Looking for national open data standards in Central Canada
Interviews & Roundtables Convened
- Ottawa, ON
- Montreal, QC
- Toronto, ON
- Waterloo / Kitchener, ON
Common Themes
- Data quality
- Open by default
- Need for national data standards
- Business intelligence and analytics
- Absence of a solution that tracks and measures impact
Overall Insights
In the Central portion of the Canadian Open Data Tour, ODX learned that some of the previous themes such as: the need for better communication between businesses and governments, extends to both inter-governmental and intra-governmental relations as well. Not only are companies asking governments for data – but governments are also asking departments for data; both face similar problems. A key solution that was proposed was to have two data catalogues: one catalogue for internal use showing all data that an organization has internally, and one catalogue which is visible to the public – the Open Data Catalogue. In this instance, an organization can post data to the internal catalogue and when they are sufficiently comfortable with the information, they can then flip the switch and publish it to the external facing Open Data Catalogue.
Internal business intelligence and analytics departments are also gaining prominence in some of Canada’s most advanced cities. To date, municipalities have yet to find an adequate solution that allows them to track which companies actually use the information published by the city. To a large extent, the only time a municipality will hear about a company using the data which has been published is when the company attributes the data source, or when the company reports an error with the data – this is clearly problematic. To address this problem and to make sure departments are consistently putting out the best quality data, cities have established BI and analytics programs to analyze data that has been published and provide feedback to the city.
What we heard from companies
Key Issues
- Creation of a ‘Master list’ of all government information – even unreleased information
- Understanding how to properly apply security measures
- Lack of internal governmental communication
- Reasonable procurement processes that allow startups and SMEs to view all RFPs without barriers
- National data standards, formats, structures, and release platforms
So far, we have heard that companies are having difficulties around scaling businesses outside of their local jurisdictions due to incompatible data formats and infrequent data updates. Without reliable access to data sets that exist in standardized formats and structures, companies are confined within geographical markets. Although the lack of standardization is an overarching concern, it is not a concern when it comes to finding and using historical data. Companies have expressed a need and interest for historic and legacy data: However, concerns around this type of data differs, as when it is released by municipalities, it does not have to be perfect. Companies are willing to put their own time into historical data as when it is released it can be used to make more robust products and services.
When it comes to searching for applicable RFPs, companies made it clear that any charges or transactional fees which add friction to the process severely limits the growth of start-ups and SMEs. This discussion was also framed around the fact that the current RFP process limits innovation by tailoring itself to larger, more established organizations.
Companies in this portion of the tour also noted that data quality coming from municipalities is often very poor. This is a concern that has been echoed in other cities across Canada as well. Generally, companies found that this issue stemmed from the fact that those within a municipality tasked with identifying and releasing data sets, often have done this off the side of their desk. This, along with the fact that a lot of the data published is operationalized and not standardized has resulted in poor quality data. It is for this reason that companies were eager to learn who their primary contact point in government was. As such, a single contact point for questions about data sets was noted by companies as a highly desirable best practice.
What we heard from government
Key Issues
- Inter-departmental communication around identifying and releasing data
- Need a national and international standard for data formats, structure and release platforms
- Desire for direction from companies regarding data sets to prioritize
- Open data is a ‘side of desk’ project, lacking budget and staffing
- Better communication in government: Who will use the data? How will they use it? What will the social, economic and environmental benefits be? What is the cost?
Governments across Canada have expressed a commitment to making data more liquid and to foster an environment that supports the commercialization of open data. That said, to help the private sector integrate the data into products and services – capacity and privacy challenges within government must be addressed. Currently, these challenges pose insurmountable hurdles to increasing the frequency and quality of data that is released.
One common theme that has been carried forward through every interview thus far is that: governments are actively trying to find, establish, and adopt national data standards. While it is true that few individual municipalities actually have the capacity and resources available to them to establish standards and structure for releasing data sets themselves; they are still actively looking to adopt previously established standards.
Without a doubt, a fundamental roadblock for governments of any level when it comes to opening various data sets, is an inability to communicate internally. Whether it be connecting the value or ROI of open data, or establishing a process for doing so – it's tedious, extra work for many government employees. Keeping in mind that government systems traditionally, and historically, were built for single-purpose processes – these legacy systems are not made for publishing data to any type of server.
This fundamental problem unlocks an opportunity for companies. By communicating to government how they intend on using the datasets released, companies can successfully shape the future of how governments release data sets. Open data champions within government will then be able to create a map for both future infrastructure investment as well as clearly establish processes around collecting and releasing municipal data sets.
Notwithstanding the challenges that every municipality seems to be facing, best practices can be seen emerging across the board. As mentioned, municipalities have begun to incorporate two open data catalogues into their programs: An internal, and external catalogue. The internal catalogue hosts every single data set that exists while the external hosts only those approved for public release. This practice is proving to be extremely efficient in establishing clear processes, and schedules within the municipality around publishing datasets.
