Science Library Pad

OC Transpo (Ottawa transit) statement on open data

The following statement was released today, August 31, 2011:

OC Transpo is committed to delivering information meeting today’s transit user needs. We also support the Open Data initiative and as part of it are working at improving our real-time bus position data, which should be completed in the near future.

as part of the real-time information with new [SMS] 560560 Next Bus Arrivals service announcement.

I am hoping that OC Transpo will support the Google GTFS-realtime transit info specification.

For more information on City of Ottawa open data you can follow the city's internal lead @rob_giggey , as well as the citizen advocacy group @opendataottawa (of which I am a member).

The city's start page for the topic is ottawa.ca/opendata

Québec - Consultation publique Web 2.0

The Province of Quebec has an online consultation about Web 2.0

Comment le gouvernement du Québec peut-il exploiter le Web 2.0 – réseautage social, sites wiki, applications composites (mashups), blogues – pour améliorer la qualité des services aux citoyens et son efficacité interne?

http://www.consultationgautrinweb2.gouv.qc.ca/

There's also tweeting from @GautrinWeb2 and use of the hashtag #GautrinWeb2

I encourage you to provide your opinions and votes in their ideas market (they're using the IdeaScale platform).

However, I think there are a lot of issues with these kind of broad-based open-ended ideas market public consultations.  In general the participation level is low and the ideas are all over the map. 

I am strongly in favour of government finding new ways to open up to citizens, I just think we have to be mindful about the types of consultations and technologies we use, and our expectations for them.

With low participation levels, it's easy to game the system (that is, for a particular interest group to get their ideas voted to the top).  You need to get into the thousands or tens of thousands of users for an open consultation before someone can sway the results just by reaching out to the members of their personal social network or broader professional networks.

These are the current response levels for the consultation, running since July 25, 2011:

51 idées soumises, 192 commentaires, 519 votes, 181 utilisateurs

UK gov consults public on open data

How should government become even more open? Consultations on #opendata and public data corporation http://bit.ly/oMqsfC #openuk

tweet from @cabinetofficeuk

Francis Maude said: 

"The UK Government is determined to have the most ambitious open data agenda of any government in the world. We demonstrated that ambition recently through the Prime Minister’s open letter.  But we want to embed this approach throughout the public service and we want to hear from people about how they think we should do this”.

Cabinet Office - How should Government become even more open?

The two consultations are

• Making Open Data Real: A Public Consultation - also see http://data.gov.uk/opendataconsultation
• Consultation on Data Policy for a Public Data Corporation

deadline is October 27, 2011

The open data consultation also has a paper covering the major issues

We are now taking the concept of 'Open Data' and exploring an approach that could make this the operating principle of our public services. In the modern age, accessibility of low cost Information and Communications Technology (ICT), including cloud computing and high levels of ICT literacy mean that it is relatively low cost for governments to share the 'by-products' of public services with everyone.

https://update.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/open-data-consultation.pdf

Previously:

July 7, 2011  update on open data in the United Kingdom