The challenge
Decision-makers and those that hold them to account, whether at local, national or global level, require access to usable, meaningful information that throws light on the problems they are seeking to solve. Finding this information often involves joining up data from a variety of sources.
In the past five years advocates of open data have had successes persuading both governments and others to open their data and today there are a now hundreds of public portals containing a huge variety of datasets. Yet many of these repositories are silos: containing similar data, yet in different formats, structures and standards.
One of the biggest barriers to joining up data is a lack of compatible standards. We are faced with different rules for access, different data formats, different data definitions, different quality guidelines, and different recommended codelists and reference data. Even where standards have emerged, or are emerging, such as for aid, contracting, extractives and budget data, there are many missed connections, and both data publishers and users can be left confused by the diversity of technical and policy approaches that each adopts.
Joining up data better requires finding the points of connection between different standards, adopting common building blocks, developing shared infrastructures, and creating tools to map data between formats and standards. This needs to be informed by clear user demand and needs, and supported by greater coordination between standardization groups.
Proposals
The following draft actions were developed through sessions at IODC15. You are invited to share your feedback on these actions using the comments box below. A final roadmap of actions will be published in mid-2015.
Key action: Support sharing and collaboration between standardisation efforts
Standards come in many shapes and sizes, and cover everything from aid flows, to bus times and public toilet locations. Finding the points of connection between different thematic standards, between global and local standards, and between technical and policy processes of standardisation is crucial if open data is to be made interoperable: allowing, for example, apps from one location to be easily deployed in another, and making it possible to follow financial flows for accountability around the world.
Additional action: Joined Up Data Alliance
The Joined Up Data Alliance has launched as a coalition of open data standards setters, users and advocates who will collaborate on matters of mutual interest to the development and usage of data standards especially where we face supranational and cross-domain issues. The Alliance will identify shared challenges, and will collaborate on common approaches to address them.
More information | Get involved in the Joined Up Data Alliance
Additional action: Standards sharing sessions
Building on the Connecting Standards workshop at IODC 2015, which created a fascilitated space for discussion and knowledge exchange on existing data standards, and on gaps in need of common approaches, future open data events should include space for similar workshops, building on models of speed networking and peer-learning activities. The adoption of shared standards, and the creation of connections between them relies first and foremost on building connections between the people working with data.
Action anchors
Action anchors are taking a lead on shaping the conversation in the run up to the conference, and facilitating the conference session. They will be blogging about the key issues to be address, and existing initiatives that respond to the challenges in this area.
Blog posts
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Proposals
Proposals for addressing this challenge will be developed over the course of IODC15, and shared here shortly afterwards.
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