New OpenDataBC Portal

[Herb Lainchbury]

Hi Open Data Friends,

We officially launched our new Open Data Portal yesterday.  Here's the note that went out to Society Members.  If you haven't yet joined the society, please consider doing so.  There is a button on the front page of the new portal that makes it easy.   If you are already a member but didn't receive this message, let us know so we can be sure to add you to the mailing list.

We demoed the portal at the OpenDataBC Vancouver meetup last night which was attended by over 50 people and was held in Gastown.  Huge thanks to our Vancouver based directors, Gillian Vrooman and Sue Bigelow for organizing and hosting the event.  

OpenDataBC Vancouver meetups occur monthly.  You can find information here: http://www.meetup.com/OpenDataBC-Vancouver/

We also hold OpenDataBC Meetups and Lunches in Victoria.  You can find out more about those here:  http://www.meetup.com/OpenDataBC/

This portal is free for anyone to use and is made available as a free service by the society.

Please register on the site so you can help us make it the best collection of data about BC.

Here is the note that went out yesterday:

=====

Our website, OpenDataBC.ca, has been re-imagined into an information hub, community connector and Open Data Portal to better serve the needs of the open data community in BC. First launched in 2009, it serves about 500 users per month and provides links to a curated set of over 200 high quality BC based datasets from a variety of government, academia and industry sources.

The new open data portal uses CKAN, a powerful enterprise data management system that makes data more accessible. It has built-in tools to streamline finding, publishing and sharing of open data. It also has built-in data browsing and visualization support and can accommodate multiple organizations.

For Data Geeks

Anyone can use the new portal to find, explore and view open data with the built-in viewers. In addition, users who wish to create an account on the system will be able to add their own data and applications to share with others.

For Organizations

The portal is set up to organize data by individual or by organization. If you are a member of a company or other organization and want to try this open data thing but maybe aren’t quite ready to create your own data portal, you can create an organization on the system, upload your logo, a description and of course, upload or link to your data, for free!

For App Developers

If you’ve written an application using open data and you would like to share it with our site visitors you can create an organization for you or your company and add your app to our app catalog. When users come to our site to look for apps your app will be there!

For Society Members

As a society member you can get super powers on the site that allow you to curate the system and make it better.

We need your help

We are just getting started on the catalogue and it is still fairly empty so we need lots of help. If you are an open data enthusiast and you want to pitch in and let the world know about some great BC open data that you know about, this is your chance.

This system was developed and is hosted by by OpenGovGear, a Victoria based open data startup company that launched this year. OpenGovGear has generously donated the initial setup and installation costs for this awesome new service.

Thanks,

Herb Lainchbury

President, Open Data Society of BC

[Herb Lainchbury]

it appears that Glen's response did not get posted to this group so I am forwarding it for completeness.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Glen Newton <glen....@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 10:22 AM
Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Fwd: [OpenDataBC] New OpenDataBC Portal
To: civicaccess discuss <civicacce...@civicaccess.ca>, he...@dynamic-solutions.com, opend...@googlegroups.com

This site points to data that is not Open Data (i.e. not licensed with an Open Data license):

https://www.opendatabc.ca/dataset/saanich-garbage-schedules

http://www.saanich.ca/data/licence.html

"15. By using the Information you agree to indemnify and save harmless Saanich, its elected and appointed officials, officers, employees, contractors and agents from and against any and all claims, liabilities, losses, costs, demands, actions, payments, lawsuits, damages (including any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or other loss, injury or damage) and expenses, including legal fees on a solicitor and own client basis, arising out of or in any way connected with:

your breach or violation of any of the terms and conditions of this Licence;"

This is not an Open Data license. The above indemnification clause renders this license non-Open Data.

The site should not be listed on the OpenDataBC.ca site.

