Re: [OSM-talk] presenting the case for open data to local government?
On Oct 15, 2013, at 10:20 AM, Michal Migurski wrote: I want to put together a succinct and well-documented argument that I can send along to a city council member/ mayor/ city manager/ etc. Anything you're willing to pass along (comments, suggestions, something you've written up, research, etc) would be much appreciated. The cities we work with at Code for America are already pretty much on-board with open data, but the GIS departments and data owners often have reservations. They worry about how the inevitable mistakes in the data will be perceived, about liability, and about a wider community of data users complaining to them. ... Just to follow up on this, last night we got some newsworthy closure on open data policy in Oakland: http://oaklandlocal.com/2013/10/oakland-city-council-approves-open-data-policy-community-voices/ Tonight, the Oakland City Council unanimously approved Councilmember Libby Schaaf’s Open Data Policy, requiring Oakland’s public data to be proactively made available in useable formats, which will empower the citizens of Oakland to better access information and work to improve government. The pass by consent with no discussion or concern is part of a longer story. Last year, Oakland city council voted on a similar resolution, and ended up eviscerating it. All resolutions were replaced with a decision to kick the can down the road by studying costs (that's bad). http://teczno.com/s/18l What happened in the intervening year? The cost estimate for putting up a Socrata-run open data site came back low enough that no further city council approval was required. People inside city hall continued to push for open data. Developers and activists outside city hall (http://openoakland.org) met regularly and demonstrated the value and applications of open data. This success was not the result of any particularly documented argument, but the sustained push of a community group. -mike. michal migurski- contact info and pgp key: sf/cahttp://mike.teczno.com/contact.html ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] presenting the case for open data to local government?
Daniel - I don't have an open data manifesto for you, but a couple of examples of where government is engaging with OpenStreetMap, which always comes with some understanding of the value of opening data. Earlier this year I've done quick research on who's using OSM in gov and summarized what I found here: http://openstreetmap.us/2013/04/openstreetmap-in-government/ - this has a US focus and there is more going on an international level. Robert Soden (GFDRR/World Bank) and Muki Haklay (University College London) are working on lining up resources for doing research and writing a paper on OSM for gov, you might want to connect with them. Mike's already pointed out the changewithin feed we're using for notifying NYC of OSM data changes, this is in the context of NYC gov, OSM NYC and MapBox collaborating around a building and address import. For me that's an exciting opportunity to find out how we can use OSM as a geo collaboration platform for citizens and government. https://www.mapbox.com/blog/nyc-and-openstreetmap-cooperating-through-open-data/ I've posted a round up of our first community event last weekend in NYC here: http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/lxbarth/diary/20209 The Canadian mapping agency is using a similar mechanism to maintain CanVec. On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 2:44 PM, Michal Migurski m...@teczno.com wrote: On Oct 15, 2013, at 10:20 AM, Michal Migurski wrote: I want to put together a succinct and well-documented argument that I can send along to a city council member/ mayor/ city manager/ etc. Anything you're willing to pass along (comments, suggestions, something you've written up, research, etc) would be much appreciated. The cities we work with at Code for America are already pretty much on-board with open data, but the GIS departments and data owners often have reservations. They worry about how the inevitable mistakes in the data will be perceived, about liability, and about a wider community of data users complaining to them. ... Just to follow up on this, last night we got some newsworthy closure on open data policy in Oakland: http://oaklandlocal.com/2013/10/oakland-city-council-approves-open-data-policy-community-voices/ Tonight, the Oakland City Council unanimously approved Councilmember Libby Schaaf’s Open Data Policy, requiring Oakland’s public data to be proactively made available in useable formats, which will empower the citizens of Oakland to better access information and work to improve government. The pass by consent with no discussion or concern is part of a longer story. Last year, Oakland city council voted on a similar resolution, and ended up eviscerating it. All resolutions were replaced with a decision to kick the can down the road by studying costs (that's bad). http://teczno.com/s/18l What happened in the intervening year? The cost estimate for putting up a Socrata-run open data site came back low enough that no further city council approval was required. People inside city hall continued to push for open data. Developers and activists outside city hall ( http://openoakland.org) met regularly and demonstrated the value and applications of open data. This success was not the result of any particularly documented argument, but the sustained push of a community group. -mike. michal migurski- contact info and pgp key: sf/cahttp://mike.teczno.com/contact.html ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] presenting the case for open data to local government?
Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone had experience conveying to local government all the reasons for opening up data. The city where I grew up has a clunky GIS web portal with which you can only view data. A neighboring city will provide data but their data release form includes the following: The data is provided solely for the use of the requesting party and may not be made available to anyone else. I want to put together a succinct and well-documented argument that I can send along to a city council member/ mayor/ city manager/ etc. Anything you're willing to pass along (comments, suggestions, something you've written up, research, etc) would be much appreciated. Thanks, Dan ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] presenting the case for open data to local government?
Hey Dan, I realize these aren't arguments per se but solid people to talk to. You may want to hit up Elliot Plack elliott.pl...@gmail.com, who works for Baltimore County GIS and recently helped open the county's GIS data under public domain for contribution to OSM. Another high level contact might be Colin Reilly https://twitter.com/ColinReillyNY at NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications who helped open the NYC building footprint data in a practical way. -- ian twitter.com/ian_villeda (https://twitter.com/ian_villeda) On Thursday, October 10, 2013 at 9:27 PM, Daniel Joseph wrote: Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone had experience conveying to local government all the reasons for opening up data. The city where I grew up has a clunky GIS web portal with which you can only view data. A neighboring city will provide data but their data release form includes the following: The data is provided solely for the use of the requesting party and may not be made available to anyone else. I want to put together a succinct and well-documented argument that I can send along to a city council member/ mayor/ city manager/ etc. Anything you're willing to pass along (comments, suggestions, something you've written up, research, etc) would be much appreciated. Thanks, Dan ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org (mailto:talk@openstreetmap.org) https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] presenting the case for open data to local government?
On Oct 10, 2013, at 6:27 PM, Daniel Joseph wrote: Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone had experience conveying to local government all the reasons for opening up data. The city where I grew up has a clunky GIS web portal with which you can only view data. A neighboring city will provide data but their data release form includes the following: The data is provided solely for the use of the requesting party and may not be made available to anyone else. I want to put together a succinct and well-documented argument that I can send along to a city council member/ mayor/ city manager/ etc. Anything you're willing to pass along (comments, suggestions, something you've written up, research, etc) would be much appreciated. The cities we work with at Code for America are already pretty much on-board with open data, but the GIS departments and data owners often have reservations. They worry about how the inevitable mistakes in the data will be perceived, about liability, and about a wider community of data users complaining to them. Do you have the bandwidth to hold hands a bit, and offer a chance for cities to accept data changes from the broader community? Many of the OSM-based change detection projects like OWL and Changewithin might help with this. I've been working on an update to Changewithin designed to address cities beyond New York, for example: https://github.com/migurski/changewithin Some chit-chat on the subject here: https://github.com/osmlab/changewithin/pull/14 -mike. michal migurski- contact info and pgp key: sf/cahttp://mike.teczno.com/contact.html ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
