Open data is a set of policies and practices that make data accessible, standardized and reusable. It is a response to changing technologies and social trends, and is both an ethical philosophy and a movement. Open data enables new applications, visualizations and websites by making public data available to everyone.

1. What is open data anyway?
Primer
What is open data anyway?
An introduction for Nominet Trust Open Data Days
January 2012
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

2. What is open data anyway?
Primer
Open data is a set of policies
and practices
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

3. What is open data anyway?
Primer
Open data should be...
Accessible
Place data online
Standardised
.csv, .xml, .txt
Use common formats
Re-usable
Use open licenses
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

4. What is open data anyway?
Primer
Open data is a response to changing
technologies, and societies
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

5. What is open data anyway?
Primer
Diagram from ‘Open Data, Democracy and Public Sector Reform’, Tim Davies, 2010 -
http://practicalparticipation.co.uk/odi/report/2010/2-3-data-and-information/#3
Technical change: Bandwidth and processing capacity to work with data
has grown. We can share all layers, not just analysed information. This
creates conditions, and demand, for open data.
Social change: As authority becomes decoupled from institutions, more
people outside the establishment want to check on the basis of ‘evidence
based practice’. We want to create our own representations, not just accept
those provided by others.
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

6. What is open data anyway?
Primer
Open data is what open data does
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

7. What is open data anyway?
Primer
Most people’s direct
experience (and idea) of open
data is of mash-ups,
visualisations, websites and
mobile apps
Map of Esmee Fairbairn Grantmaking based on scraped data and OpenCharities.org datasets; Live Tube Map from http://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/
Bubble chart from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/datablog/interactive/2011/dec/06/england-riots-crimes-arrested
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

8. What is open data anyway?
Primer
Open data is a philosophy
& a movement
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

9. What is open data anyway?
Primer
On the one hand, recent decades have seen an elaboration of ideas of
Intellectual Property, and an emphasis on information as a valuable
commercial asset: owned and enclosed by governments or corporations. On the
other, open source ideas and a reaction to this new era of enclosure have inspired
revitalised movements for access to knowledge (A2K) and an information
commons. Openness is seen as both an ethical good, and the only way to
support global collaboration on the issues that matter.
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

10. What is open data anyway?
Primer
Open data is a foundation
for a collaborative web
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

11. What is open data anyway?
Primer
World Wide Web inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, envisaged a web not just of
documents, but also of datasets - allowing people to collaborate with less friction
across organisational boundaries.
A web of open data is the next step of ‘weaving the web’.
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

12. What is open data anyway?
Primer
But,
Open charity data is an open question
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Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

13. What is open data anyway?
Primer
There are many possibilities...
Charities can be consumers of open data sources newly available in
open data and standard formats.
They can make use of new data processing tools to be more effective,
and can create and use open data to add their voices to policy debates.
They can produce open data on their activities, and make it engaging with
open applications, web tools and visualisations
They can participate in creating new commons of shared data
between different organisations. Pooling information for common benefit and
building a new collaborative web of data.
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies

14. What is open data anyway?
Primer
Open data days are a way to
find out more...
Search for Nominet Trust Open Data Days for updates on learning from the Nominet Trust sponsored
open data day events.
Version 0.1 - 2012 - Nominet Trust Open Data Days
Practical Participation - tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies