What Works Cities InitiativeSunlight Foundation

The Sunlight Foundation works to make government transparent and accountable.

Improving local open data – through better policy and access –helps us all move toward that goal.

Open Data =the right to information online

Administratively Technically

Proactively Online Open formats

Cost-free Machine-readable

License-free Bulk downloads

Why Open Data?

Rockefeller Institute, Jan 2015

To add capacity.

Private employers have recovered from recession -but state and local gov’t employment still below recession levels.

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/21/open-government-data/

Why Open Data?

To provide the public

information people want.

2015 Pew Study:

• 76% of people go online to

interact with government

• The majority of those people

are seeking information

Why OpenData?To work with partners.

Existing organizations across the country help maximize the value we can get from government data.

Why open data?

To benefit internal users.

Better awareness: data inventories reveal new data holdings

Better access: shared data portal makes data-sharing seamless

Better evaluation: more data on wider variety of program outcomes

Better data: more eyes on data – additional quality check

What are governments and communities doing with it?

• Improving service targeting

• Increasing innovation

• Improving public communication

How?

Publicly exploring problems

Code for DC

San Francisco - Evictions

Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators

Making better decisions

DataKind: Optimal NY tree pruning

Data Science for Social Good: Relating Chicago’s crime and and broken street lights

Improving access to public service

Communicating Out

Chicago’s Scofflaw Landlords Map California’s Healthcare Acquired Infections Map

Bringing New Information In

Increasing Participation

Why create an open data policy?

Policy maximizes potential.

Better structure: clarifies internal responsibilities and creates structure

Better accountability: creates accountability for data quality

Better sustainability: ensures sustained commitment

Better participation: creates a regular, official space for public participation

Open Data Policies June 2015

WWC policy approach

• Model executive order/ordinance

• High level policy commits to:• Moving city toward broad, proactive data release

• Assigning roles and responsibilities

• Publishing data to a central portal

• Regular review of progress on publication goals

• Supported with additional, targeted resources to maximize policy quality and local value

Specific suggested tasks in the policy

• Appoint agency data coordinators

• Conduct a data inventory

• Develop a review process for potentially sensitive data

• Develop a prioritization process for open data release

• Develop a publication process to ensure high-quality data

• Create a public timeline for new dataset publication

• Ensure that published datasets are available for bulk download

• Create opportunities to collaborate with the public