Canada Action Plan on Open Government 2.0: Much Still To Do?

Canada recently completed their public consultation on Open Government (Photo source).

By Drew Bush

Introduction

For the savvy traveller headed over Canada’s border this holiday season, Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government 2.0 holds promise. A visit to the site in December 2014 yielded a multi-media list of steps to follow when travelling abroad and even an iOS “Travel Smart” application.

Drafted after a June 2013 G8 Summit, Canada’s plan results from agreements it made when it signed on to the summit’s Open Data Charter that lays the foundation for usage of open data to promote best government practice.

As a result, Canadians can now get online help with more than just travel. Ever wanted to know how much tax money you spend on government contracts? Or need information on the fuel consumption of a car you might buy?

The goal of the 65 nations committed to these plans is to increase government transparency and accountability, encourage citizen engagement, and stimulate innovation and economic opportunities.

History

Making this type of data more freely available fits with a long tradition in Canada. When the country began participating in the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in September 2011, it committed to making open data (or machine readable, freely used, re-used and redistributed data) open to anyone able to attribute and share it.

Applications of Web 2.0 technologies and social media allow for these types of interactions online with information, datasets and records. In fact, many modern computer programs incorporate Application Programming Interfaces (or APIs) to gain access to datasets for users.

The Open Data Charter recognizes the central role open data plays in improving governance and stimulating innovation in data-driven products and services. It endorses the principle of open by default, an idea also supported by U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2013 Executive Order on open data.

The drafting of the Charter and Obama’s order have elicited praise but also criticism. As Rufus Pollock, Founder of the Open Knowledge Foundation, wrote on his foundation’s blog, “there is still much for the G8, and other countries, to do.” In particular, the early results from an Open Data Census in July 2013 show that G8 countries have a long way to go in opening up essential data.

User Generated Input

Making data and information more available to Canadians isn’t the only goal of the plan. Open government is increasingly becoming a positive force for unity and international cooperation, according to Canada’s President of the Treasury Board, Tony Clement, in his statement “About Open Government”. He claims that open data makes government “more open, accessible, and responsive” by harnessing the “collective ingenuity, drive, and imagination of its people.”

In Canada, this means finding a way for citizens to engage in a two-way dialogue and even contribute datasets. In 2014, the Canadian Open Data Experience appathon again brought together government, industry, academia, and the public to mash up, reuse and remix federal government data. Events like these and communities the plan encourages around interest areas like maps, labour and law help encourage the development of useful, effective applications that use government data.

Short History of Open Government in Canada

The Open Government Partnership formally launched on September 20, 2011 when eight founding governments (Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States) endorsed the Open Government Declaration, and announced their country action plans. Canada joined the partnership later that year.
On March 18, 2011, the Government of Canada announced its commitment to an open government initiative that focuses on three areas: 1. Making information such as records and activity more easily accessible; 2. Making raw data available in machine-readable formats to citizens, governments, and non-profit/private sector organizations; 3) Giving citizens an opportunity for dialogue on federal policies.
In 2011 the Government of Canada launched an Open Data Portal – data.gc.ca – which now has more than 272,000 datasets from 20 departments and which has already resulted in over 100,000 dataset downloads since its launch.
All government departments began publishing summaries of completed Access to Information (ATI) requests 2012 monthly on their Web sites.
In 2012, the Government of Canada issued its enhanced Values and Ethics Code of conduct for all public officials.
A 2013 Government of Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) partnership grant asks ‘How the Geospatial Web 2.0 is Reshaping Government-Citizen Interactions.’ GeoThink now includes 13 team members and 36 collaborators and partners.

If you have thoughts or questions about the article, get in touch with Drew Bush, Geothink’s digital journalist, at drew.bush@mail.mcgill.ca.

Crosspost: Ryerson journalism and the Neptis Foundation partner to teach students data journalism

Neptis researcher and transportation engineer, Erin Toop, explains statistics during a Senior Reporting data journalism workshop at Ryerson University on Oct. 9.

