The document discusses strategies for getting open data used, including focusing on data that interests people, making data easy to access and reuse through common licensing and standards, and engaging with developers and the public to promote use. It provides examples of open data projects that have generated significant economic and social benefits through new applications and insights, while noting challenges in fully measuring these impacts. Overall it argues for open data as a "transport investment" that can yield high returns with the right approach.

1. Getting Open Data Used
Andrew Stott
Expert Adviser, Citadel on the Move Project
formerly Director, data.gov.uk
Gent, Belgium
19 Feb 2014
@dirdigeng
andrew.stott@dirdigeng.com

2. Triple Objectives
Objectives of Open Data
More Transparent Government
Improved public services
New Economic and Social Value
2

3. 3

4. 4

5. Open Data as a Transport Investment in London
 ~500 Applications
(mobile, web, others)
 ~5000 people involved
in “app industry”
 As a transport project
alone, evaluated by
usual economic criteria:
ROI = 58:1
 Transport For London
have stopped making
their own apps
5

6. Anonymised medical prescription data
 Used experts in
 Health
 Data Analytics
 Analysed 35m
data records
 8 weeks
 £200m+/yr
savings
 Repeatable
 Could scale to
£1.5bn
6

7. National Information Infrastructure
7

8. Denmark: Open Address Data
Period
Benefits
Costs
Return on
Investment
2004-09
>€60m
(including
setup)
~€2m
22:1
2010
(steady
state)
~€0.2m 70:1
~€14.0m
8

9. Cadastral data
estate
agents/
realtors
Financial
services
builders and
other local
services
9

10. 10

11. $930m business from Open Data
 Weather for 1m
points
 60 years of crop
yield data
 14 TB of soil
data
 Company
formed in 2006
 Sold to
Monsanto
October 2013 for
$930m cash
11

12. Roadworks Data
Councils:
 Cost £0.7m a year
 Benefits £6.3m a
year
 Fiscal ROI 9:1
Overall value
 Wider benefits of
additional £19m a
year.
 Overall ROI 28:1
12

13. 13

14. 14

15. Case Study: Statistics Germany
Users: +1800% Downloads: +800%
15

16. Deloitte POPSIS Case Studies
Case
Data Type
Country
Increase
BEV
Mapping
AT
Downloads: +200% to +7,000%
DECA
Addresses
DK
Uers: +10,000%
Destatis
Statistics
DE
Users: +1800%
Downloads: +800%
IGNCNIG
Mapping
ES
Volume: +200%
Users: +200%
KNMI
Weather
NL
Users: +1000%
Met.No
Weather
NO
Users: +3000%
Spanish
Cadaster
Cadastral
ES
Downloads: +800% to +1900%
16

17. Performance of individual hospitals
Patient
ratings
12+ Weeks
MRSA-free
Blood
clots
2 recent
MRSA
Low
Mortality
Good C-Diff
record
17

18. Performance of local police and courts
18

19. Open Data used to drive Citizen Engagement
Accessible data on crime
It’s very local
Local team
How YOU
can get
involved
Local police
Twitter feed
Telephone, website, Facebook and Youtube ….
Attract
Inform
Engage
Action
19

20. “
“Police.uk is a success story”
“I am constantly afraid of becoming a victim of
crime, but this website has made me more
relaxed now that I know what has happened
and where. Crimes are not quite as rife in my
area as I imagined. I also feel that I have some
sort of link now with my local police. Well done”
“The new 'Draw Your Own
Area' function is a vast
improvement which will
allow regular comparisons
to be made about an entire
town or village.”
Site feedback: 70% of respondents
agree website is easy to use whilst
66% agree information is easy to
understand
“It's just great to have the
transparency because it will
encourage me and others to report
crime because the result of doing so
is now visual rather than notional.”
“Local information for interest, and
details of who my local officers are. It's
good to feel involved and informed. I
think this will help us all take more
responsibility for our own areas”
£300,000 set-up, £150,000/year to run
Over 56 million
visits since
January 2011
33% of adults
aware of and 11%
have used the
site
2/3 of users say
they’ll return to
the site to see if
crime goes up
and down
2/5 of users say
they’re now more
likely to take
steps to improve
their personal
20
safety

