open city comparisons

[spencer]

hi, has anyone done some kind of comparison between the open data
released by canadian cities?
I'm thinking like a megabyte-by-city, or dataset#-by-city graph...
I'll whip one up if it hasn't been done yet
cheers

[Jonathan Brun]

Hi Spencer,

We really want to get that data in a centralized place and it would be a good thing to collaborate on. Sebastien can do some crazy amazing visualization stuff, we just need the raw data. Do you think we could work together on this?

JB

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[Jonathan Brun]

Hi,

Montreal Ouvert is trying to compile a list of cost-benefit studies on open-data initiatives.

Unless this list exists somewhere else, we are going to try and compile our own. It is totally open to everyone and we hope you will contribute studies you know about. To add to our list go to:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ag-udG4NicuCdGtiOElCeEJjUlU2TFBsMEJKcDZEZlE&hl=en&authkey=CKuhk_oB

Thanks so much!

Jonathan
MontrealOuvert.net

[David Eaves]

Hi Jonathan - this is an interesting list. I'm trying to read over the
various reports.

I know that the DC methodology for value accrued is pretty suspect. It
is simply a calculation of the hours spent on all the projects that were
part of Apps for Democracy. Not sure that is a methodology that would
hold up for a lot of councils - nor is it sustainable - the apps
competition is an artificial bubble created by the prize money.

In addition their "cost" was just the prize money, not the cost of the
infrastructure, policies, staff, etc... to make the data open. But then
it may be that those costs were sunk...

Great list!

Believe I'm meeting with Michael Lenczner tomorrow so hope to hear more
of what you are up to.

cheers,
dave

[David Eaves]

Hi Spencer and Jonathan,

Spencer: interesting idea for an analysis - have you started out on it?
Would be very interested in talking through the idea with you...

Jonathan: I'm going to try to add them all to datadotgc.ca over the next
month. We are about to have the ability to host data sets and offer APIs
so where the license allows us... :)

cheers,
dave

[Jennifer Bell]

Hey guys,

Great effort.  OpenMuniWiki lists some case studies, but I haven't looked through them:

http://wiki.openmuni.org/#Case_Studies

Also, CityCamp Exchange might be a good place to ask:

http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/citycamp

I also compiled a quick list of open data benefit estimations (below) a few months ago for another purpose.

Hope that helps, and good luck!

Jennifer

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Q: What are some examples of economic benefit from Open Data?

1. The whitepaper 'Open Data is Civic Capital' has some references in
the paragraph starting 'That open government data is a boon to a
national economy is supported by a NWS report (Weiss 2002)'

.
http://razor.occams.info/pubdocs/opendataciviccapital.html

2. In particular, 'Open Data is Civic Capital' mentions the paper 'The
Socioeconomic Effects of Public Sector Information on Digital
Networks: Toward a Better Understanding of Different Access and Reuse
Policies: Workshop Summary.

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12687

That paper, on p. 10 discusses a theoretical value chain model, and
give an example of companies adding information to public maps being
re-sold for tremendous value.  (as an aside on p. 56, a chapter on
data re-use in statscan mentions how providing information for free
reduces costs of setting and negotiating pricing)

The biblio lists a number of academic papers on the topic of PSI value.

3. Estimates on the value of New Zealand cartographic data are
referenced in the NZGoal paper on p 10.

http://www.e.govt.nz/policy/nzgoal

4. Here, an advisor estimates value of the UK's ordnance survey, which
was recently released for free, to be in the billions of dollars:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/nov/15/freeourdata.news

5.  A more immediate & tangible example is open transit data:  of the
130 apps listed on CityGoRound, a good number are by for-profit
companies.  http://www.citygoround.org/apps/

6. FOI cost savings: the EPA presented a report to the FOI commision
recently that since they started publishing the most requested data,
FOI requests dropped by 96%.  That's worth something.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0310/031810e1.htm

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[Jonathan Brun]

Hey David,

I am a pretty skeptical guy when it comes to calculating costs and benefits in any human endeavour. That being said, they make good talking points and most people won't dig too deep into the methodology.

Hope it goes well with Mike.

JB

[Jonathan Brun]

Spencer made this, its a good start: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ah46z755j7cVdC1UMGM2M2k3aHZsd3F3eUZmbG9WZkE&hl=en

Let me know how you suggest we proceed, we would like to get something nice and polished by early in september, a PDF we can post and send to people who dig PDFs. We can always augment the analysis as new data comes in. 

JB

[David Eaves]

Hey guys,

A few thoughts:

1) the datadotgc.ca catalogue does have some municipal and provincial datasets so the number presently listed is probably far north of what is actually available federally.

2) Some of the data on the Mississauga portal are actually PDFs of reports. I don't think this qualifies as open data (otherwise cities like Vancouver and Toronto would have a lot more datasets that would qualify for their tally. Is there any where to query out PDFs when doing an inventory?

Hope this is helpful... great to see where the cities are shaking out. Also disappointing to see how few datasets there are in most cases...