From Open Knowledge Foundation

Contents 1 Workshop on Finding and Re-using Public Information 1.1 Participants 1.2 Agenda 1.3 Summary 1.4 Notes 1.5 15-20 things 1.6 Moving forward 1.7 What is Needed 1.8 Concluding Remarks

Workshop on Finding and Re-using Public Information

Notes from the Workshop on Finding and Re-using Public Information on 1st November 2008.

Participants

• Richard Allen
• William Perrin
• Paul Appleby
• John Sheridan
• Terry Freedman
• Nick Holmes
• Graham Seaman
• Vicky Sargent
• Chris Corbin
• Rob McKinnon
• Richard Stirling
• Susanne Richter
• Simon Parish
• Ian Ibbotson
• Michael Michaeldis
• Chris Taggart
• Robert Brook
• Dominic Campbell
• Liz Turner
• Rufus Pollock
• Jonathan Gray
• Nick Halliday

Agenda

• Hello
• Introducing Ourselves
• Introduction: What PSI is, Why Needed, What's on Offer
  • Rufus: Quick Intro about CKAN + PSI
  • POI Task Force
  • Local Government
  • OCTO - District of Columbia
  • John Sheridan: how does current system work + why is it the way it is?
  • Looking at different kinds of rights in public information (PSI, third party rights, ...)
• Lunch
  • Exemplars, Being Specific, 'Retailing'
    • Visualisation?
    • 15-20 things, core data
    • pragmatics/politics
    • motivations
      • why do people want to have access to information? (external)
      • why should government share? carrots and sticks... (internal)
• Other
  • registries/discovery - 'discovery landscape'
  • crown copyright - from perspective of prospective re-user
  • landscape of organisations/institutions/initiatives
    • local gov
    • opsi
    • european level + inspire
• sustainability
  • legal frameworks

Summary

Exemplars <--> The Core

Metadata + Data: the iceberg

Need to prioritise for politics

Notes

• Richard Allen, 4 questions:
  • discovery
  • legal/license issues
  • format/technical issues
  • commercial/pricing
  • intelligibility
• notion of making public information interesting/useful/relevant? 'user demand'?
• portals/mediators
• POIR team make data available to mediators/re-users
• querying vs. data dumps
• economic arguments + 'rights' argument
• DFT's datamashing experiment
• how can we innovate with public info?
• internal obstacles within government
• shouldn't just rely on economic arguments
• economics in a broader sense (not just about money) - social welfare, public value
• general waiver on legislation
• Rufus presented on PSI/CKAN
• John Sheridan:
  • core crown information is available as of 2000-1
  • snaggy bits beyond core established principle
• Adrian Norman:
  • americans started in 60s
  • 70s spent lots of information in the city
  • end of 70s early 80s, had to get telecommunications out of government
  • data protection
  • look at who we need to speak to
• Rufus said knowledge APIs are hard but they must be possible
• underlying data is available, but executive summary/analysis not available
• not policy to make information compulsorily available, only optionally
• Richard Allen, 4 barriers:
  • 'best value for data is to sell it'
  • wisdom of crowds or insanity of the mob (look at what happened with mmr)
  • personal data, privacy
  • lack of seeing what the good looks like - they work for you example, rss feeds from mps, exemplar, mps show deliver something good for them...
• http://www.schoolmap.org.uk/
• market will sort it out
• danger of this approach
• William Perrin:
  • http://data.octo.dc.gov
  • homework: critique of this
• GILS - http://www.gpoaccess.gov/gils/index.html
• do we need another GILS
• IAR (information asset register) since 1999
• ok, but not that great
• http://opsi.gov.uk/iar/
• John Sheridan:
  • overview of Crown Copyright
  • lots of opportunities for re-use
• register of re-usable material
• big problem
• where do i get this data?
• IAR is under click-use license
• IAR for all public sector bodies
• John Sheridan talking on IARs
  • most compelling case for IARs is in terms of benefit to PSI holders
  • departments motivated to create IAR for their own purposes
  • IAR available for others
  • most datasets have a bit of personal data, very common problem, e.g. schools database + governors
  • 100s of thousands of items in the registry
  • departments, agencies and other PS orgs are most likely to invest in creating/maintaining IAR as part of their information risk management
  • standardising metadata elements for IARs from the re-use perspective alone could be counter-productive
• Show Us A Better Way: 450 entries, cluster around health/education/crime
• letting 1000 flowers bloom, or planning/trying to steer towards need?
• Wholesalers needed to have retailers (but unfortunately it is retailers who are visible and compelling ...)
• Taxonomies
• 15-20 datasets/information

