IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

State regulators should consider how they can unlock additional data sets to enable the development of sophisticated choice engines that help consumers make wiser purchasing decisions in economic areas where the market lacks transparency.

Choice engines — interactive, online tools that use machine-readable data to help consumers make more informed decisions — are a private-sector staple. E-commerce sites, e.g., Amazon and Netflix, famously use recommendation algorithms that help consumers decide what product to buy or what movie to watch based on millions of consumer reviews. But state regulators have largely overlooked these tools, instead focusing their efforts on making specific information available to consumers, such as airline baggage fees or home mortgage terms. Such disclosures can also lead to improved business practices, such as when food manufacturers reduced the amount of trans fat in their products after the Food and Drug Administration began requiring them to include this information on nutrition labels. However, regulators should also consider how they can unlock additional data sets to enable the development of sophisticated choice engines that help consumers make wiser purchasing decisions in areas of the economy where the market lacks transparency.

For all of its advantages, cost isn't always one of them. But there are ways to keep them down.

Los Angeles County announced this January the creation of an open data website that would allow anyone to find information on a host of county government programs, from budget information to welfare data to crime statistics. Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas told the Los Angeles Times the county was about to become the “largest municipal government in the nation” to make its data easily accessible to the public.

An in-depth look at five interactive websites that offer fresh views of data.

When Stephen Goldsmith was deputy mayor of New York City in 2010 and 2011, the city was working on processes to make data available to the public. “We have now gone from fulfilling that transparency goal, which has its own value, to thinking more fully about open data in its role for creating better community outcomes,” he said. That means considering how a sister agency could use data or how community groups could use it to identify and solve problems in their own neighborhood.

“You begin to think about data as driving value, as contrasted to data as transparency for its own sake,” he said. “Then visualization becomes critical. In fact, data without visualization is barely open data at all.”

Socrata's Safouen Rabah, VP of products and marketing, offers four pieces of advice for governments launching open data 2.0 initiatives.

Safouen Rabah is Socrata’s vice president of marketing and specializes in bringing the open data company’s new technologies to market. Since 2010 Rabah has worked with governments at all levels to spearhead open data projects and initiatives. Some of these include the company’s recent Open Data Network, signature data portals and a suite of apps that includes the recently launched financial transparency suite. Asked how governments can write the next chapter to open data, Rabah has this to say.

Mayor Ed Murray’s executive order requires new standards of governance and policy around open data across all city departments.

After more than five years of dating, Seattle and open data finally tied the knot. Mayor Ed Murray signed an executive order before a crowd of reporters, city employees and constructive-minded coders at co-working space Impact Hub Seattle on Feb. 26 that calls for new standards of governance and policy around open data across all city departments.

As the open data publishing market heats up, all levels of government have more partners to choose from.

The Louisville Metro Government in Kentucky started its open data efforts in 2011 with a homegrown Web portal, and is now automating the publishing processes and using the data for performance improvement. As it does so, Louisville is working with a handful of vendors specializing in open data catalog publishing. “We are at a crossroads,” said Jason Ballard, director of the Department of Information Technology. The department has partnered with a company called NuCivic, which is developing an open source platform called DKAN, and is working with Socrata, the open data publishing vendor, on performance management.

The White House has partnered with agencies, tech companies and others to launch the "Opportunity Project" initiative, complete with an open data site that assists citizens with 12 new apps for jobs, housing and more.

On March 7, the White House released a trove of open datasets and tools to cultivate job growth, transportation, education and affordable housing under an initiative it calls the Opportunity Project.

At a morning press conference, U.S. CTO Megan Smith unveiled the project, saying it is meant to promote economic mobility using modern digital services and data that helps cities and residents enhance their quality of life. The vision, she said, was to create a joint platform with local communities, businesses, technologists and other groups to help residents prosper. The initiative drew support from variety of cities and tech companies that worked with the White House to create 12 different Web apps on the Opportunity Project’s site, at Opportunity.census.gov.

The inaugural event brought together government trailblazers, entrepreneurs, companies, advocates and civic innovators using federal open data across all sectors to discuss the continuation of open data progress going forward.

As part of the Data Foundation's fourth annual open data conference, Data Transparency 2016, held Wednesday, Sept. 28, in Washington, D.C., the White House hosted its first-ever Open Data Innovation Summit. The goals? To highlight the Obama administration’s work in opening U.S. government data, to celebrate a number of data sharing initiatives and to discuss plans to continue open data progress going forward.

A vocal minority of government and civic activists say open data is the future, but the public is largely unconcerned.

Every day there’s a new initiative, portal or project that intends to transform the life of a city’s residents using the power of data. Just yesterday, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced a $42 million initiative to incubate open data projects in 100 mid-sized cities. But a unique report published by the Pew Research Center on April 21 shows that the public’s awareness and enthusiasm for open data does not match that of government’s.

A vocal minority of government and civic activists say open data is the future, but the public is largely unconcerned.

Every day there’s a new initiative, portal or project that intends to transform the life of a city’s residents using the power of data. Just yesterday, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced a $42 million initiative to incubate open data projects in 100 mid-sized cities. But a unique report published by the Pew Research Center on April 21 shows that the public’s awareness and enthusiasm for open data does not match that of government’s.