Nearly forty City of Austin and a few community open data enthusiasts turned-out for our Feb 2016 Open Data Meet-up at the downtown Capital Factory. Big thanks to them for hosting us in their amazing space and even bigger thanks to everyone who attended and participated with such positive enthusiasm to make this one of our most successful events.
Don't worry if you weren't able to attend! Here's a recap and who to contact to get involved over the next 90 days:
After a VIP tour of the Capital Factory facilities, Matt Esquibel kicked off the meeting by framing the expectations for the next 90 days. Hailey Pate then gave a brief, yet energizing introduction to our early work-in-progress GitHub resource that we'll use as our single-point-of-truth and collaboration platform moving forward (check it out:opendata.rocks!)
Attendees then broke into self-assigned work groups to start discussing the various items to address over the next 90 days and how they will work as a team to accomplish their goals. If you were not able to attend, please read through the following descriptions and contact the team captain if you'd like to participate.
Open Data Inventory -- To make sure we understand the full landscape of data owned and managed by the City it is important to have a complete inventory of data sets available. The inventory will be used to help identify high value data sets to be published, prioritize publication schedule, provide important metadata and apply a data classification explaining why data is considered public or private. We plan to spend a significant amount of time developing definitions that accurately explain the nature of different types of data and arrive at a common understanding before assigning classifications to the data inventory. We will also develop a common set of core metadata standards to provide proper attribution to each data set. When completed, the data inventory will be published and managed on the City Open Data Portal. If you would like to contribute to these efforts, please contact Brad McCarty.
Open Data Request Worklfow -- As more people become aware of the City’s Open Data Portal it is important that we establish a way to communicate between data consumers and City data owners while simultaneously making sure we are responding to requests appropriately. It is hoped that this effort will lay the groundwork for our use of GitHub in the future. If you would like to be on this team, please contact Hailey Pate.
US Open Data Census (http://us-city.census.okfn.org/) -- The Census lists key open data categories and several criteria for quality. At this time last year Austin ranked 9th– this year around 20th. We know that the work of the 90-Day Participation plan has not been added—so it’s time to get an accurate reading of where we really are. If you would like to help out with this, please contact Marbenn Cayetano.
Open Data Portal Redesign -- As part of our updated contract with Socrata we will be updating the design of the Open Data Portal. This will include an upgraded user interface and reorganization of content. Please get in touch with Janette Forte Milan if this sounds of interest to you.
SSPR for Data Liaison -- We have developed language for data liaisons to include in their SSPRs. We hope that this will be useful in helping liaisons and their management understand what is expected within this role and how to measure success. This language will be optional for liaisons.We plan to release to liaisons for feedback and input and hope to have a finalized version by mid-year SSPRs in April. Ted Lehr is coordinating this effort. Please contact him if you'd like to assist.
If you have any questions about any of the above, please contact Charles Purma.