Opening Up Government Data

• 1. Opening up Government Data Jenny Telford Director of Census Products and Services Australian Bureau of Statistics

2. Opening up ABS Data

• How far we have come

• • Case Study of the 2006 Census Output

• The challenges:

• • Policy

• • Organisational

• • Technical

3. How far we have come

• The past

• • Data available in paper publications

• • The paper on the web era

• The present

• • Content designed for the web

• • Interactive applications

• The future

• • More interactivity

• • Data as a service

4. Case Study: 2006 Census Output

• Aim to make data:

• • Relevant

• • Visible

• • Usable

• • Timely

• • Accurate

• • Accessible

5. 2006 Census Output Objectives

• Provide a range of products aimed at meeting individual user needs

• • Tourists

• • Harvesters

• • Miners

• Better access to more data

• Changes to delivery not content

• Improve the quantity and quality of our metadata.

6. The Product Range 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. TableBuilder

• High end application for experienced users

• Create custom tables direct from unit record data

• Confidentiality built into the application

• Range of formats

• • csv, xls, mid/mif, esri, GML, etc

• Create tables, maps and charts

17. Where to next?

• Opening up data even further

• Data delivered as services

• Increased emphasis on geospatial display

• Aggregating Census data with other sources

• • Mashups

• • Maplets

• • Widgets

18. 19. Opening up data the challenges

• Protecting our reputation/brand

• Authenticity of open data

• Protecting respondent confidentiality

• Equity of access to all

• Making data comparable

• Technical challenges

20. Protecting our Reputation

• ABS has a reputation for quality accurate data

• Direct link between reputation and response rates

• Risk of mashing up ABS data with data from a less reliable source

• Loss of direct control

21. Data Authenticity

• Can you trust what you see?

• ABS brand = Quality and Trust

• The digital watermark

• Official Source stamp

22. Confidentiality is key!

• Protect the privacy of individuals and businesses

• CORE value cannot be compromised

• Range of technical and procedural protections in place

• Adds technical complexity

23. Equity of Access

• Key ABS principle

• Aim to make our data as accessible and usable as possible forall

• We cant possibly publish data in every format

• • the quest for open standards

• • Google gadgets, Yahoo widgets etc

• • The potential of RSS

24. Data Cohesion making things comparable

• Importance of standards

• Changing classifications

• Time series

• Comparing geographic areas not as simple as it sounds

25. We dont just publish numbers

• We publish metadata (and a lot of it)

• Fitness for purpose

• • you decide

• Quality Statements

• • need to carry a link with the data.

26. Copyright and IP issues

• Policies aim to promote (but not abuse) use of ABS data

• More aligned to the past

• Copyright - the 500 cell limit

• • Does this still work?

• Creative Commons

27. The risk of being too interesting

• 2006 Census results

• • 1.7 million hits in the 3 hours after release

• CPI is every quarter

• • 300 hits per second at 11.30 am

What would these numbers look like if we had automated data feeds as well as static data! 28. The future

• Some things will continue

• Continued push to open data

• More data, more formats, more uses!

• Data as a service

• Opportunities and challenges.