looking at publishing, standards, how to improve gov service, first set of projects in flight and completing in March 2018
Way that they're approaching work around standards: how do people approach working with Standards? Issues: people not aware of how to create standards, don't know what standards are available, create standards that don't get adopted. They're doing user research, interviewing a variety of people involved in standards development or adoption, or tech folks engaging in standards processes. Desk research: looking at processes by which successful standards have been developed. Capture what common elements are around standards process. What is typical? Who should be involved at each stage? Working with 4 orgs to produce some research on their own: W3C (surveying of existing communities), OpenNorth (perspective on developing civic tech standards), OpenDataServices (OpenReferral), Porism (software firm works closely with local gov association). Each will be publishing at end of month. Aim: synthesize these into guidance / guide book would help people understand what robust standards process looks like. What does good process look like for engaging communities? Recommended tooling? Understanding - when do you need a standard? When to do specs vs developer docs?
GDS Standards Group.
Think about "layers" of standards (analogy: 7 layer networking)
conformity assessment vs machine readable standards
in workshops with different groups, to focus on standard elements. Surprise: issue of sustainability. Successful standards will evolve. "Everyone seems to be wrestling with"
"It's infrastructure work, and nobody wants to fund infrastructure". Phil: folks don't understand how critical standards are to society working. "Data infrastructure is infrastructure for modern society." Another challenge: measuring adoption & success. Did research, couldn't find anything to track the success of standards. How do you surface use of open data?
People say they want standards, but doing standards too early can be detrimental. When are loose conventions enough, vs official standards?
British Standards Institute & Geospatial want to connect more with bottom-up. Phil: knee-jerk reaction, people have had bad experiences with standards bodies. Involve too many people too early, too bureaucratic. "It's a gearing problem" - startups want to move fast, solve the problem now.
Standards project at ODI
started 3 year project
looking at publishing, standards, how to improve gov service, first set of projects in flight and completing in March 2018
Way that they're approaching work around standards: how do people approach working with Standards? Issues: people not aware of how to create standards, don't know what standards are available, create standards that don't get adopted. They're doing user research, interviewing a variety of people involved in standards development or adoption, or tech folks engaging in standards processes. Desk research: looking at processes by which successful standards have been developed. Capture what common elements are around standards process. What is typical? Who should be involved at each stage? Working with 4 orgs to produce some research on their own: W3C (surveying of existing communities), OpenNorth (perspective on developing civic tech standards), OpenDataServices (OpenReferral), Porism (software firm works closely with local gov association). Each will be publishing at end of month. Aim: synthesize these into guidance / guide book would help people understand what robust standards process looks like. What does good process look like for engaging communities? Recommended tooling? Understanding - when do you need a standard? When to do specs vs developer docs?
GDS Standards Group.
Think about "layers" of standards (analogy: 7 layer networking)
conformity assessment vs machine readable standards
in workshops with different groups, to focus on standard elements. Surprise: issue of sustainability. Successful standards will evolve. "Everyone seems to be wrestling with" "It's infrastructure work, and nobody wants to fund infrastructure". Phil: folks don't understand how critical standards are to society working. "Data infrastructure is infrastructure for modern society." Another challenge: measuring adoption & success. Did research, couldn't find anything to track the success of standards. How do you surface use of open data?
People say they want standards, but doing standards too early can be detrimental. When are loose conventions enough, vs official standards?
British Standards Institute & Geospatial want to connect more with bottom-up. Phil: knee-jerk reaction, people have had bad experiences with standards bodies. Involve too many people too early, too bureaucratic. "It's a gearing problem" - startups want to move fast, solve the problem now.