Open Data is Civic Capital: Best Practices for "Open Government Data"

Description

This document is a best practices guide for governments embracing the notion of "open data". It discusses why open government data is beneficial to society, i.e. how it is civic capital, and what kinds of technological considerations must be made when making government data open. The document is intended to be read both by web managers, who may wish to skip the final Recommendations section, and by government web developers.

Written by Joshua Tauberer ( http://razor.occams.info ), who runs the congressional transparency website www.GovTrack.us , with help from Gunnar Hellekson (RedHat, Inc.). Thanks to all those who provided feedback. YOUR feedback is most welcome for future updates to this document.

This is version 1.1 dated 7/20/2009.

Introduction

Creating a well-informed public is a core value of representative government. It is a prerequisite for ensuring the best representatives are elected and a crucial component of government oversight—as well as being important in areas well beyond civics. This document speaks to why public government data (also called "public sector information") is a valuable resource to society if put on the Web and shared freely with the public, and discusses how to go about doing it. We discuss technological considerations and end with guiding principles for best practices in open government data.

This best practices guide encourages data to be valued as an important resource to society. But this is not a new idea, and already many government entities have begun to embrace these ideas. A 2009 report for the U.S. Office of Science Technology Policy described the importance of shared data from science and technology research:

"The power of digital information to catalyze progress is limited only by the power of the human mind. Data are not consumed by the ideas and innovations they spark, but are an endless fuel for creativity. ...

Original URL

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

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