Guelph’s Open Data Journey

http://data.open.guelph.ca/

OPEN GOVERNMENT PRINCIPLES AND

DIRECTIONS

Openengagement

PARTICIPATION

Opendata

INNOVATION

Accesstoinformation

TRANSPARENCY

Opengovernance

ACCOUNTABILITY

OpenGuelph - CITY OF GUELPH 2

ACTION PLAN - 2014 TO 2019

Bettersupported andempoweredcommunity

More civicparticipation

Innovativesolutionsto sharedchallenges

Economic

Greater trustin local

government

OpenGuelph - CITY OF GUELPH

COMMUNITY BENEFITS

3

Open Data Maturity Model

OpenGuelph - CITY OF GUELPH 4

Spreadsheets on

the Web, PDFs,

Custom Web

Apps

Catalog of

Downloadable

Files (CSV, XLS,

SHP, KML, ZIP,

PDF)

Manual Data

Publishing

Data Tables,

Basic

Visualizations,

Social Sharing,

Manual Data

Publishing

Automated Data

Publishing and

Distribution

Consumer style

Experience

Apps, Mashups,

Dashboards,

Storytelling

Developer-ready

APIs

Real Time Data

Enterprise Data

Publication

Strategy

Data Platform for

a Connected

Digital Gov.

Crowd Sourced

Solutions

Plug-and-play

Portable Apps

Socrata, 2014

Timeline– January 2014 - Get something up!

– Hackathon with University of Guelph on 22FEB14 (International Open Data Day)

– Web page with links to files to download

– March 2014 - Asked public what datasets they would like

– Published CKAN based open data catalog

– Participated in 2016 Open Cities Index and ranked 43 in Canada

– Targeted specific datasets that we were missing from survey and additional actions

– September 2017, participated in Open Cities Index 2017 – ranked 23rd in Canada! Moved up 20 spots!

Challenges1. No. It’s mine and you can’t have it

2. It will be twisted around to make us look bad!

3. If we give it to them they will just want more

4. We don’t know that “they” will find

5. We already sell it..oh we don’t? Well…we should

6. This is going to be soooo much work – I’m already too busy

7. Someone would need a professional degree just to understand it

8. No way, terrorists will use it!

9. It’s not perfect/complete/good

10. We have data?!?!?!

Lessons

A. Start Small

B. Work with those that see the value

C. Ask for feedback

D. R&D

E. Play nice with others

F. Help the public and staff use the data

A. Start Small

Service Area Dataset NameOperations Facility Location AddressesOperations Waste Collection ScheduleOperations Transit RidershipOperations Permissive ParkingOperations Tree Inventory TENTATIVEOperations Bus Routes/Stops/TimesCH&R Address/Streets/Wards/Voting Sub LayerCH&R Employee Contact Info TENTATIVEPlanning On Road Cycling RoutesPlanning ContoursPlanning ParksPlanning Green Space TENTATIVEPlanning Zoning Layer TENTATIVECSS “Service Guelph Stats” (to be scoped) TENTATIVECSS Culture MapCSS 2014 City Events

• We started with a wishlist of 16

• Launched with 21 datasets

• Limited file format to csv and Shapefile

B. Work with those that see value

• Even if that means only publishing data

from 1 department.

C. Ask for feedback

• If you have a public survey tool – ask the public what sets they would like to see

• Ask staff which sets they use most often

• Look at your FOI requests

• Once you have a site up – ask for suggestions

• Know that it will take time to get some sets but if someone requested it then someone is interested and may even be willing to get it.

D. Rob and Duplicate.

• In the spirit of openness, take what you like from

others and make work for you

• Take licences, templates, policies,

implementation plans etc

• Do-it-Yourself Open Data Toolkit

• http://open.canada.ca/en/do-it-yourself-open-data-

toolkit#toc0c

E. Play Nice with Others.

• Participate in the Public Sector Digest Open

Cities Index – it’s free

• Look at the report and compare to similar

municipalities

• Set achievable goals for the upcoming year

3?5?10? More datasets

F. Help the public and staff use the data

• Host Hackathons or challenges,

• Best to have a theme or specific problem statements

for this

• Prize can be to showcase app on Open data site and

plaque from Mayor

• Information sessions for staff

• Why are we doing this?

• How will this benefit me?

Tools

• Manual approval form

• Automated form

– Risk assessment

• Suggest a dataset form

• Ask a question

What’s Next

• More datasets

• Open Data Policy

• Education for Staff

• Education for Citizens

Open Data Maturity Model

OpenGuelph - CITY OF GUELPH 16

Spreadsheets on

the Web, PDFs,

Custom Web

Apps

Catalog of

Downloadable

Files (CSV, XLS,

SHP, KML, ZIP,

PDF)

Manual Data

Publishing

Data Tables,

Basic

Visualizations,

Social Sharing,

Manual Data

Publishing

Automated Data

Publishing and

Distribution

Consumer style

Experience

Apps, Mashups,

Dashboards,

Storytelling

Developer-ready

APIs

Real Time Data

Enterprise Data

Publication

Strategy

Data Platform for

a Connected

Digital Gov.

Crowd Sourced

Solutions

Plug-and-play

Portable Apps

Socrata, 2014

Questions?

Opengov@guelph.ca