City Council Agenda - November 26, 2012 - City of Guelph

Attachment 1: A Survey of Open GovernmentTo date, hundreds of jurisdictions manage open data catalogues, all of which varyin scope and scale. The Government of Canada recently launched an Open Datapilot project which, at the time of this report, contained approximately 13,000datasets. A number of Canadian municipalities such as Edmonton, Toronto,Vancouver, and Ottawa have also published and maintain open data catalogues. Infact, the local government sector is considered to be at the leading edge of opendata efforts, especially in Canada. In 2011, the cities of Edmonton, Toronto,Vancouver and Ottawa collaborated as the “G4” in order to share their experienceswith open data, consider common standardized formats, develop an accepted termsof use and provide leadership and support to other jurisdictions considering thedevelopment of open data catalogues. Many municipalities have followed suit basedon this work including the Region of Waterloo, Hamilton, London and Mississauga(to name only a few).Open StandardsThe development of open standards is an essential component to facilitate thepublication of open data. Without the standardization of data, it is difficult and timeconsuming for users to be able to mine and exploit the information. There arenumerous organizations such as the W3C, OpenStandards, and OASIS whichadvocate for a set of principles which can be used by government to guide thedevelopment of their open data catalogues. Although the semantics of theprinciples can vary somewhat, opengovdata established what has been referred toas the de facto standard. The group concluded that open government data shouldbe; complete, primary, timely, accessible, machine processable, nondiscriminatory,non-proprietary and license-free.In 2009, the Council of the City of Vancouver passed an Open City Resolution whichformally launched several Open Government initiatives including the adoption ofopen standards for the organization. Other jurisdictions have also adopted openstandards through policy development related to their open data programs. TheCity of Toronto adopted Open311 which allowed certain mobile applications a directcommunication channel with their existing 311 service technology. This decision ledto the development of various smartphone applications which allow residents todirectly report issues like potholes and graffiti in real-time while they commutethrough the City. The applications are maintained by the third parties whodeveloped them and are available to the public free of charge.Development Challenges and EventsOne of the motivating factors to open data for unrestricted use is to harnesscreative capacity in order to realize added value. In order to achieve this end,organizations have to publish the data but they also have to advertise, and in somecases, incentivise its use. A common approach to profiling open data has been tosponsor development contests and events which frame challenges around buildingapplications using the data. Apps for Democracy is one of the most commonlyreferenced development contests. It was led by the District of Columbia in 2008.The D.C. made an initial investment of $50,000 in order to administer the contestand reward the winners. The end result of this endeavour yielded 47 web,smartphone and social media applications which demonstrated a shared value to12 | P age