VisibleGovernment.ca
Benefits of Open Government Data

[1]

Another Type of Social Media:
Publishing Structured Data
[2]

Graphic generated by Redkid.net

Web-oriented Architectures:
“have a much greater potential
effect on the ability to transform
government than anything else in
the Web 2.0 world.”
- Gartner, 2007
The E-Government Hype Cycle Meets Web 2.0

Publishing Structured Data Visualization
Feeds • Makes it easy to find new
patterns.
• Ability to subscribe to
interesting data
• Data streams can be ‘mashed’
in new ways.
Collaborative Crowdsourcing
Organization • Combines skills and input of
large numbers of people
• Tagging, Voting, Sharing

Governments publish
•
data streams
Governments
publish data
streams
3rd parties create tools for
•
analysis and oversight
3rd
Citizens collaboratively
•
Citizens
Issues are
Party monitor data
monitor their
resolved
streams
Tools
government
Citizens detect issues,
•
give feedback
Issues are
detected
Issues are resolved
•

Why?

Open Systems Allow
External Contribution.

Goldcorp
1999: Struggling
Vancouver company
Early test results showed
gold deposits
After years of searching:
no gold found
From Wikinomics,
by Dan Tapscott
[3]

Golden challenge unearths new ideas: Globe and Mail, April 2007.

“I

[The Goldcorps President] realized that the
uniquely qualified minds to make new discoveries
were probably outside the boundaries of his
organization, and by sharing some intellectual
property he could harness the power of collective
genius and capability
[4]

What if governments
took the same
approach?

structured govt. data
+ citizen expert groups
some examples...

1st Year Results:
•2000 Citizen Reviewers
• Avg. Time / Reviewer / Patent: 6hrs

Easy to File a
Report

Rewarding
•25,000 Problems reported
• 8,000 Fixed

A recent US
Congress bill
Groups
Groups for
against bill
bill

Votes
Donations

Publishing Structured Data Visualization
Feeds • MAPLight makes relationship
between money and votes
• MAPLight is a mashup of
visible.
data streams from different
sources.
Collaborative Crowdsourcing
Organization • Thousands of journalists,
• Advocacy group tags advocates, and citizens can
browse data and flag issues.
donating companies as
belonging to interest groups.

Open Systems Make
Failure Free.
* paraphrasing Clay Shirky.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobalt/1308955915/

Where’s the best solution?

It’s hard for
governments to
experiment.

There’s lots of people watching.
[5]

There’s lots of rules.
[6]

“An online compliance checklist for
designers of government websites identifies
no fewer than 24 different regulatory
regimes with which all public government
web sites must comply.”
-David Robinson, Princeton Center for Information Policy.
“Government Data and the Invisible Hand”

Let others
experiment
for you.
* Save tax money.
[7]

Regulations.gov
• Launched • Re-designed
• Limited Search • Re-launched
• Hard to Use • Added RSS Feeds
2003 2008
(+few months)
• Pared down interface
OpenRegulations.org • Easy to navigate
*From: Government Data and the Invisible Hand, David Robinson,
Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy.

Open Systems Create
New Markets.
[8]

Cisco:
127 Acquisitions in 15 Years
[9]

New Opportunities:
Visualization
Analysis
Community Mgmt.
Combining Data Sets
Data Mining
Niche Markets
[10]

Be like Cisco.
Buy the best solutions.
Open source them.
Create an expanding base
of re-usable software.
[11]

An Architecture for Open.
[12]

OLD NEW
*From: Power of Information Task Force blog, June 2008.

OLD NEW
*From: Power of Information Task Force blog, June 2008.

Access
Treasury
Board
Reporting
Department
Reporting
Auditor
General
Access
*From: Government Data and the Invisible Hand, David Robinson,
Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy.

An Architecture for Open
Access
Treasury
External
Groups
Board
Reporting
Department
Reporting Auditor
General*
External
Groups
Access
* Save tax dollars.

Open System
Roadblocks.
[13]

Civil servants often feel
they live in a fishbowl.

