Open DataHighs, Lows and Big Unknowns

Tom HeathHead of Research

Open Data Institute@tommyh

My Open Data Story

A Developmental Perspective

The (Increasing) Highs

Launched March 2006 – http://freeourdata.org.uk/

Launched October 2007 – http://data.dc.gov/

source: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/feb/05/mps-expenses-houseofcommons

Launched May 2009 – http://data.gov/

Appointed June 2009Image by Elon University, CC-BY 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/elonuniversity/4560487761/

In Beta September 2009 – http://data.gov.uk/

Launched April 2010 – (at big long url...)

Launched September 2010 – (another long url)

Published November 2011

Published June 2012

Launched in Beta September 2012 – http://data.gov.in/

Official Launch December 2012 – http://theodi.org/

Made? Signed? Ordered? May 2013

Signed June 2013

Signed June 2013

Released October 2013 – https://index.okfn.org/

Released October 2013 – http://opendatabarometer.org/

What did we get right?

● Strong grassroots campaigns

● Top-level (cross-party) political support

● Appealing to multiple (different) priorities

The Lows

by Freefoto, CC-BY-NC

Big Unknowns

will “open wash” lead to “peak open”?

Image by Olga Tarkovskiy, CC-BY-SA 3.0http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hype-Cycle-General.png

Image by Ulrich Atz, CC-BY-SA 3.0http://www.flickr.com/photos/elonuniversity/4560487761/

a “personal data chernobyl”

“care.data”

indifference, losing momentum

→ the evidence basemailto:tom.heath@theodi.org

→ commercial uptake

→ ongoing government commitments

data quality, provenance, versioning, description

web-scale discovery and reuse (inc. licensing!)

http://data.dc.gov

So what can you do?

How are you using open data?

And what have you learned?

Questions?

Acknowledgements

● Fred Saunderson and Max Heimstädt

– UK Open Data Timeline● Tim Davies

– Open Data Timeline● Ulrich Atz

– “Big, Open and Personal” Venn diagram