Open Knowledge Foundation – Ireland: Submission for Ireland’s OGP National Action Plan*

Turning Government Data into Gold – we are sitting on a resource that has a potential market worth tens of billions of Euro, that could stimulate new innovations, and that could increase the transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More and governance of public life.  That resource is Government data and it is worth more when it is given away.

Every minute of the day we produce 100.000 tweets, send 204.000 emails, upload 48 hours of new video on YouTube and Google receives over 2.000.000 search queries. We generate data by using our phones and computers, public and private services.  Data is all around us.

We believe that data should be seen as a component of an effort to build a public digital infrastructure, where people could, within the law, do whatever they want. It should be put in use and empower all of us to make more better informed decisions on the daily basis.

Data becomes ‘open data’ when it can be freely used, reused and distributed by anyone who wants to explore it, share it, or build something new with it.

The term ‘open data’ came into use nearly 20 years ago, but it’s only in the past decade that it’s become easier to access to massive archives of data and make use of them. More recently, individuals and groups of open knowledge advocates have worked to create tools that help you find and compare datasets, which means you can ask and answer questions in minutes that used to take weeks or months of research.

Initiatives like the Open Knowledge Foundation encourage governments and organisations to open their datasets to all, especially where public money has been used to gather it.

Open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... needs engaged people and groups to ask questions, and search, analyse, and compare datasets to create new insights, uncover problems, and devise solutions. Open data can help make the world fairer, more democratic, and cleaner, with a better quality of life for all.

Open data has the potential to:

• Improve accountability in government and industry

• Increase public transparency

• Empower communities to find and solve problems

• Provide a platform for new services and products

• Promote innovative ways to improve services

• Measure the impact of policies

On behalf of the Open Knowledge Foundation in Ireland, we are seeking one single action within the OGP national action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen.... That single action is for the Irish government to mandate the establishment of – and ensure the financial backing of – an “Open Data Institute” for Ireland, which can:

• leverage the Open Data Institute founded in the UK, to catalyse the evolution of an open data culture to create

  • economic,

  • environmental, and

  • social value.

This Open Data Institute (ODI) will be a non-government and not-for-profit body that will unlock supply, generate demand, create and disseminate knowledge to address local and global issues.

An ODI for Ireland may be established by adopting the charter built by the ODI in the UK, which is publicly available for reuse internationally. Utilising this charter, Ireland can move forward with an ODI, at a small fraction of the public funding required in the UK in order to demonstrate, encourage, promote and develop the use of open data by the private sectorGovernments are working to open private sector practices as well — including through beneficial ownership transparency, open contracting, and regulating environmental standards. Technical specificat... More.

The ODI for Ireland will be dedicated to:

• promoting open data for Ireland by providing linkages to international educationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ... programmes established in the UK;

• offering revenue-generating certification training to private sector organisations, who can then administer open data auditsInstitutional and legal frameworks are necessary for providing assurance of the integrity of financial information and of compliance with budgetary rules and procedure. Technical specifications: These... for government bodies;

• providing key active membership of any government transparency board;

• developing the use of open data by the private sector, driving innovation and job creation.

It is our request that Minister Howlin takes forward this single action on behalf of the open data community in Ireland, who participated in CKAN Hackathon on September 28th 2013 (represented by the Open Knowledge Foundation) at the next Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More meeting on October 31st 2013 and include it into Ireland’s 1st National Action Plan.

* This suggestion has been generated during ‘CKAN Hackathon’ by the members of the Open Data Community on 28th September 2013 and compiled by Mick Byrne and Denis Parfenov, based on the content developed by Cory-Ann Joseph and Jane Ruffino.

[CLARIFICATION]

The first part of the initial version of this document used content from a blog post by Cianán Clancy dated 1st June 2012. On Cianán Clancy’s request this has been removed. Apologies issued to the author.