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NYC Open Data Advocates Focus on Quality And Value Over Quantity

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Category: Blog

Created on Thursday, 31 July 2014 07:47

The New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications plans to publish more than double the amount of datasets this year than it published to the portal last year, new Commissioner Anne Roest wrote last week in an annual report mandated by the city's open data law, with 135 datasets scheduled to be released this year, and almost 100 more to come in 2015.

But what what matters more to New York City open data advocates than the absolute number of the datasets is their quality and values: creating a transparent process of releasing the data, making the data machine-readable and prioritizing release of data sets in high demand. As preparations are underway for City Council hearings on the law, New York City's open data progress and challenges are both a model for and reflective of open data efforts across the country.

The law, spearheaded in 2012 by now-Borough President Gale Brewer and the New York City Transparency Working group, a coalition of good government groups and technology advocates, requires that public data sets that agencies already make available online must be accessible through New York City's open data portal in machine-readable format, and that agencies must provide an explanation if that is not possible.

Overall, the city says it has published nearly 1,300 agency data sets to the portal, with 345 currently set to follow up until 2018.

The full article on The TechPresident