By Prajakta Dhopade

I stared blankly at the rows upon rows of transportation statistics on my computer screen. My heart thudded in my chest, my eyes darted to my classmates’ faces. Did they get it? The numbers in the intimidating Excel spreadsheet I was scrolling through didn’t make much sense to me. I thought I’d left math class behind when I came to journalism school.

As the initial panic subsided and I actually took a moment to think about the variables in the data set before me, I began to see how they correlated, how the numbers might raise important questions that could lead to stories I can tell as a journalist.

Which of the 16 zones Toronto is divided into has the most cyclists and what does that say about cycling infrastructure in parts of the city? Has there been an increase in people cycling to work? The possibilities seemed endless.

My foray into data journalism occurred in Ryerson journalism instructor Gavin Adamson’s senior reporting class last month when researchers from the Neptis Foundation, a charitable, non-partisan research organization, came to share the results of an unreleased Transportation Tomorrow Survey (TTS) with students.

It was an opportunity for us to produce story ideas from a vast collection of data about the modes of transportation used in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

The Neptis-led data journalism workshop was organized after April Lindgren, director of the Ryerson Journalism Research Centre (RJRC), and Marcy Burchfield, executive director of the Neptis Foundation, met at the annual meeting of the Canadian Geospatial and Open Data Research Partnership this summer.

“We have partnered with other universities on previous projects and have always had a relationship with up-and-coming planners, [and] transportation engineers, so this seemed like a good fit—to introduce some young, up-and-coming journalists to an important data set that tells a lot about travel behaviour in the region,” said Burchfield.

The TTS is sponsored by the Ministry of Transportation Ontario and is a collaborative effort by regional governments and transportation associations to collect data revolving around how people travel in southern Ontario.

The survey sample is large, involving five per cent of the population in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).

Neptis shared summary data for 32 variables with us, meaning there were 1,500 possible comparisons to make during our analysis.

According to Burchfield, while the TTS has been used widely for several years for analysis surrounding land-use and urban development, for a long time it has been behind an archaic graphic user interface that limited its accessibility.

She says Neptis hopes to “break down a barrier of access” so that you don’t have to be an expert to draw conclusions from the TTS.

Erin Toop, transportation engineer and a Neptis researcher, was one of the presenters who condensed the complicated raw information into accessible spreadsheets for us to sift through.

The Neptis team members began their Oct. 9 presentation to my class with an explanation of why combiningstatistics with journalism is so important in seeing the big picture.

“With data journalism, you can actually assemble all the information that is out there and you’re able to see trends, you’re able to see how things come together… [and] share these stories in a meaningful way,” said Phinjo Gombu, a former Toronto Star urban affairs reporter who is now working with Neptis.

The presenters emphasized that the ability to decipher raw data and draw conclusions from the numbers is vital in determining the truth and holding politicians accountable.

As a journalism student, this exercise made me realize that having data journalism skills is a valuable asset to have in an industry that is starting to value digital literacy over much else—but our curriculum is only just shifting to accommodate what the job market demands.

Lindgren said the purpose of the partnership between Neptis and Ryerson’s journalism school was to explore different ways of teaching data journalism.

“It’s quite a challenging thing to do because of the technical requirements…You need to know how to work with spreadsheets and data, so there are several levels of complexity in terms of learning,” said Lindgren. “And also the data are so interesting and the story potential is so great that it was a real hands-on opportunity to do real stories with real data.”

While the Excel spreadsheets prepared by Neptis were much less intimidating than the original data format, we were still faced with the daunting task of tackling numbers and making sense of the 32 variables we were given to work with. Transportation modes, trip purposes, trip rates—how were we supposed to see the trends and their significance?

Adamson says that hands-on work with data helps break down numeracy fears, a critical hurdle for journalists, who often must sift through data evidence to analyze governmental and corporate decision-making.

After Toop gave us an overview of how the survey worked and what each variable represented, the class divided into groups to generate story ideas.

What really worked about the workshop is that we had the Neptis researchers to help us understand the feasibility of comparing variables while our journalism instructors encouraged us to think about how the data related to what’s happening in the city.

We learned to simplify our approach to finding patterns in the data and to think about what our lede would look like.

