= What data are we talking about? = Data generated by goverments or organizations providing public services and of interest to the public, community groups or private enterprise.
Theorical availability of the data
- Some data is legislated as public
- Some data should be public for public interest reasons, but isn't legislated as such
- Public data that is not being made available
- Some data shouldn't be public (for privacy or security reasons)
Actual availability of the data
- Data isn't accessible to the public
- Data is available, but there is a fee
- Data is available, but only by special request
- Data is available, but licence restricts redistribution and use
Data formats
- Data is not available electronically (paper only)
- Data is available electronically, but is in a non-reusable / or queryable format - e.g. PDF
- Data is available electronically, and convertable to an open and/or queryable format
- Data is available in an open and/or queryable format
Types of data of interest
- GIS data (boundaries, infrastructure, statistics, etc.)
- Democratic process data: proceedings, voting records of councilors, poling stations, electoral spending etc.
- Administrative data: Permits, property prices, municipal evaluation and other administrative data
- Transit information: schedules, stop locations, usage levels and performance
- PostalCode Data
- Census Areas
= What actions do we want government entities to take =
- Make data available
- Make the data free (ie no cost)
- Ease licencing restrictions (ideally, public domain)
- Generate data in better formats - often better even for their own use - (e.g tabular formats)
- …
