consumer applications like Google Maps have created new valuable applications on top of government mapping and GPS data. The data should be in its original form, rather than in derivative formats. If the original format is a proprietary file format, data should be provided in multiple formats if possib;e (e.g. Microsoft word file, PDF file), rather than just one. But if only one is available, it should be the format in which the data was created. (Agencies often release PDFs of documents only, which are difficult to process programmatically.) Data release should be timely, as immediate as possible, so it doesn't grow stale before it can be used.)

Adopt the open data principles articulated by Carl Malamud and team. From http://resource.org/8_principles.html

Government data shall be considered open if it is made public in a way that complies with the principles below:

1. Complete: All public data is made available. Public data is data that is not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations.

2. Primary: Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.

3. Timely: Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.

4. Accessible: Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.

5. Machine processable: Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.

6. Non-discriminatory: Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.

7. Non-proprietary: Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.

8. License-free: Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed.

Compliance must be reviewable.

Definitions

1. “public” means:

The Open Government Data principles do not address what data should be public and open. Privacy, security, and other concerns may legally (and rightly) prevent data sets from being shared with the public. Rather, these principles specify the conditions public data should meet to be considered “open.”

2. “data” means:

Electronically stored information or recordings. Examples include documents, databases of contracts, transcripts of hearings, and audio/visual recordings of events.

While non-electronic information resources, such as physical artifacts, are not subject to the Open Government Data principles, it is always encouraged that such resources be made available electronically to the extent feasible.

3. “reviewable” means:

A contact person must be designated to respond to people trying to use the data.

A contact person must be designated to respond to complaints about violations of the principles.

An administrative or judicial court must have the jurisdiction to review whether the agency has applied these principles appropriately.

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Submitted by tim 2 years ago

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Comments (2)

  1. Robert David STEELE Vivas said:

    Outstanding! Learned from your post. See Open Source Agency as an implementation that would embrace your own idea within the everything open philosophy.

    2 years ago
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  2. silona said:

    whoops - hey Tim, John Wonderlich also posted this...

    hmm me thinks they need a better interface to check for dups!

    2 years ago
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