The first step in making data actionable is to make sure the data is easily accessible. Many cities, whether they have an open data policy in place or not, have work to do in terms of making key datasets open and available in machine-readable formats. Do an evaluation of where your city stands on releasing key datasets and work with your municipal partners to come up with a plan for making all of them open and available in 2014.
The tool is here -- click the blue button in the upper right to contribute a dataset.
There's also more background info on the about page here.
Next Steps
Once you have an inventory together, work with your city partners to figure out what barriers stand in the way of making any missing datasets public and discuss solutions to overcoming those barriers. Work with government to create a timeline tool and/or alerts for when data will be released. See New York City’s Open Data Dashboard and Philadelphia’s use of Trello for inspiration on creating a timeline.
If your city is making all this data available, now is the time to start thinking about what questions can be answered or problems addressed with these datasets. Take a look at what other cities are doing with key datasets. Are there lessons to be learned for your city?
To take this project a step further, you can pick an issue area of particular concern to your city (crime or blight, for example) and do an inventory of all datasets related to that issue. Then work with issue-area experts from the community to determine what potential value those datasets might have for addressing the problem, or what datasets are missing that would be particularly valuable.
For more about this project read the Code for America outline.
The first step in making data actionable is to make sure the data is easily accessible. Many cities, whether they have an open data policy in place or not, have work to do in terms of making key datasets open and available in machine-readable formats. Do an evaluation of where your city stands on releasing key datasets and work with your municipal partners to come up with a plan for making all of them open and available in 2014.
The tool is here -- click the blue button in the upper right to contribute a dataset. There's also more background info on the about page here.
Next Steps Once you have an inventory together, work with your city partners to figure out what barriers stand in the way of making any missing datasets public and discuss solutions to overcoming those barriers. Work with government to create a timeline tool and/or alerts for when data will be released. See New York City’s Open Data Dashboard and Philadelphia’s use of Trello for inspiration on creating a timeline.
If your city is making all this data available, now is the time to start thinking about what questions can be answered or problems addressed with these datasets. Take a look at what other cities are doing with key datasets. Are there lessons to be learned for your city?
To take this project a step further, you can pick an issue area of particular concern to your city (crime or blight, for example) and do an inventory of all datasets related to that issue. Then work with issue-area experts from the community to determine what potential value those datasets might have for addressing the problem, or what datasets are missing that would be particularly valuable.
For more about this project read the Code for America outline.