2009 - A Public Sector Data Explosion?
13th January 2009
2008 saw a lot of movement around the opening up of public data and particularly in relation to location based services using that data. We’d already seen some positive signs with the commission of the Power of Information report back in 2007 and last year saw the innovative Show Us A Better Way competition.
It was very interesting to see that all five ideas which Show Us A Better Way are hoping to help develop are ones which use geographic data, especially as there have been so many issues with public sector bodies “misusing” Ordinance Survey data and derived data. Anybody interested in this would find it useful to take a look at the Guardian’s Free Our Data campaign. Of course, a cynic might think that the whole competition was devised to apply pressure to open up OS data to public bodies.
Now Birmingham City Council is in the middle of a huge Excellence in Information Management project as part of its Business Transformation programme. This means data that used to be held often inconsistently in many places will exist just once, and this includes geographical locations. Now, if the city were to open up all of that data to be reused by people to provide different services, just how much additional commercial creativity would that inspire? It would probably be the sort of thing that a Birmingham Hacklab could play around with.
In the near future, localised web services are likely to become much more commonplace. There is a willingness on behalf of colleagues involved in the new Geographic Information System to open up a small set of data to test the waters and Digital Birmingham would be interested in people’s opinions on what data they would like access to.
I agree wholeheartedly Simon, as a lot of my work involves research I would really benefit from having more access to data, statistics, baselines etc etc. I would like get my hands on every kind of data as I never know what I might need from one day to the next so here’s hoping - I will keep my eyes peeled!
[...] Bounds, Pete Ashton, Joanna Geary, Gavin Wray, Benjamin Brum, Simon Whitehouse, Abby Corfan, Phil Oakley, Watfordgap, Danny, Katie Spragg, Mark [...]
[...] Bounds, Pete Ashton, Jon Hickman, Joanna Geary, Gavin Wray, Benjamin Brum, Simon Whitehouse (see here), Abby Corfan, Phil Oakley, Watfordgap, Danny Smith, Katie Spragg, Mark [...]