21. Is My Money Being Spent Well?
21

22. International Corporate Transparency
22

23. Government can be an Open Data user too
Greater Manchester estimated £6.5m
savings from finding and using its own
data more easily
23

24. EU Inspire Directive on Geospatial Data
One Government reported fiscal ROI 8:1
in first 4 years, plus wider benefits
24

25. British Columbia Open Data
 Government
itself is #1
user of its
data
 33% of
downloads
come from
within BC
Government
25

26. Measuring Benefits is not easy
 Benefits take time to emerge
 Most benefits are from Open Data plus
innovation
 Difficult to measure consumer surplus, but
that’s where more of the value often is
 Difficult to measure or value public sector
benefits
 Benefits not predictable
 “National Information Infrastructure” is a good
source of benefits
26

27. How to get your data used
27

28. Focus on data on things that people care about
28

29. It’s not just about new data
Scope for “Open Data” also includes data
previously “published” but …
 in non-reusable format
 with restricted licence
 only aimed at specialist groups
 only for payment
 only in response to requests
 difficult to find
data.gov.uk contains a lot of data which
nobody knew was already published
29

32. Demand from business and citizens
32

33. Release data people want
33

34. Clear, common, licensing approach
34

35. Make sure data is re-usable
35

36. UK Freedom of Information Act 2000 amended 2012
19 (2A)A publication scheme must, in
particular, include a requirement for the public
authority concerned—
(b) where reasonably practicable, to publish
any dataset … in an electronic form which is
capable of re-use
(c) to make the information available for reuse in accordance with the terms of the
specified [open] licence.
36

37. Standards
37

38. Do Ministries understand the importance
of standards and consistency?
38

39. A tale of 4 UK Government Departments
39

40. Files and up to date?
September-2013-25kTransparency-Data.csv
Cabinet
Office
09/2013
DFT
10/2013
dft-monthly-spend-Oct-2013.csv
FCO
12/2013
Publishable_Spend__Dec_2013_csv.csv
(was: Nov_2013__Publishable_Spend_Over__25
k.csv)
FCO
Services
09/2013
FCOServices_TransparencySpe
nd_Sept13.csv
40

41. It’s supposed to be same format ….
Cabinet Office
DFT
FCO
FCO Services
Departmental
Family
Departmental
Family
Department
Department
Entity
Entity
Entity
Entity
Date
Date
Payment date
Supplier Name
Expense Type
Expense Type
Transaction
Number
Payment Date
Expense Area
Expense Area
Invoice Amount
Transaction
Number
Supplier
Supplier
Supplier
Expense Area
Transaction
Number
Transaction No
Account
Description
Expense Type
Amount
Sum of Amount
Amount(excluding
VAT)
41

42. … even with automated conformance test
42

43. Not checking the extract
43

44. Unstructured content in structured fields
44

45. Publishing in different places at different times
2012-13
45

46. Publishing in different places at different times
2013-14
46

47. And in different formats
47

48. And in different formats … again!
48

49. Promote Use of Data
49

50. Continuously engage with developers
Photos: @memespring,
@MadLabUK, @paul_clarke
50

51. Open Data Ecosystem
51

52. UK Open Data Institute
 Develop capability of UK
businesses to exploit value of
Open Data
 Engage developers/small
businesses to build Open Data
supply chains and commercial
outlets
 Help public sector use its own
data more effectively
 Ensure academic research in
Open Data technologies
52

53. UK Open Data Institute
 Running ~12 months
 £200m/yr savings identified
 12 startups incubated, attracting £730,000
in contracts and £700,000 in investment
 £620,000 commercial sponsorship from 40
companies
 Over £4m of third party funding for Open
Data/Open Innovation being managed
 3,000 visitors to London space – and
provides “neutral meeting space” for
government and entrepreneurs
53

54. Discussion?
54

55. End
55

56. 56