Fourth-year journalism student Marija Petrovic went on to use the TTS data to write a story for Adamson’s reporting class.

She discovered that cycling within Toronto has increased more than 50 per cent in the past four years as more people choose to ride their bikes to avoid congestion on city roads.

“I liked seeing data that was something that I see happening every day and that is such a big part of a Ryerson student’s life,” said Petrovic, who confessed she found the workshop challenging at times because math is not her forte.

We didn’t come close to taking the data and creating ambitious graphic visualizations like the images shown to us by the Neptis researchers — indeed, following through with the analysis would be another obstacle to tackle— but the exercise got us thinking.

“Although it was a good three-hour workshop, it wasn’t enough,” said Michael Chen, a fourth-year journalism student who attended the presentation.

He thinks it was a great opportunity to look at the data and ask questions but would like to have spent more time learning about Excel sheets and analyzing statistics.

I definitely agree that we needed more time to become comfortable with the numbers; even as I started to figure them out, I still found them overwhelming.

Finding patterns wasn’t easy either, but it was helpful receiving the Neptis researchers’ feedback because it was reassuring to realize we weren’t grasping at straws– that maybe we were onto something.

Adamson hopes to partner with Neptis again for other classes in the journalism program, including the masthead publication, The Ryersonian.

Prajakta Dhopade is a fourth-year journalism student at Ryerson. She is an aspiring online journalist with an interest in women’s issues. Her work has also been published by the Canadian Press.

Cross post from the Ryerson Journalism Research Centre

Civic Hackathons: Innovation, Procurement, or Civic Engagement?

By Peter Johnson

I’ve recently published a jointly-authored viewpoint piece with Dr. Pamela Robinson from Ryerson University in Review of Policy Research. Titled ‘Civic Hackathons: Innovation, Procurement, or Civic Engagement?‘, we take a critical look at the recent phenomenon of civic hackathons – time limited contests typically run by governments designed to promote use of open data resources, and potentially solve local issues.

Both Pamela and myself have been struck by the high level of interest and hype that many civic hackathons have received, and decided to examine the multiple end points and implications generated from these events. For example, do civic hackathons have the potential to replace the traditional ways that government purchases products and services? Similarly, are these events considered to be new vectors for citizen engagement, and if so, who is actually participating in them, and for what purposes? This is a rich area for future questions, as this paper provides guidance towards a more fully developed research program that critically evaluates the hackathon process and outcomes.

Peter A. Johnson
Assistant Professor
Department of Geography and Environmental Management
University of Waterloo

Cross post from Geospatial Participation

Privacy Challenges in Open Government

By Teresa Scassa

The public-oriented goals of the open government movement promise increased transparency and accountability of governments, enhanced citizen engagement and participation, improved service delivery, economic development and the stimulation of innovation. In part, these goals are to be achieved by making more and more government information public in reusable formats and under open licences.

The Canadian federal government has committed to open government, and is currently seeking input on its implementation plan. The Ontario government is also in the process of developing an open government plan, and other provinces are at different stages of development of open government. Progress is also occurring at the municipal level across Canada, with notable open data and/or open government initiatives in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa (to give a few examples).

Open government brings with it some privacy challenges that are not explicitly dealt with in existing laws for the protection of privacy. While there is some experience with these challenges in the access to information context (where privacy interests are routinely balanced against the goals of transparency and accountability), this experience may not be well adapted to developments such as open data and proactive disclosure, nor may it be entirely suited to the dramatic technological changes that have affected our information environment.

In a recent open-access article, I identify three broad privacy challenges raised by open government. The first is how to balance privacy with transparency and accountability in the context of “public” personal information (for example, registry information that may now be put online and broadly shared). The second challenge flows from the disruption of traditional approaches to privacy based on a collapse of the distinctions between public and private sector actors. The third challenge is that of the potential for open government data-even if anonymized-to contribute to the big data environment in which citizens and their activities are increasingly monitored and profiled.

I invite you to have a look at this article, which is published in (2014) 6 Future Internet 397-413.

