Small presentation on open data and it's real impact given in Dayton, OH to the Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA)

1. May 21, 2015
Open Data:
Movement or a Joke?
@davecaraway

2. First got into the open data scene by scratching
my own itch: how to build a mapping
application that required a lot of different data
points, all of which turned out to be difficult to
get access to.

4. Open Data: Digital information which is
available in a non-proprietary, machine-
readable format to use and modify without
restriction. It preferably can be read within a
browser using javascript.

5. • Common, Non-proprietary, Machine-Readable
Formats
• JSON, JSONL, XML, CSV, HTML
• CSV is the most common format
• PDF is NOT an open data format
• Micro$oft office is NOT an open data format
** PDF and Word are the most common publication formats by
government **

6. • Open Data is delivered two ways
• flat file
• web service (also called API or application
programming interface)

7. • Open Data can be used to
• power an application
• create a visualization
• write journals / articles / papers

9. • Any person, company, organization,
government CAN produce open data
• So far, federal government has lead the way
on open data

10. • Open Government Initiative (2009):
Whitehouse.gov/open
• Transparency promotes accountability
• Participation allows people to contribute
ideas
• Collaboration encourages cooperation
within government and with industry
• Data.gov launch in May 2009 with 47
datasets

12. 134,349 datasets & collections
349 citizen apps
90 agencies
409 APIs
(As of December 2014)

13. MetaData: Data ABOUT the data such as
• who produced it
• how often it’s updated
• how to ask for updates
• who to report problems to

14. Project Open Data

15. • Open Data Policy (2013)
• Open data as the default
• Agencies to create comprehensive data
inventories
• Data.gov harvests data inventories
• See: https://project-open-data.cio.gov/policy-
memo/

20. Is open data a movement? Yes

25. Is open data a joke? Depends on who
you ask

26. State and local government are all
carrot, no stick
- open data is vulnerability
- constituents don’t ask for or utilize
the available data

27. Open data that’s produced has
questionable reliability, low
responsiveness
- industry offers much better reliability
than government, but why should
they offer data for free?
- The same question could be asked of
open source software and hardware.

28. • Open data should be fluid and
ongoing
• Open data should be expected and
demanded if not present
• Open data should be useful, curated,
clean and comprehensive

29. fogmine.com
@davecaraway