Earlier this month, we shared a crowdsourced collection of the top concerns data advocates have heard when they’ve raised an open data project with government officials at the federal, state, and local level, and we asked for you to share how you’ve responded. Dozens of you contributed to the project, sharing your thoughts on social media, our public Google doc, and even on the Open Data Stack Exchange, where 8 threads were opened to dive deeper into specific subjects.
Drawing from your input, our own experience, and existing materials from our peers at the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and some data warriors from the UK, we’ve compiled a number of answers -- discussion points, if you will -- to help unpack and respond to some of the most commonly cited open data concerns. This mash-up of expertise is a work in progress, but we bet you’ll find it a useful conversation starter (or continuer) for your own data advocacy efforts.
Click here to see other posts in this series.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing challenges and responses from our #WhyOpenData list that correspond to different themes. Today’s theme is Accuracy.
Continue readingReasons to Not Release Data, Part 6: Legality (continued)
Earlier this month, we shared a crowdsourced collection of the top concerns data advocates have heard when they’ve raised an open data project with government officials at the federal, state, and local level, and we asked for you to share how you’ve responded. Dozens of you contributed to the project, sharing your thoughts on social media, our public Google doc, and even on the Open Data Stack Exchange, where 8 threads were opened to dive deeper into specific subjects.
Drawing from your input, our own experience, and existing materials from our peers at the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and some data warriors from the UK, we’ve compiled a number of answers -- discussion points, if you will -- to help unpack and respond to some of the most commonly cited open data concerns. This mash-up of expertise is a work in progress, but we bet you’ll find it a useful conversation starter (or continuer) for your own data advocacy efforts.
Click here to see other posts in this series.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing challenges and responses from our #WhyOpenData list that correspond to different themes. Today’s theme is Legality, continued. Continue readingReasons to Not Release Data, Part 6: Legality
Earlier this month, we shared a crowdsourced collection of the top concerns data advocates have heard when they’ve raised an open data project with government officials at the federal, state, and local level, and we asked for you to share how you’ve responded. Dozens of you contributed to the project, sharing your thoughts on social media, our public Google doc, and even on the Open Data Stack Exchange, where 8 threads were opened to dive deeper into specific subjects.
Drawing from your input, our own experience, and existing materials from our peers at the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and some data warriors from the UK, we’ve compiled a number of answers -- discussion points, if you will -- to help unpack and respond to some of the most commonly cited open data concerns. This mash-up of expertise is a work in progress, but we bet you’ll find it a useful conversation starter (or continuer) for your own data advocacy efforts.
Click here to see other posts in this series.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing challenges and responses from our #WhyOpenData list that correspond to different themes. Today’s theme is Legality.
Continue readingReasons to Not Release Data, Part 5: Staffing Concerns
Earlier this month, we shared a crowdsourced collection of the top concerns data advocates have heard when they’ve raised an open data project with government officials at the federal, state, and local level, and we asked for you to share how you’ve responded. Dozens of you contributed to the project, sharing your thoughts on social media, our public Google doc, and even on the Open Data Stack Exchange, where 8 threads were opened to dive deeper into specific subjects.
Drawing from your input, our own experience, and existing materials from our peers at the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and some data warriors from the UK, we’ve compiled a number of answers -- discussion points, if you will -- to help unpack and respond to some of the most commonly cited open data concerns. This mash-up of expertise is a work in progress, but we bet you’ll find it a useful conversation starter (or continuer) for your own data advocacy efforts.
Click here to see other posts in this series.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing challenges and responses from our #WhyOpenData list that correspond to different themes. Today’s theme is Staffing Concerns.
Continue readingReasons to Not Release Data, Part 4: Cost
Earlier this month, we shared a crowdsourced collection of the top concerns data advocates have heard when they’ve raised an open data project with government officials at the federal, state, and local level, and we asked for you to share how you’ve responded. Dozens of you contributed to the project, sharing your thoughts on social media, our public Google doc, and even on the Open Data Stack Exchange, where 8 threads were opened to dive deeper into specific subjects.
Drawing from your input, our own experience, and existing materials from our peers at the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and some data warriors from the UK, we’ve compiled a number of answers -- discussion points, if you will -- to help unpack and respond to some of the most commonly cited open data concerns. This mash-up of expertise is a work in progress, but we bet you’ll find it a useful conversation starter (or continuer) for your own data advocacy efforts.
Click here to see other posts in this series.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing challenges and responses from our #WhyOpenData list that correspond to different themes. Today’s theme is Cost.
Continue readingReasons to Not Release Data, Part 3: It’s Hard!
Earlier this month, we shared a crowdsourced collection of the top concerns data advocates have heard when they’ve raised an open data project with government officials at the federal, state, and local level, and we asked for you to share how you’ve responded. Dozens of you contributed to the project, sharing your thoughts on social media, our public Google doc, and even on the Open Data Stack Exchange, where 8 threads were opened to dive deeper into specific subjects.
Drawing from your input, our own experience, and existing materials from our peers at the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and some data warriors from the UK, we’ve compiled a number of answers -- discussion points, if you will -- to help unpack and respond to some of the most commonly cited open data concerns. This mash-up of expertise is a work in progress, but we bet you’ll find it a useful conversation starter (or continuer) for your own data advocacy efforts.
Click here to see other posts in this series.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing challenges and responses from our #WhyOpenData list that correspond to different themes. Today’s theme is Difficulty.
