Open Question: What can the government do to move Open Data in the right direction?

[David Hamilton]

Hello,

I'm writing an article for a major Canadian tech publication and I want to get some input from Toronto's great Open Data community...

Given that the country has new leadership in Ottawa, I was thinking that it might be a good time to assess the current state of government Open Data policies, and see what the federal government (and other governments) could do to push Open Data in the right direction.

I'm waiting on hearing back from the Treasury Board of Canada on an official statement from the government on their Open Data priorities (which should be interesting), and there was also the government report from last year on what it should do. But I want to know what the Open Data community and particular stakeholders think the government should and can do to move Open Data in the right direction and help it drive change.

So, what's on YOUR Open Data wishlist?

Thanks!

David Hamilton

da...@davidihamilton.com

[Heather Leson]

Code for Canada

Heather Leson
heathe...@gmail.com
Twitter: HeatherLeson
Blog: textontechs.com

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[Jeremy Albisser]

Health system data

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[Brian Sutherland]

Hi,

Most of the federal datasets in the open data store around healthcare are very ancient.  

All the new ones at https://www.cihi.ca/en are not deliberately labelled Open Data, although the leadership I spoke to at the eHealth conference indicated they are not interested in prosecuting anyone who republishes them accurately with attribution.   That strikes me as an example of extremely low hanging fruit -- research grade healthcare data from a government organization with a central mandate to package it for sharing with research.  No significant problems with other uses, except no one goes on record to say 'label it open data' and put it on the portal.

Try looking for a list of all the hospitals in Canada.

My thoughts, anyhow.

B. Sutherland

Assistant Professor

Biomedical Communications

University of Toronto

On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 3:05 PM, David Hamilton <davi.h...@gmail.com> wrote:

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University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC)
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[David Hamilton]

Thanks for all the responses. 

The healthcare data example is really useful. I'd kind of understand why limited time, budget, etc. would mean datasets are be outdated or poorly formatted, but it's definitely peculiar that they don't label it Open Data despite having no intention to prosecute users.

I have a sense that this is just one of many government Open Data frustrations that don't necessarily show up in government literature.

Thanks!

-D

[Jeremy Albisser]

Like most of our federal data-sets.  Try finding a national suicide rate after 2011 (or many, many previously internationally reported indicators); never mind finding any of the newer, useful, mental health monitoring indicators.

Jeremy

PS What do you mean 'try'?
 ;-)
The real difficulty was/is distributing resources across sites and not violating Canada Post's copyright (add that to the list please) when geo-coding.

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Confidential: This e-mail and any attachments transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If you have received this form in error please notify the sender and delete the e-mail immediately. If you are not the intended recipient you are notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. 

Le formulaire présent et les documents qui y sont attachés sont confidentiels et protégés et s'adressent exclusivement au destinataire mentionné ci-dessus. L'expéditeur ne renonce pas aux droits et obligations qui s'y rapportent. Toute prise de connaissance, diffusion, utilisation ou reproduction de ce message ou des documents qui y sont attachés, ainsi que des renseignements que chacun contient, par une personne autre que le destinataire désigné est interdite. Si vous recevez ce courriel par erreur, veuillez m'en aviser immédiatement et veuillez le détruire avec les documents qui y sont attachés.

On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 6:02 PM, Brian Sutherland <bksuth...@gmail.com> wrote:

[David Hamilton]

Thanks Jeremy - It'd probably help out a lot of mapping initiates if Canada Post would relinquish its copyright on postal codes.

[Stewart C. Russell]

On 2015-11-13 03:05 PM, David Hamilton wrote:
>
> *So, what's on YOUR Open Data wishlist?*

Just One Government Open Data Licence, please.

The current situation makes it impossible for you to use many municipal
data sets with federal or provincial data sets. For instance, you can't
mix Ottawa data (which has a claw-back clause: if the city doesn't like
your use of data, they can compel you to remove it) with Federal data
and publish it.

A little leadership from the top would avoid the need to drop a few
hundred on an IP lawyer's advice every time you needed to use a new
‘open’ data set.

cheers,
Stewart