An Introduction to the Open Data User Group
Paul Malyon
Head of B2B Transactional & Marketing Products at Experian Ltd and Member of the Open Data User Group
Abstract
This article gives a succinct introduction to the work of the Open Data User Group and the demand driven process being employed by the United Kingdom to boost the release of publicly owned data assets and how this is creating greater transparency and economic benefit to the country. Examples given also show how international collaboration will enhance these benefits as more formal structures and processes are created to manage the Open Data explosion.
Keywords
Open data; demand driven; transparency; open data institute; open data user group; addresses
Open Data represents a fundamental shift in the way people communicate ideas and information. Inextricably tied to the World Wide Web, the purpose of Open Data is to facilitate interoperability and intermixing of data sets. It is seen by many web scientists as the key ‘language’ as a further 3 billion people gain access to the Web over the next decade.
Open Data as a movement is still in its infancy with work focussing on the release of Government statistics and ‘base level’ data such as maps, company listings and other data of social, environmental or economic importance. This article describes some of the early work
in the UK and further afield to bring Open Data to the masses as part of a drive for greater transparency and sharing of information, as well as how this ‘public sector first’ approach is beginning to influence the world of big business.
Open Data in its most simple and common guise is often made up of the information collected or created by public bodies in the course of providing services to tax payers, for example: maps, addresses, rail stations, weather forecasts and tax receipts. Such bodies often build up vast quantities of reference data and transactional results (e.g. whether or not your child’s school had a good pass rate in GCSE Geography). That data may be used to improve those services, recoup the cost from other agencies or publish statistics every now and then, such as the Census or GDP.
Open Data is different – the agencies releasing it have realised that you’ve already paid for it, it’s not ‘secret’ or personal and you have a right to see the information and use it for the benefit of your business or community. It also serves the notion of ‘transparent government’ as it shows you (or more commonly, investigative journalists) what your tax money is spent on; giving you the opportunity to hold those in power to account and make an informed choice on election day. As an added bonus, this extra scrutiny makes it easier for public bodies to find efficiencies and improve services.
As with everything involving Government, the number of bodies involved in Open Data weaves a complex web. I’ll try to simplify this as much as possible and identify only the key
people, bodies and processes and consider the process which applies when a person or body seeks to have some data held by the public sector released as open data.
The Public Sector Transparency Board will review the business cases and (where required) liaise directly with the relevant body to further the request or ask ODUG to continue their work to strengthen the case in specific areas.
In many instances though, business cases are taken directly to government bodies by the Cabinet Office’s own Transparency Team who work closely with ODUG. This can lead to ‘quick wins’ in areas of quality assurance or licensing, or simply speed up release schedules.
While the above may sound complex, the Data Request Mechanism can be simplified as follows.
1.A request for data is made on data.gov.uk (either for new data or improvements to current data).
2.Requests are assessed by ODUG and Cabinet Office.
a.Complex requests go into an ODUG Business Case template.
b.Simple requests are processed by Cabinet Office and the relevant Department (e.g. fixing a broken link or updating a dataset).
3.Business Case is published on data.gov.uk and discussed by Public Sector Transparency Board.
4.Data owner (Department) responds to the request.
5.Data is released (often following further consultation) or a reason for non-release is given.
The UK is a leading light in Open Data. All of the work going on with the Transparency Board, ODUG and various other sector or department-specific groups contributes to the Transparency Agenda. This thought leadership can be highlighted best via two other groups (while not connected directly to the data request mechanism they are still of great importance) – the Open Data Institute and the Open Government Partnership.
The ODI has set out to be the hub of open data innovation in the UK – training data scientists with universities and schools, mentoring start-ups, training public servants and existing businesses and liaising with other groups to improve the infrastructure that supports innovation (for example, working with ODUG on business cases). The ODI have extended this role by offering Open Data Certificates to public sector bodies (and private organisations) who publish Open data to signify the quality, usefulness and openness of the data.
While a UK-only organisation, the ODI has garnered international attention with over 30 governments from around the world visiting their Shoreditch base to talk about setting up their own franchise (with more than a dozen ‘nodes’ now active in locations such as Dubai, Gothenburg & Chicago). This influence on global open data initiatives leads us nicely onto the other significant piece of the jigsaw.
This group of around 60 nations has committed to the principles of transparent government and working with civil society to encourage the release of data to provide informed choices and strong accountability. Countries involved range from Mexico to Sweden to Kenya and beyond.
The OGP could be regarded as something of a talking shop but aims to work across global borders to build opportunities for experiences to be shared and progress to be encouraged. The effectiveness of the OGP will be easier to judge once all of the commitments made in 2013 are enacted.
The Open Data movement is a global process that is linked to the open government agenda to offer greater transparency, accountability, choice and ultimately opportunities for efficiency within government as well as economic / social opportunities outside of it.
The UK has been at the vanguard of making government more transparent and looking for opportunities to enable economic growth using open data.
While progress has been mixed, a few good examples help to explain the opportunity.
Work by Mastodon C (one of the start-ups mentored at the ODI), Health Care UK and the writer of Bad Science (Dr Ben Goldacre) demonstrated the potential size of savings available to the NHS if prescribing doctors switched from branded to cheaper, non-branded alternatives of common drugs. The specific example examined statins (used to prevent cardiovascular problems) and highlighted that even though doctors were advised to use the cheapest available product (from 81p per prescription) versus more expensive (up to £20), branded versions, this was not what was actually happening on the ground.
