Using data to engage citizens - Opening government

NRU
Nov. 19, 2014
By Leah Wong

The issue of releasing open data can seem daunting to smaller municipalities that don’t have the same resources, or populations, of the large urban centres that are leading the charge.

Though the charge is being led by cities such as Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver, smaller municipalities can benefit from open data in the same ways. While releasing datasets improves transparency it also allows citizens to harness the information to tackle local issues in innovative ways.

“For municipalities, small and large, you never know what people could create with the information until you release it out there in a way they can work with it,” Ashleigh Weeden, who works on community engagement for Grey County’s Connected Community Initiative, told NRU. “With the benefit being, they might create something really incredible that might be of value to your community.”

Public transportation apps are the most common success story when it comes to open data. Though the most popular apps likely originated in a larger urban centre, apps for transit systems all over the world, in municipalities of varying sizes have followed. Weeden said the municipal way of looking to what other municipalities are doing in solving local problems should work well when it comes to open data.

“There’s an appetite for [open data],” said Weeden. “If you look at what some municipalities are doing around open data and how it’s coming through, other people are saying, ‘Oh wait, this isn’t so scary and difficult.’”

For smaller municipalities one of the challenges is not having the volume of people seeking open data. Large cities such as Toronto benefit from having a sizeable community of people ready to use datasets to create urban solutions. These communities are growing in municipalities across Canada- for example, an Open Data Jam in Hamilton this weekend will bring local innovators and industry experts together.

The event, organized by Open Hamilton, Microsoft ’s Make Web Not War initiative, Hamilton Economic Development, Software Hamilton and the McMaster Innovation Park, is another opportunity for members of the open data community to come together and figure out innovative ways to solve local issues using open data.

Open Hamilton spokesperson Anand Sinha said the first day of the event will focus on success stories from other municipalities and get more people, including city staff, to understand that open data is a good thing and can lead to economic development.

“Up until now, the city hasn’t been engaged as much as we would like,” Sinha told NRU. “We’re trying to build a partnership with the City of Hamilton to help us go further.”

Large cities generally have bigger open data communities simply because they have a bigger population. While a higher population density can be an asset, there is an opportunity in smaller municipalities to work more closely with the community.

“It’s easier to reach out and meet with those collaborators or organizations to find out what should [the municipality] be releasing and what information do [collaborators] want,” said Weeden. “And how to publish it in a way that is meaningful.”

An often under engaged demographic in terms of municipal engagement that could become more involved in the open data community is students. Sinha said while there is a university and college in Hamilton, graduates often have to go elsewhere to look for jobs. Open data can encourage students to start their own businesses, which meet the needs of the community they’re attending school in, giving benefit both to young entrepreneurs and the community.

“Sometimes people can do amazing things with data that we couldn’t do as well in house,” said Weeden. Bringing up the common example of transit apps developed using open data Weeden says she isn’t sure they would look the same if a municipality had led the charge.

Another successful app made with open data is London Trash, which tells users what day garbage pickup is on based on their address in London, Ontario. The app creators harnessed waste collection data for their program.

The most successful projects tend to be around services, particularly the ones people rely on from day to day.

In the past London has also run a contest during the budget period to come up with a project using open data to help contextualize or share budget data or decisions in a different way. While staff reports might only get attention from city hall regulars, these projects are a way to engage a wider range of residents.

“If we give citizens the same kind of tools that decision makers and administrators get it leads to better quality engagement,” said Weeden. “You’re giving people valuable context that they may or may not have had before.”

Whether its waste collection information or transit schedules, it seems citizens are ready to run with the information municipalities make available. For municipalities the challenge will be releasing information people want, in a way that people can best utilize.