School of Open Data

Talking about open data is a lot like talking about rock music.

No, really, I’m serious. ‘Rock’ has become one of music’s most nebulous categories. It is hardly a genre of its own anymore – it has mushroomed into an enormous heading with diverse styles and divergent movements. There’s alt rock, prog rock, punk rock, rap rock, hard rock, and the list goes on… The music of Oasis is nothing like the music of The Offspring, and the fans of Sam Roberts rarely have much in common with the fans of Slayer.

How is this anything like open data? Well, round up five people interested in open data, ask them what it’s all about, and you’ll likely end up with five different answers. Maybe more. There are conflicting interpretations of what exactly ‘open data’ entails. There are inconsistent views on how it should be used by governments and communities. There are divergent opinions on why it is important in the first place.

Two weekends ago, the City of Edmonton held an Open City Workshop. It was a billed as a chance for citizens and governments to come together, discuss open data, and build a plan for the way forward. The conversations I participated in were very stimulating, but they fell short of these goals. The way forward was not built. Instead, participants spent these discussion sessions realizing that they were approaching open data from radically different perspectives. Over all, to get back to the metaphor, it felt a lot like having a ‘rock music’ workshop. The event brought the different scenesters together and gave them the chance to learn more about each other’s style, but that was about it.

So, keeping with the metaphor, I’ve decided to help the open data movements in my small way and provide a scenester’s handbook to the open data scene. Over the next few days I’m going to sketch out the five open data genres that I’ve identified. Here’s a sneak peek of what to expect:

1. Hypergovernment – This open data genre wants to integrate new technologies into government service delivery and citizen feedback so that government operates at light speed, literally.
2. Available data – This genre is focused on dousing the firewall around government data so that government becomes more transparent and accountable to citizens.
3. Functional data – This genre wants government data presented in formats that facilitate innovative uses of this information by outside application developers.
4. Collaborative data – This genre is interested in providing citizens with the tools and capacity to input their data directly into the dataset used by governments.
5. Community data – This genre is curious about the potential of open data outside of government and for use within the community.

Each post will go into what these genres mean by ‘open’ data, how they want to use it, and why they think it is important. I will also offer some of my own thoughts on the merits and drawbacks of each genre as well.

Stay tuned!