Previous discussion of this very issue regarding Saanich license:

 2012: http://civicaccess.48776.x6.nabble.com/Open-Data-Saanich-BC-td5046.html

 2014: http://civicaccess.48776.x6.nabble.com/District-of-Saanich-Open-Data-td6674.html

Similar discussion RE: Banff data license:

 2013: http://civicaccess.48776.x6.nabble.com/Fwd-Town-of-Banff-Open-Data-td5663.html

Thanks,

Glen Newton

On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 10:42 AM, Michael Lenczner <mic...@ajah.ca> wrote:

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Herb Lainchbury, Dynamic Solutions

250.704.6154

http://www.dynamic-solutions.com

[Kevin McArthur]

He's got a point -- maybe rather than removing it, it might be something Saanich can fix up? (They have a new Mayor and all)...

--

Kevin

[Herb Lainchbury]

Thanks for the feedback Glen.

I agree that the license you mention is not open.

I disagree with the assertion that the OpenDataBC site should only include data that is open.  

Here’s my thinking:

The OpenDataBC site was created before any of these publishers had data portals.  By the standard you are proposing, none of the data on the site would have been considered open at that time.  I realized that when we first created the site; however, it seemed to me that it made sense to draw attention to the folks who were at least attempting to share information freely, even if the license under which the data was provided did not meet the definition of "open" (http://www.opendefinition.org).

Here we are almost five years later and we have come a long way.  We have some licenses and some data portals and quite a lot of data that is both accessible and readable.  Admittedly, we are still not yet at a place where there is a lot of data that would meet the definition of “open”.  However, I believe we are moving in the right direction, and I believe we will get there eventually.

The Province of BC was making quite a bit of data available online before they started using the term open data and long before they had a license or a portal.  OpenDataBC pointed to what we thought was the best of it, to draw attention to data that was being released in a usable way, even though they hadn't yet worked through the process of formalizing everything.

In the time since OpenDataBC first launched, Saanich has gone from publishing no data to putting up a catalogue and making a decent attempt at a license.  Not perfect yet, not open by our standard, but it's something.

Another example:  when several major Canadian cities (including Vancouver) started publishing their data, they used licenses that included a clause whereby if you used the data and the city was sued as a result, you would be liable for all damages to the city.  While we really disliked the license, they did publish some amazing data and we thought they were moving in the right direction, so we published the data on the OpenDataBC site because we wanted to help draw attention to the data itself.

I think of all of this as a "work in progress".  We're not there yet.  Should we start removing data from the catalogue because publishers haven't quite gone far enough yet?   I don't think so.  I say we keep encouraging and educating folks until the vision is realized.

So, you're right, OpenDataBC contains not only open data but other data as well.  I think the Open Data community is still served by highlighting data that, while the right intention is there, is still not quite meeting standards.  It’s also important (and sometimes required) to publish the terms along with that data so people know what they are getting.

On the other hand, I think it's important to acknowledge publishers that have met the standard and whose data is open, such as data published under the OGL-Canada, or PDDL (Kelowna), etc..  Ideally the datasets that actually meet the definition will have the open data icon somewhere in the metadata, to set them apart.  We are planning to add that in a future release.

Thanks again for raising this important point.  Maybe we should put something on the site somewhere that the site includes links to both open data and data that is accessible under more restrictive terms, and how to tell the difference.

On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 10:22 AM, Glen Newton <glen....@gmail.com> wrote:

This site points to data that is not Open Data (i.e. not licensed with an Open Data license):

https://www.opendatabc.ca/dataset/saanich-garbage-schedules

http://www.saanich.ca/data/licence.html

"15. By using the Information you agree to indemnify and save harmless Saanich, its elected and appointed officials, officers, employees, contractors and agents from and against any and all claims, liabilities, losses, costs, demands, actions, payments, lawsuits, damages (including any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or other loss, injury or damage) and expenses, including legal fees on a solicitor and own client basis, arising out of or in any way connected with:

your breach or violation of any of the terms and conditions of this Licence;"

This is not an Open Data license. The above indemnification clause renders this license non-Open Data.

The site should not be listed on the OpenDataBC.ca site.

