- From: Chris Beer <chris-beer@grapevine.net.au>
- Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:37:00 +1100
- To: W3C e-Gov IG <public-egov-ig@w3.org>
Hi all Well, I've read over this a few times now, and here's the beginning of a response from me - some suggestions, maybe some edits. However, I'm not comfortable at this point in my very early e-Gov IG "life" in telling people exactly what to write, let alone making arbitary changes to the wiki - this isn't wikipedia after all ;-) . I know how I'd do it at any given time, but most of you here are far more learned that I at this game. So I'll stick to suggestions for the moment unless I'm told to go open slather :) So here we go (You'll get used to how I write to the list by the way - I write how I talk.) I have an initial question regarding the intended audience of this document. On the wiki version, I note it states: *Data.gov.* Memo *From: W3C eGovernment Interest Group <http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/> To: Any government wishing to set-up data.gov.* This combined with the abstract tells me the current intention of the document is as a pitch to Government. But thats about it. WHO in Government is my question. Are we talking CIO level? Are we talking policy advisors without a technical background who have been told to find out about possibilities. Are we talking about senior public servants with an intrinsic fear of all that is new? Cutting edge young bucks fresh out of university, eager to change the world into 2.0 e-Gov paradise? Journalists with no IT background writing a story? This document is essentially a pitch. /"To help governments open and share their data, the W3C eGov Interest Group has developed the following guidelines. These straightforward steps emphasize standards and methodologies to encourage publication of government data, allowing the public to use this data in new and innovative ways."/ These guidelines need to be concise yet unambiguous, they need to be understandable by any level of ICT/IT competence, and they need to promote the IG as a source of reliable information on the matter. Case in point - if we are to refer to our trusty wikipedia for want of a better souce, only around 18% of the world speaks English. Only 46% of the EU speaks English, either natively or otherwise. This in itself invites us to write our document at a basic 8 year old's reading level, just as most print media is written. And not every country has a level of ICT/IT use the level of the US, Australia, Japan or Western Europe. However, of the roughly 200 national Goverments, and myriad of State and Local ones, not to mention individual agencies, it is the developing and third world Nations with low rates of ICT/IT use, that conversely have the least amount of red tape, and thus obstacles on a policy level, to outrightly implementing guidelines we make here. They also often have a limited budget, and open source, open standard solutions on the issue at hand are likely to be appealing to them. So lets start with the big one - Government Data. What does that mean? There is no entry against "Data" in the glossary (only entries that assume a knowledge of how you are defining "data"). The abstract points to data.gov, and from that link and a bit more reading you might start to learn that we're talking about datasets, statistics etc, not "data" as in non-computing terms - "information on a computer". I think a little spiel on what exactly is meant by Government Data could go a long way. The document throughout seems to jump from Data to Dataset to Information, often seeming to use the terms interchangebly. Once we've covered that definition off, we move onto the meat of the document. Rule number one should of course be acronyms for any technical document like this. Always write a long hand version, then the acronym in brackets, after which we can use the acronym all we like. Are we to assume that Mr. Senior Public servant knows what XML or CSV is? Do we run the risk of losing his engagement in the document in the first paragraph? Inline links to definitions wouldn't be bad either (eg: link XML to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML rather than the W3C Rec. Those who know what XML is won't need the link. Those who don't will want a simple explanation.) I know this seems simplistic, but I'd point to the charter, noob that I am: Education and Outreach. Its in the meat of the document that the Wiki version (which is meant to the most up to date version?) and the http://www.w3.org/TR/gov-data/ version really diverge. In a sense the wiki version is far more open and comfortable in its language than the http://www.w3.org/TR/gov-data/ version, but with less useful detail. The problem I see with the initial claim of "Open Data Gives Real Power to the People" or 'The real power comes when you put your data on the web" is it raises the question in the mind of Government of "who does it give power to?" Democratic Government by nature is transient - any one regime or party is always at the mercy of public opinion and the spin doctoring of the opposition. While it would be nice to think that only academia and research areas of other agencies are going to take datasets and create mashups or conduct analysis for the good of all, Governments are always going to be wary of releasing raw data that could be manipulated in such as way as to cast they or thier policies in an unfavourable light. State Governments will be wary of showing data that results in a decrease in funding. The old paradigm and mindsets of how Government in a Western nation operates (ie: spend all the money, and give us some reasonable justification for it and you'll get more. Don't spend it all, and you obviously didn't need that much - next time you'll get less. Answer to problem, spend any extra money on things we don't really need - like expensive ad campaigns, or consultants who charge by the hour or fact finding missions overseas etc). Jaded? Prehaps. Realistic? I think there is a degree of reality to that point of view. So I think we need to do one of two things here: a) Keep the existing format of the document, but we really expand this area - Why should Government make its Data open? And I mean that literally - Government data could just as easily be published using these guidelines and open standards, but with controlled access. Explain, or certainly give case studies where it has resulted in long lasting benefit to Government, not just the people, why Open Data is the way forward. b) Make this document a second stage one: Remove comments with unreferenced bias such as "Open Data Gives Real Power to the People" and lead the entire document in with something like "So you've decided to make the move to publishing your Government Data openly - What now?" - that is, assume that those reading the document have already made the decision, or (hint?) read another IG document that covers that topic (The whys around publishing Government Data openly) that then would logically lead on to this one. "Choosing What Data To Publish" I have to return to my opening comments about defining "Data" here. Are we only talking Datasets aka Data (including "static" like Laws etc), not Information (mission, vision, value, goal, and objective statement are technically Information aka "Web Content")? For the document to really flow well, we need to make this clear, and make it clear that there is a difference between what is real (measurable data - "The Organisation has x employees, y locations and z budget this year spent on a, b, and c") and what is transient (the Organisation under the d Government has this as its current mission, vision etc) and open to interpretation, as opposed to analysis. If we are talking Information, then the opening statement around "the easiest way to make data available on the Internet" should really read something akin to "copy and paste a txt file onto a web page using FTP". Hell, bit more work in a WYSIWYG editor and pass the it through a HTML validator and it counts as well structured - It has <html> tags, the <head> tags, then <body> tags in its simplest form. The second we are in the realm of Info instead of Data, we're out of the "Web as fileserver" concept. From that point on its all marketing, UX/UI etc. "Learn More" - where is the link to our mailing list? How we can help etc? We don't provide any way for people to contact us! Assume that people are not intuitive and won't put the address in the "Status of this document" area and the comments in "Learn More" together... That'll do to start with from me - I've already banged on too long I fear. I'll take no offence if I've misunderstood the kind of comments/feedback the group is after for something like this - its my first time comment on something W3C after all :) Cheers Chris Beer Canberra, Australia **
Received on Tuesday, 20 October 2009 12:37:31 UTC