It won’t necessarily be an easy ride.
A small group of citizens, open data advocates and city staffers gathered in a Brant Street community centre for a frank focus session on open data and open government Wednesday night.
It was the fifth of six consultations aimed at engaging the community around “e-Government’” which the city defines as: “the use of information technology to directly engage customers in the provision of government services and information.”
Wednesday’s session focused on open data. In an opening presentation, the city pointed out that they are currently providing about 30 services via the web, but acknowledged they still have a long way to go.
Their audience told them they have an even longer way to go with regards to opening their data.
“You do have public data — but it’s not open. You don’t have an open data policy,” Nik Garkusha, of Open Halton, told city staff.
As the group debated the risks and benefits of providing data in various formats and via various different channels, Garkusha urged the city not to get hung up on those details. “Let’s just get started somewhere — don’t let that slow you down.”
He mentioned transit as a high value data set and a good place to start, and also suggested data on Burlington parks as “low hanging fruit.”
Garkusha said that with the park data, for example, developers could easily provide citizens with an app that would allow them to ask questions like: “Show me the parks that are near this address and have tennis courts and a washroom.”
He pointed to a website that lists more than 150 existing apps that provide transit information in other cities.
“You already have that transit data. If you open it up, there are 150 apps that could use it.”
City staff raised a number of issues: costs of opening data, liability for the accuracy and timeliness of their data.
But the group urged them to look at the benefits and to understand that it’s not the city’s data — it’s public data.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Bill Dunphy
Quelle/Source: THe Hamilton Spectator, 06.07.2011
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