Public Advocate, COPIC, the PDD, & Open Government NYC

[Philip Ashlock]

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio recently announced a new website called Open Government NYC
http://www.pubadvocate.nyc.gov/pages/OpenGovernmentNYCWebsite.html & NYTimes story

It looks like this website is primarily focused on how discretionary funds are spent, but obviously there is a lot more data that would be useful for New Yorkers to have access to.

Tom Lowenhaupt recently met with de Blasio's staff about reviving the Commission on Public Information and Communication (COPIC) which is also the commission responsible for publishing the NYC Public Data Directory. Apparently they are doing research on COPIC and trying to decide what to do with it. Tom mentioned the larger Open Government NYC community and indicated that assistance might be forthcoming, if desired.
 
Tom suggested that we discuss the utility of a PDD in the scope of 2011, answering questions like:

• What is it
• content
• technical architecture
• How will it serve
• the general public
• programmers
• the PA / mayor / COPIC
• etc.
• Who maintains it
• Who controls it
• etc.

For some precedents:

• http://datato.org is used to request and prioritize the release of data for Toronto, but it is not run by the city. The city runs their data catalog at http://www.toronto.ca/open/catalogue.htm
• http://datasf.org is used as a data catalog and as a way to request and prioritize the release of data for San Francisco. It is run by the city
  

By city law, San Francisco is required to do this while Toronto is not. New York is required to produce the Public Data Directory, but not required to post all data online until something like Int 991 passes. A lot more information and precedents for releasing city data can be found at http://wiki.openmuni.org/

Lately, I have not been able to focus on completing the digitization of the '93 or 2001 Public Data Directories, but if anyone else is able to provide some assistance for managing that process it would be greatly appreciated. It shouldn't take more than a couple hours of work, I just haven't been able to focus on it for a while.

There are also a number of other conversations about managing city data catalogs like this as well as software platforms that are being developed to facilitate the process and I can connect to those conversations as needed. For now I think it would be best to focus on how to bring back COPIC and the Public Data Directory and how to structure or manage it rather than getting into a technical conversation.

For some more background on what this was originally all about, I'll go ahead and paste the intro to the '93 PDD right here. In many ways this was pretty forward thinking for '93 considering many of these kinds of efforts are just starting up now. It's also frustrating that this is required by the New York City charter, but has been almost completely neglected. The NYC DataMine and the proposed discretionary funding website only cover a tiny fraction of what a modern NYC Public Data Directory would contain.

http://dropbox.ashlock.us/opengov/pdd/1993-nyc-public-data-directory-introduction.html

THE CITY OF NEW YORK


COMMISSION ON PUBLIC INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION


PUBLIC DATA DIRECTORY
First Edition
April 1993


Published by: New York City Office of the Mayor Office of Operations

COMMISSION ON PUBLIC INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION


MEMBERS

Hon. Andrew stein, Chair, City Council President
Anne Compoccia, Public Member
Idilio Gracia-Pena, Commissioner, Department of Records and Information Services
Hon. Jose Rivera, Member, New York City Council
Harvey Robins, Director, Mayor's Office of Operations
Gene Russianoff, Public Member
O. Peter Sherwood, Corporation Counsel
William Squadron, Commissioner, Department of Telecommunications and Energy
Peter M. Williams, Public Member




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Commission on Public Information and Communication gratefully acknowledges a grant received from the New York Times Foundation for the design and preparation of the Public Data Directory and valuable assistance received from the Community service Society and the Fund. for the City of New York. In particular, the Commission thanks Patricia A. Friedland, Director, Office of Information, Community Service Society, and Bruce Posner, Vice President, Fund for the City of New York, for their support and encouragement in making this first edition of the Public Data Directory a reality.


INTRODUCTION

Section 1062 of the New York City Charter requires the New York city commission on Public Information and Communication to publish a "Public Data Directory" describing the computerized databases maintained by City agencies. This is the first "Public Data Directory" published pursuant to that requirement.

Publication of this first edition represents an important step towards fulfilling the goal of improving public access to information about the wide variety of computerized data maintained by the city. Information maintained by City agencies is increasingly being stored in computers. Until now, however, there has been no source of information available to researchers, community groups, businesses, and other members of the public regarding the types of electronic data kept by City agencies, much of which is required by law to be accessible to the public.

The New York City commission on Public Information and Communication is a new City agency, established by the 1989 amendments to the New York City Charter. The Commission is chaired by the President of the City Council, and includes public members as well as representatives of the Mayor, the City Council and a number of city agencies. In addition to publication of the Public Data Directory, the Commission's responsibilities include education and outreach to assist the public in obtaining access to City information, and developing strategies for the use of new communications technologies to improve access to and distribution of city data. In June 1991, the Commission presented the City Council with a comprehensive proposal for cablecasting the proceedings of the Council and the City Planning Commission.

This Public Data Directory represents the joint efforts of the members of the Commission and, in particular, the staff of the Mayor's Office of Operations and the Law Department. The Commission also wishes to acknowledge the valuable assistance provided by the agencies themselves in preparing the Directory.

For each agency, the Directory provides a brief description of the agency's mission, the name and phone number of a, "Public Liaison" available to assist members of the public, and brief descriptions of the contents of the databases. The "Users Notes" which follow this Introduction contain important information on methods of access, legal restrictions on access to certain records, and other information.

We hope that the Directory will assist you in locating sources of information and in formulating records requests to City agencies. At present, only a few agencies offer members of the public "on-line" access to electronic data. For that reason, in most instances it will be necessary for you to make a Freedom of Information Law request to the agency in order to obtain the records you need. The Commission believes that significant opportunities exist to expand "on-line" access to City data and intends to work to encourage City agencies towards this goal.

Publication of this Directory is a first for New York City government. Our goal has been to produce a Directory that is "user friendly" for all members of the public, including both those who are knowledgeable about computer data and those who are not. In future editions, we hope to expand the listings, add to the database descriptions, and provide more information regarding computer formats. We welcome your comments on ways to improve future editions and methods of access to City agency electronic data. Attached at page xiii of the Directory you will find a questionnaire soliciting your 'views and recommendations on the Directory. Please take the time to fill it out and return to the Commission, c/o Office of the President of the City Council, City Hall, N.Y., N.Y. 10007.

Sincerely,

NEW YORK CITY COMMISSION
ON PUBLIC INFORMATION AND
COMMUNICATION

 

For the rest of the introduction see:
http://dropbox.ashlock.us/opengov/pdd/1993-nyc-public-data-directory-introduction.html

A full PDF of the '93 and 2001 PDD are also included in the Files section of the Open Government NYC google group. Again, please let me know if you can assist with managing the digitization of these.

--

Philip Ashlock

The Open Planning Project - http://www.openplans.org

ph...@openplans.org | @philipashlock | (360) 389-2741