Government is complex but can be made simpler through open data, standards, and APIs. This allows government information and services to be more accessible and usable. Data.gov.au is Australia's open data portal, which publishes government data in formats that can be accessed through APIs. This helps make data more available for use, whether by other government agencies, businesses, or the public. Continued efforts are needed to improve how data is published and to encourage collaboration both within and outside of government. The goal is to design systems and processes with openness, reuse, and interoperability in mind.

1. 11
Government as an API: open {data|source|standards}
Pia Waugh
@piawaugh
http://pipka.org
Care of fedAPI.gov

2. 22
Monies, People and Skills
Can haz moar? Bad kitteh.

3. 33
Status quo and inertia
But this worked before just fine!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/52481081@N08/14519663677/

4. 44
Culture clash
Hierarchy vs routing around damage

5. 55
Government(s) are complex
How do we make it simple?
Copyright United States – public domain image

6. http://xkcd.com/898/
The rise of the technocracy
The geek has inherited the earth?

7. Changing expectations
Challenge... and opportunity!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zebble/8212264/

8. 88
How people see Gov

9. 99
How Gov sees people

10. 1010
How Gov sees Gov
From hierarchy to P2P

11. How?

12. Changing the public service
Taking the horse to water
• Translation of systems, language, services
• Change requires a reason – better, more efficient, etc
• Create paths of least resistance
• Give people a reason
• Take the personal risk and lead the way
• Continually prove why a better path is better
• Put the citizen at the centre of the design

13. 1313
Some building blocks for the future
From FOSS, open data, open standards
• Improving how gov does tech
• On the shoulders of giants... globally
• Models of collaboration (and healthy competition)
• Modular and interoperable design – best tool for each job
• Exposing data/APIs as a service
• Mashable government
• JFDI - scratch an itch, don’t just dance with mosquitoes
• Meritocracy
•Technical excellence and cleverness as a core tenet

14. data.gov.au
Walking the talk
Free, scalable, API-enabled platform for government data.
Staged iterative approach
1. Publishing (2013 – mid 2014)
Improving the functionality and ease of
publishing for agencies with training and
documentation
2. Value realisation (Late 2014)
Providing useful front end tools for data.gov.au
including data visualisation and analysis tools.
Publishing quality data a pre-requisite.
3. Data quality (Late 2014-2015)
Looking at ways to provide agencies the ability
to accept iterative data improvements in a
verifiable way
Ongoing community engagement critical
Features
•Manual and automated publishing options
• API access to (clean) tabular/spatial data
• Easy to publish, download & interact
• Use cases and site|data|org analytics
• Data Request Site
• Harvesting from gov data gateways
• National Map integration
• Blog and monthly reports
In Planning
• 5 star quality plugin
• Selective crowdsourcing for updates
• Federated search for discoverability
• League Table
• Data model registry

15. Translating and transforming – building the freeway
National
Map
Datavis Application
development
Analysis
& Policy
Value Creation
Discovery
Data
Full Discovery
New
Services
FIND
National
spatial index
(gov, private,
research)

16. Data Portals – Fed, 5 State/Territory, Local gov
Local Portals:
• City of Melbourne

17. Some useful case studies
• Publishing Budget 2014 Data Report
• Open data – Transforming the Provider / Stakeholder Paradigm
• On the Value of Open Roof Prints
• 100 years of patent and IP data released on data.gov.au
More available soon at http://toolkit.data.gov.au
Other Australian case studies/documentation
• SA Open Data Toolkit
• QLD Government Case Studies
• Victorian Government Showcase
• NSW Apps Showcase
• ACT examples

18. NationalMap

20. DSS and ATO Statistics

21. Open by Design
Drawing a line in the sand
Building proactive publishing, interoperability, reuse into:
• Systems
• Processes
• Procurement
• Planning
• Records management
• Registers
• APIs and service delivery

22. 2222
SPACESHIP!
Tomorrow, pirate ship!

23. The future is here, it is already widely distributed.
Governments are learning to be part of our world
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_matt/35688926
22/
Challenge #1: Collaborate
Challenge #2: Design the future
Challenge #3: Lead the way
Challenge #4: Have fun
Questions?
@piawaugh
@datagovau
http://pipka.org
data.gov.au
toolkit.data.gov.au