It’s important to note that studies found all versions of the drug were equally safe and effective for patients so there really was no good reason to prescribe the expensive alternatives.
The team noted that previous studies had estimated potential savings of over £1 billion per year across a number of drug types. This specific example shows how simple it would be to save money on the NHS budget to direct to new drugs, hospital buildings or other services.
If more NHS data (including anonymous outcome data) is made available, there are many potential uses for savings, faster new drug studies and informed choice for patients across the board.
Between August 2011 and May 2013 the Birmingham Civic Dashboard ran in order to study the way people interacted with Birmingham City Council, what services they wanted, when and where. Using open mapping data from the Ordnance Survey, the team from developer Mudlark made a simple to use tool for council workers and the public to view the kinds of requests at different times of day to get a better understanding of the issues affecting people and how the council responded to them.
This kind of engagement could be rolled out further within local authorities or even nationally to help tax payers understand where their money goes, the kinds of services available to them and then choose what they need, where and when. For government bodies, they would be able to direct their resources at what was needed most in much shorter timescales based upon actual data rather than long term estimates.
The Cabinet Office manages a mechanism, called the Data.gov.uk Data Request Mechanism, which allows the wider ‘data community’ to actively influence the release of data by the UK public sector.
Requests are regularly reviewed with the ODUG to identify quick wins and those requests that require a full benefits case to demonstrate the value to the relevant data owner.
In short, the work of ODUG in representing the economic and social needs of the data community is contributing to shift the position of government on open data from one of those things that had to be done to tick a box for the Minister to a real opportunity to innovate, change behaviours and create significant benefits.
In the example of the Postcode Address File (PAF), there is a clear need for a single, accurate and Open address register for purposes beyond delivering mail. The Census requires addresses to ensure that everyone can take part (with the 2011 Census having to spend £7 million on creating their own address file due to restrictions on PAF). There are also growing requirements for addresses in fields such as navigation, mobile application development and the delivery of crucial public services (everything from getting an ambulance to the right place to planning where to build much needed social housing).
Evidence presented to the committee indicates a great deal of positivity but a real need to
change attitudes in certain sectors of Government from one of caution to one of support.
Common themes in the submissions made include short term costs to release data, loss of revenue where data is currently sold (for example, Royal Mail PAF or OS MasterMap) and fears from privacy lobbyists and sections of the media (for example, how anonymous can you make medical records so that they are useful but not an invasion of privacy?). However, this final point is more to do with Data Sharing (which can be the sharing of private, personal or sensitive data for specific uses rather than free and unrestricted use) than Open Data – another area of confusion that needs to be addressed.
Recent moves by the EU to introduce new Data Protection regulations across the bloc (with added impetus provided courtesy of the NSA hacking scandal) could create tensions between transparency advocates and the privacy lobby. Careful education of citizens and politicians is required.
Closer to home, ODUG will focus on the following key areas:
The real task now is for businesses, academia and public sector experts to unite to put across the strongest case for more anonymous open data to be released but with the strongest possible sanctions against its use for nefarious means. The UK is lucky; ODUG, ODI, Transparency Board and large network of experts means we are well placed to make the case to do more and take balanced risks to benefit society.
Licence and Attribution
This paper was published in the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review, Volume 6, Issue 1 (December 2014). It originally appeared online at http://www.ifosslr.org.
This article should be cited as follows:
Malyon, Paul (2014) 'An Introduction to the Open Data User Group', International Free and Open Source Software Law Review, 6(1), pp 51 – 60
DOI: 10.3366/ifosslr.v6i1.99
Copyright © 2014 Paul Malyon.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons UK (England and Wales) 2.0 licence, no derivative works, attribution, CC-BY-ND available at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/uk/
As a special exception, the author expressly permits faithful translations of the entire document into any language, provided that the resulting translation (which may include an attribution to the translator) is shared alike. This paragraph is part of the paper, and must be included when copying or translating the paper.
http://opendatahandbook.org/en/what-is-open-data/
http://opendatahandbook.org/en/what-is-open-data/
http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/products/index.html
http://data.gov.uk/odug-roadmap
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/public-sector-transparency-board
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/public-sector-transparency-board
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk
http://www.opengovpartnership.org/
http://data.gov.uk/dataset/national-information-infrastructure
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/21/vince-cable-public-register-company-ownership
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21567980-how-scrutiny-freely-available-data-might-save-nhs-money-beggar-thy-neighbour
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/records/healthrecords/Pages/care-data.aspx
http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/market-trend-data/public-data/price-paid-data
http://data.gov.uk/benefits-of-releasing-an-open-vat-register
http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=e7311d49e9ac144a359ee2a96&id=206953c7ad
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-administration-select-committee/news/open-data-substantive/
http://theodi.org/news/383k-government-grant-released-to-create-uk-open-address-list
http://data.gov.uk/blog/the-national-information-infrastructure-where-are-we
http://theodi.org/blog/open-addresses-discovery-phase
http://data.gov.uk/blog/funding-agreed-important-new-open-data-projects