Continue readingReasons to Not Release Data, Part 2: Confusion
Earlier this month, we shared a crowdsourced collection of the top concerns data advocates have heard when they’ve raised an open data project with government officials at the federal, state, and local level, and we asked for you to share how you’ve responded. Dozens of you contributed to the project, sharing your thoughts on social media, our public Google doc, and even on the Open Data Stack Exchange, where 8 threads were opened to dive deeper into specific subjects.
Drawing from your input, our own experience, and existing materials from our peers at the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and some data warriors from the UK, we’ve compiled a number of answers -- discussion points, if you will -- to help unpack and respond to some of the most commonly cited open data concerns. This mash-up of expertise is a work in progress, but we bet you’ll find it a useful conversation starter (or continuer) for your own data advocacy efforts.
Click here to see other posts in this series.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing challenges and responses from our #WhyOpenData list that correspond to different themes. Today’s theme is Confusion.
Join us for a Free Webinar on Open Data in Local Governments
Sunlight Foundation's local policy team is excited to be teaming up today with the National League of Cities and Harvard Ash Center to host a free webinar examining open data policies in local governments and their impacts. More cities are sharing their data online to increase municipal transparency -- a movement that prompted us to update our Open Data Guidelines to reflect the advances that have been made and highlight emerging opportunities. This webinar will look at those advances and opportunities, in addition to defining what open data is and how policies can guide its release. We're pleased to announce that Oakland City Councilmember Libby Schaaf will join the discussion to provide insight on the city's experience with releasing more open data and its impacts in the community. We hope you can join us for this free webinar from 1-2 p.m. ET today. This webinar will also lay the foundation for a deep-dive session at NLC's Congress of Cities and Exposition in Seattle, Engaging Residents in Solutions: Using Data and Technology to Improve Local Government (on Saturday, Nov. 16, at 9:00 a.m.), which will feature Stephen Goldsmith of the Harvard Ash Center (and former mayor of Indianapolis), Mayor Vincent Gray of the District of Columbia, and Laurenellen McCann of the Sunlight Foundation.
Continue readingReasons to Not Release Data, Part 1: Apathy
As many open access advocates, journalists, and government employees will tell you, broaching the subject of data disclosure can raise a lot of concerns for government data providers. Pioneers looking to move their government toward exploring information release have already come up with rebuttals to many of these challenges, but the collective knowledge is hard to share, usually trapped in email groups, discussion boards, blogs, and the memories and experiences of individuals. In the wake of re-releasing our Open Data Policy Guidelines, we wanted to probe these concerns and see what information we could share that data advocates could keep in their back pocket.
So, earlier this month, we shared a crowdsourced collection of the top concerns data advocates have heard when they’ve raised an open data project with government officials at the federal, state, and local level, and we asked for you to share how you’ve responded.
Dozens of you contributed to this project, sharing your thoughts on social media, our public Google doc, and even on the Open Data Stack Exchange, where 8 threads were opened to dive deeper into specific subjects. We also learned about resources akin to this one from our peers at the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and this awesome, bingo-card inspired round-up from the UK made by Christopher Gutteridge and Alexander Dutton. (The latter has even been translated into German!)
Drawing from your input, these materials, and our own experience, we’ve compiled a number of answers -- discussion points, if you will -- to help unpack and respond to some of the most commonly cited open data concerns. This is mash-up of expertise is a work in progress, but we bet you’ll find it a useful conversation starter (or continuer) for your own data advocacy efforts.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing challenges and responses from our list that correspond to different themes. You can follow along on our blog and on Twitter via #WhyOpenData. Today’s theme is Apathy.
Today in #OpenGov 9/30/13
National News
- Decisions about how to fund the government -- and whether the 2010 health care law would be impacted -- are expected to be tossed from the Senate back to the House today after a quiet Sunday at the Capitol. If the House and Senate cannot work out a deal on the budget today, the U.S. government is poised for the first shutdown in nearly 20 years. (Washington Post)
- The National Security Agency has been using the data collected on U.S. citizens to create charts of their social connections. The agency is using communication data along with information from social media profiles, bank accounts, passenger manifests, and GPS locations, among other things, to chart connections between people. (New York Times)
- The Justice Department is moving to sue North Carolina over the state's voter ID law, following a decision last month to sue Texas for a similar measure. (Washington Post)
- Saturday was International Right to Know Day, and events focused on improving access to information took place in countries across the world. There is a Google map tracking these events. (MySociety)
- The Washington-area economy could lose $200 million each day if the federal government does shut down. Mayor Vincent Gray is hoping to mitigate the impacts on the District's workforce by declaring all of its employees essential, meaning they would be able to keep working through a shutdown. (Washington Post)
- Census numbers show the total number of local governments increased slightly over the last five years, even as revenues shrank across every level. The Census showed more than 90,000 local governments in 2012. (Pew States)
- Civic hackers in Vermont are preparing to use approved datasets to make apps that they hope will improve the quality of government processes -- and the economy. The hackathon, HackVT, is scheduled for Oct. 11-12. (Motherboard)
- San Francisco is now home to a new headquarters for GitHub, the platform that is also hosting the city's newly opened municipal code. Posting San Francisco's code online in a more user-friendly format is the result of working with GitHub, OpenGov Foundation, and other groups. (GovFresh)
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