15-20 things

• IARs
  • OPSI
  • Government departments
• inflation data
  • Bank of England
  • ONS
  • Treasury
• CO2 data
  •  ?
• NSG (national street gazeteer)
  • Not obtainable
• NLPG (national land property gazeteer)
  • Can buy it.
  • http://www.nlpg.org.uk/nlpg/link.htm?id=2007
• Geocoders dataset, Postcode to administrative areas
  • Can buy from OS
• OS
  • http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/ontology/
  • http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/ontology/v1/AdministrativeGeography.htm
  • http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/ontology/v1/AdministrativeGeography.owl
• electoral boundary information
• postcode to shape
• admin (geo)
• police (?) (national police impr. agency)
• school (edubase)
  • stats? (performance, ofsted reports, ...)
• nhs/health/medical
  • NHS choices - API, nc
  • http://www.nhs.uk/nhscwebservices/Pages/Webservices.aspx
  • varies from area to area
• statistical
• political
• statistical
• licensed premises (vice)
• gazeteer
• crime (new!)
• temperature data
• forecast data (customised forecasts) (£)
  • http://www.ecomet.eu/members/UK.htm
• companies house (£)
• government expediture
• government contracts over a certain amount
  • (OJEC) official journal of the european communities
  • http://ted.europa.eu/Exec?Template=TED/editorial_page.htm&DataFlow=ShowPage.dfl&StatLang=EN
  • http://ted.europa.eu/Exec?DataFlow=ShowPage.dfl&Template=TED/important_legal_notice
  • http://www.ojec.com/WhatIsTheOJEC.aspx
  • HMT
  • PFI registries
• court records/cases
  • http://www.registry-trust.org.uk/
    • costs money
• http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/onlineservices/xhibit/index.htm
  • crown copyright: http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/aboutus/termscond.htm
• planning applications
  • portal?
  • available but cost money
• listed buildings
  • council
  • english heritage has approx. list online
• consultations + responses
  • not available now but will be in future
  • tell them what you think
    • RDFa
• select committee submitted comments
• gov.uk jobs
• debt
• transport
  • naptan.org.uk
  • nptdr
  • midas
  • accidents, public service
  • maintenance
• environmental
  • pollution
  • noise
  • incidents
  • flooding
  • water quality
  • contaminated areas

Moving forward

• William Perrin's homework
  • critique of OCTO: http://data.octo.dc.gov
  • create list of main things to go after.. the big useful datasets
• Public information workshop in March
• 15-20 things
  • full list + refine down

What is Needed

• IARs: need a registry and it should be openly available
  • Metadata should be available in simple basic form (dublin core, RDFa, simple db dump ...)
• Datasets to focus on (the 15-20)
  • Exemplars
• Compelling stories for government

Concluding Remarks

• discovery/portal landscape: directgov, IAR, nhs choices, transport direct
• SUABW had 450 ideas
• 80k for taking ideas forward
• equivalent of BBC backstage for UK Gov
• what should we do, moving forward? move this out of geek corner...
• increasing size of registry/repository
• need to be able to show ministers (still screen shots)
• need a package - ipr all sorted out, these kinds of sites, etc.
• Rufus: material available for others to re-use will encourage re-use
• Richard Allen: role for things like CKAN, show us a template, a recipe
• John Sheridan: read W3C guidelines!
• Rufus: good to see wider turn out
• William: part of POIR remit
• In the kitchen you always need kitchen equipment, tools... (e.g. IARs, click use license, ...)
• build on group: more events, mailing list
• COMMUNIA event in March
• William: several government ministers interested, Richard Allen, potential growth of interest, ...
• Richard: all travelling the same journey, and headed in right direction...