Suggestions for governments stepping into open data

I've been completing a survey for the Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA) related to the Queensland Government's open data initiative, where one of the questions asked Can you list or describe any learnings that would be useful in Queensland?



I've provided a number of my thoughts on this topic, having closely observed open data initiatives by government over the last five years, and written periodically on the topic myself, such as:

• Mapping open data site generations


• Is there really an open data El Dorado?


• How should governments educate agencies about open data?


• Infographics: How does Australia compare on government open data released?


• From open data to useful data


• Is it easy for non-programmers to reuse government open data?

To share the thoughts I placed in the survey more broadly - for any value they have for other jurisdictions - I've included them below:

• Data released in unusable formats is less useful - it is important to mandate standards within government to define what is open data and how it should be released and educate broadly within agencies that collect and release data.


• Need to transform end-to-end data process. Often data is unusable due to poor collection or collation methods or due to contractual terms which limit use. To ensure data can be released in an open format, the entire process may require reinvention.


• Open data is a tool, not a solution and is only a starting point. Much data remains difficult to use, even when open, as communities and organisations don't have the skills to extract value from it. There needs to be an ongoing focus on demonstrating and facilitating how value can be derived from data, involving hack events, case studies and the integration of easy-to-use analysis tools into the data store to broaden the user pool and the economic and social value. Some consideration should be given to integrating the use and analysis of open data into school work within curriculum frameworks.


• Data needs to be publicly organised in ways which make sense to its users, rather than to the government agencies releasing it. There is a tendency for governments to organise data like they organise their websites - into a hierarchy that reflects their organisational structures, rather than how users interact with government. Note that the 'behind the scenes' hierarchy can still reflect organisational bias, but the public hierarchy should work for the users over the contributors.


• Provide methods for the community to improve and supplement the open data, not simply request it. There are many ways in which communities can add value to government data, through independent data sets and correcting erroneous information. This needs to be supported in a managed way.


• Integrate local with state based data - aka include council and independent data into the data store, don't keep it state only. There's a lot of value in integrating datasets, however this can be difficult for non-programmers when last datasets are stored in different formats in different systems.


• Mandate data champions in every agency, or via a centre of expertise, who are responsible for educating and supporting agency senior and line management to adapt their end-to-end data processes to favour and support open release.


• Coordinate data efforts across jurisdictions (starting with states and working upwards), using the approach as a way to standardise on methods of data collection, analysis and reporting so that it becomes possible to compare open data apples with apples. Many data sets are far more valuable across jurisdictions and comparisons help both agencies and the public understand which approaches are working better and why - helping improve policy over time.


• Legislate to prevent politicians or agencies withholding or delaying data releases due to fear of embarrassment. It is better to be embarrassed and improve outcomes than for it to come out later that government withheld data to protect itself while harming citizen interests - this does long-term damage to the reputation of governments and politicians.


• Involve industry and the community from the beginning of the open data journey. This involves educating them on open data, what it is and the value it can create, as well as in an ongoing oversight role so they share ownership of the process and are more inclined to actively use data.


• Maintain an active schedule of data release and activities. Open data sites can become graveyards of old data and declining use without constant injections of content to prompt re-engagement. Different data is valuable to different groups, so having a release schedule (publicly published if possible) provides opportunities to re-engage groups as data valuable to them is released.

eGov AU

Craig Thomler's personal Gov 2.0 and eGovernment thoughts and speculations from an Australian perspective

Can government policy, reports and consultation documents be communicated through animated infographics?

Government reports are often dry - really, really, really dry.



They are also often wordy, complex, long and, due to these properties, largely incomprehensible to the broader community.



Government policy and consultation documents can suffer from similar conditions. They are often quite complex, long and structured in ways that make sense to career bureaucrats but not necessarily to the general public.



Many agencies also dislike this and make all kinds of efforts to provide summaries, to simplify language, use images and charts and use other techniques to spice up these often long and complex government documents.



However at their core, they generally remain documents, words on paper that would be familiar to the scholars of Middle-Ages Europe, to the Ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians and to the many dynasties of the Chinese over the last six thousand years - although they may now be distributed by electronic as well as physical means.



Surely modern society can devise better ways to communicate complex information than relying on an approach that is now around six thousand years old.



And we have - by drawing from techniques that are much older and more resilient in human cultures. Pictures, dance and song.



Now I don't expect governments to communicate their reports, policies and consultation materials entirely through the use of the performing arts. Not all our politicians or public servants are as accomplished singers as, say Chris Emerson, who can be viewed below communicating about government budget reporting and the Charter of Budget Honesty in song with his band Emmo and the Wipeouts on an episode of The Hamster Decides.









However with multimedia and the use of infographics it is now possible to communicate government information in far more engaging and understandable ways than ever before.



This is being done by some agencies already. The Department of Planning and Community Development in Melbourne made a series of animated infographics to communicate material from their consultation, PlanMelbourne (which I've been privileged to work on through Delib Australia).









The use is not yet widespread, with most government reports, consultation documents, policies and other material still released as words on paper - however what if it was.



What if governments mandated that agencies were required to follow a visual first approach for all materials they released to the public, only using words on paper as a secondary technique?



Could agencies rise to the challenge, communicating their material far more succinctly in visual form - a five minute video rather than a 200 page single-spaced, small-type report?



Not possible? Material too complex and long? Too many statistics to cover?



Maybe the examples below might shift a few opinions.



The first example is from the creator of PHD Comics, Jorge Cham. As an internationally renown animator Jorge asked students to describe their thesis in two minutes.



Jorge chose the best descriptions and turned them into animated infographics, such as the one below from Adam Crymble on Big Data and Old History.







Second is an example from Peter Liddicoat, a materials scientist at the University of Sydney and the winner of the Chemistry category in the 'Dance your PHD' competition.



Peter's PHD was on the topic 'Evolution of nanostructural architecture in 700 series aluminium alloys during strengthening by age-hardening and severe plastic deformation' - a wonderfully complex and obscure topic that doesn't seem to naturally lend itself to dance, but somehow works.









What I think these example demonstrate is that there are alternatives ways for government to communicate complex material. They no longer must rely on words on paper.



Certainly bureaucrats can argue that word on paper are easy for them to produce, that they satisfy a substantial proportion of the community and they have a long track record - that 6,000 years of history I mentioned earlier.



They can also argue that there's no silver bullet for communication, no technique that will satisfy 100% of the audience, and that is perfectly true.



However while governments may consider words on paper the default position, the lowest common denominator way of making information available to the public, I think they are often used as an excuse to be lazy and unengaging.



Paper make the lives of public servants and politicians easier. Paper documents are relatively cheap and fast to write, review, approve and distribute - none of which is a benefit to the intended audience and community or improves the outcomes of a consultation.



Mark Twain once said, “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”



For governments words on paper are their long letters - the approach easiest for them, rather than for the recipient, their community or audience.



Agencies can now do better - using images, animations and video to communicate relegating words on paper to a back-up role.



I challenge them to try.

eGov AU

Craig Thomler's personal Gov 2.0 and eGovernment thoughts and speculations from an Australian perspective