Teresa Scassa, Canadian Research Chair in Information Law

Is Raw Data Bad For You? Open Data Obligations to Government.

By: Leah Cooke, Stephanie Piper, Alana Kingdon, and Peter Johnson

*This blog post was written collaboratively during the springtime Geothink meetup between Ryerson University and University of Waterloo students + faculty. The goals of this meetup were to discuss current and future issues related to Geothink research themes.

What strings are attached to governments that provide open data to citizens? Alongside the current interest in government open data, questions remain about how government should share data. Specifically, what obligations do government have beyond simple data provision. These obligations could include educating citizens, contextualizing data, and also being receptive to citizen feedback on the data provided. For example, if a government publishes drinking water quality data, do they have a (moral, ethical, operational) obligation to support this data with relevant contextualizing information? We propose five main responses that government could provide when answering this question.

1. Nothing

Providing the data as it exists without any contextual information to aid in understanding the data.

2. Metadata

Defining the details of data by including acronyms and field names etc., to make the document readable for technically adept users.

3. Processed data

Data that includes maps, legends, annotations, or graphs/charts to aid in the understanding of the data by viewers, while still including original data to allow for additional analyses. Also included is descriptive information or explanatory text that may be helpful to user’s understanding of the data.

4. Engagement and Responsiveness:

A responsive format for the distribution of open data would see a commitment to the sustainability of the data itself, by ensuring updates and maintenance to open data portals. An obligation for citizen engagement would also be present at this level, with governments creating workshops or tools to help citizens become knowledgeable about the data as well as ensuring two-way communication between those with questions or suggestions surrounding the data.

5. Interoperable Standards for Data Sets

Data sets are released in a standardized format, with the intention of increasing the accessibility of data for novice users as well as for ease of integrating information from different municipalities for regional analyses.

While these five standards are different potential ways government can operationally structure and release their data, the question still remains: which format is ethically or morally the option that should be adopted. Further, government bodies have complex requirements to abide by legislation, including the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), that also need to be considered when releasing any information. Do these requirements alter these obligations? Beyond the regulations themselves, further accessibility issues are also raised. Should the data be accessible by various levels of users, from novice to expert? What does this mean for the ethical framework surrounding the release of the data? As data is often released in formats only recognized by technical users such as .csv files, is there an additional obligation to release data that is open to nontechnical users as well? Inherent in the name, open data is the assumption that this data is being released in order to create an increase in transparency. It would be natural to assume that this data should therefore be accessible to users regardless of their technical skill levels.

In conclusion, for municipal governments, providing raw data is really just the first step. Governments that are serious about using open data as a prelude or support to open government need to also provide tools and support to enable data being turned into information. Metadata is not enough, and open data does not replace targeted information and publications created internally and shared with citizens.

Paper Spotlight: “Enabling Access and Reuse of Public Sector Information in Canada” by Elizabeth Judge

Enabling Access and Reuse of Public Sector Information in Canada: Crown Commons Licenses, Copyright, and Public Sector Information

Elizabeth Judge

University of Ottawa – Common Law Section

October 14, 2010

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1956549

Abstract:

Although the proactive disclosure of public sector information has been called a “basic right of citizens” and a “public right,” Canada has not yet implemented a national strategy to support public access to public sector information and enable its reuse. Public sector information, which is information created by government in the course of governing, is essential for transparency, accountability, democratic participation, and citizen engagement. This article examines public sector information and analyzes developments in Canada and other jurisdictions to promote its public access and reuse. It discusses the extent to which public sector information has been integrated into copyright reform efforts and, where public sector information is copyright protected, it discusses the mechanisms available within the copyright framework to facilitate public access and reuse of public sector information, focusing in particular on licensing. In Canada, Crown copyright restrictions and complicated licensing limit access to public sector information. The article recommends that Canada establish a centralized portal for open government data and implement Crown Commons licenses, which together would advance the objective of open government data by ensuring that public sector information is accessible online in usable formats, easily found, and not encumbered by restrictive Crown copyright licensing conditions.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 45

Keywords: public sector information, open government data, government data, open access, Crown Copyright, Creative Commons, copyright