Previous discussion of this very issue regarding Saanich license:

 2012: http://civicaccess.48776.x6.nabble.com/Open-Data-Saanich-BC-td5046.html

 2014: http://civicaccess.48776.x6.nabble.com/District-of-Saanich-Open-Data-td6674.html

Similar discussion RE: Banff data license:

 2013: http://civicaccess.48776.x6.nabble.com/Fwd-Town-of-Banff-Open-Data-td5663.html

Thanks,

Glen Newton

On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 10:42 AM, Michael Lenczner <mic...@ajah.ca> wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Herb Lainchbury <he...@dynamic-solutions.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 4:37 PM
Subject: [OpenDataBC] New OpenDataBC Portal
To: "opend...@googlegroups.com" <opend...@googlegroups.com>

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To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to opendatabc+...@googlegroups.com.
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[Glen Newton]

Hi Herb,

I am not un-sympathetic to your position.  :-)

>On the other hand, I think it's important to acknowledge publishers that have met the standard and whose data is open, such as data published under the OGL-Canada, or PDDL (Kelowna), etc..  Ideally the datasets that actually meet the definition will have the open data icon somewhere in the metadata, to set them apart.  We are planning to add that in a future release.

I think this is a reasonable and responsible approach. 

>Maybe we should put something on the site somewhere that the site includes links to both open data and data that is accessible under more restrictive terms, and how to tell the difference.

From the perspective of explicitly communicating the status of the license to a possible data user, I would advocate having an icon that indicates that the data is _not_ Open.  Example: the first 10 results are not Open: if only Open licensed sites have the icon, I will not have seen the icon, and assume (as you are running an Open Data site) that the data is all properly Open Data licensed.

This would also act to effectively "name-and-shame" those that did not have a proper Open Data license. 

[And, after all, I think people are getting impatient with me ranting about this all of the time! :-)  ]

I realise that you might see this as a negative approach, but I think we are now at a time where few organizations have any excuse for not having an Open Data license.

BTW the site is excellent and thank you and your team for doing this work!

Constructively,

Glen  :-)

[Paul Norman]

I do not see how we can list data which does not offer the essential
freedoms required for data to be open data on the site.

I suppose a list of publicly available but non-open data could have its
place, but we need to be certain to make it clear that such data is not
open data.

[Nelson Lah]

All I see is an opportunity for us to categorize the various levels of open data and educate the public, emphasis placed on the latter. A simple icon, rating system, etc could be added to each data set which is clickable and explain the essentials/license of open data.

====== via two thumbs and a wireless network.

[Herb Lainchbury]

"we need to be certain to make it clear that such data is not open data"

Agreed.

[Jonathan Mark]

I've not been involved in any of the discussions of the Society, but it is clear that the provision of data, or at least helping others discover what is available, has become much more prominent on the new website as an addition to any educational objectives.  I want to reinforce the need to take this opportunity to educate people about open data as well as providing access to it.  I found only one page in the blog that describes what open data is and the conditions that it identifies make no specific reference to the details of what should or should not be in the terms of use as it relates to indemnity.  So the site can take a purist perspective and include less data, or it can include links to data that are freely available and greatly expand what it says about terms of use.  It's not enough to say that a particular data set is not really open because its TOU violates some condition; to be truly educational, there is a need to explain in detail what makes data open according to a particular definition, and then take the time to explain why each included data set is not open if it isn't.  That will help organizations understand what changes are required to meet the purist definition. 

[Avi Lambert]

Would love to see best practices and guidelines for open data licensing, if they exist. 

  LinkedIN: AviLambert
  Mobile: +1-250-516-1406
  Twitter: @PhotonicPR / @AviLambert

 

[Herb Lainchbury]

Hi Avi,

Here is an open data handbook published by Open Knowledge : http://opendatahandbook.org/

And here's where the open definition is published: http://opendefinition.org/od/

Herb

[Avi Lambert]

Thanks, Herb.