“No one was ever promoted
for disclosing information.”
-US Government Employee.
OMBWatch, Towards a 21st Century Right To Know Agenda

Open systems can
make heroes.
Not just scapegoats.
[14]

Estonia: Government document repository
entirely open to public.
- Stephen Clift, DemocracyOnline*
[18]
* http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/node/52

Cost of Software Defect: Time Introduced vs. Time Detected
Time Detected
Require- Architec- Construc- System Post-
ments ture tion Test Release
Require-
1× 3× 5–10× 10× 10–100×
ments
Time
Architec-
Introduced - 1× 10× 15× 25–100×
ture
Construc-
- - 1× 10× 10–25×
tion
McConnell, Steve (2004). Code Complete (2nd edition ed.)
Microsoft Press. pp. 960. ISBN 0-7356-1967-0.
Also here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing

Let the public see
your successes as
they’re happening.
• Goals achieved
• Innovative services
• Efficiency improvements

About
VisibleGovernment.ca

Focus:

 US Congress
 California
Legislature
Gives grants to

online
transparency
tools

UK Non-Profit

Simple,

Effective Tools
High

Participation
Photo by memespring, Flickr.com, Creative Commons ASA2G

Accelerate online transparency

Ideas Raise Awareness

 With public
 With government
Skills Raise Money

Fund External Development:

Funds  Grants
 Contests

Prove
Concept
Direct Attention and
Get Publicity
Money and to Online
Tools For Transparency
Raise
Awareness
Show What’s
Possible

[15]

5 Transparency Pledges
 Transparency Reform
Source Code:
 Measurable Campaign
Change-Congress.org
 Promises
(Lawrence Lessig and Joe

Trippi) Publish MP Schedules
Candidate info scraped from

Eliminate Data Access
party websites Fees
10 days to implement Access to Information

Reform

 38 MPs elected
 2 agreed to publish their
calendar

[15]

2003 Directive: Must

publish travel and
hospitality expenses
on the web
No standards for

presentation defined

124 Departments
- All different

Standardize Stream Visualize
• Scrape data into • Publish RSS • Provide basic
standard format feeds visualization app
• Hold contests

Records collected so far.
30,000
Volunteers.
4
Errors found.
155
Visualization company
1 engaged.
Lawyer making sure things
1 are on the up-and-up.

What you can do now.
[16]

“When you open up the data,
there’s no limit to what people can
do. It engages the imagination of
citizens in building the city.”
-David Miller, Mayor of Toronto.
Toronto 2.0: Data Sharing Source
The Globe and Mail, 09-01-31

[17]

Government of Canada
Treasury Board
ITERation Project
• Generalized system for publishing data
• Implements IMF Code of Conduct for
Fiscal Transparency

What am I
publishing?
How can I
structure it so it
can be re-used?
How can I be
more open?

Further Resources:
VisibleGovernment.ca Website: http://visiblegovernment.ca
Government Data and the Invisible Hand, David Robinson et. al.
Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1138083
Hack, Mash and Peer: Crowdsourcing Government Transparency
Jerry Brito, George Mason University
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1023485
ChangeCamp: http://groups.google.com/group/changecamp
Sunlight Foundation: http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/
Government 2.0, David Eggers. (2005)
Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky. (2008)

http://www.slideshare.net/jenniferbell

Photo Credits:
[1] 234 social media marketing examples, beingpeterkim
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beingpeterkim/2909140600/
[2] Printing Press, Thomas Hawk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/172495285/
[3] Gold Bars, Curtis Perry http://www.flickr.com/photos/curtisperry/56998544
[4] Where’s Wally?, McGarry http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcgarry/111003432
[5] Eye see you!, dotbenjamin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotbenjamin/2636942186
[6] Auntie P.'s ruler, John Edgar Park
http://www.flickr.com/photos/edgar/355067220
[7] Chemical Reaction, Neys http://www.flickr.com/photos/neys/2386865187
[8] Landmark Supermarket Trinoma, bredgur
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bredgur/2655954991
[9] Cisco 2950, Marco Wessel http://www.flickr.com/photos/mhw/91952572/

[10] Hanging Boken Bulb II, bitzcelt
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitzcelt/450640323/
[11] United Colors of Legotton, Guillermo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grdloizaga/817425185
[12] Rotterdam: abstract architecture, docman
http://www.flickr.com/photos/docman/2216568210
[13] Roadblock, iboy daniel http://www.flickr.com/photos/iboy_daniel/83671284
[14] just take my hand let's fly away, funkyah
http://www.flickr.com/photos/funkyah/2400889778/
[15] Amelia Earheart, missrougue,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/missrogue/297606078/
[16] Dave Wants You, Chris Owens
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shutter/105497713
[17] Robots Attack, Andy Wilson
http://www.flickr.com/photos/by_andy/2646443630/
[18] Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaeru/1442362288/