What do you think of when you hear “Open Data?"

I did a survey at last year’s Internet Governance Forum which asked some of the Internet’s multiple stakeholders about the presence of open data in their country. Though the term open data was one that many were aware of, what that meant exactly remained somewhat obscure, even at an Internet policy stakeholder event. This influenced how they answered and what they believed existed. Why do I refer to this? One provocative post "Open Data" Needs to Die, says that open data is not reaching its fullest potential for that very reason. But this is a good point! According to this post, the term and focus of open data has changed over the past few years. First, the question was how can we get hold of data, then the conversation switched to what’s the best way to open up data, followed by “so what?” and now conversations are variations of this. This leads to the thought provoking suggestion that the term "open data" is not only meaningless but can be “actively harmful” in helping open data goals to be realised.

I’d concur with the view that success of open data initiatives depend on the extent to which the data that is being open is being reused. This is because reuse depends in part on whether the average citizen believes it is of relevance to them. (See my last post Data is not really gold if it is not reused.) While I think the term open data will continue to be important and provide a consistent framework, in the spirit of reuse, and audience diversification, maybe other terms should also be used. The EU for instance is using the term public sector information (PSI), which they describe as open when appropriate.  They also refer to public sector information reuse.  

According to the author of this post, many people with useful, everyday data and databases really don't think in terms of data because their data (the stuff they know) is thought of as "information," a "resource," or even more specifically "stats," “public information” or “spending figures.” This is true not only more generally, but also within organisations. For instance, one department may be accumulating information which may be of importance, but because it is not numeric, it may not be considered part of the open data world.

What is also sometimes problematic is the term "open," since various accessibility and reuse restrictions are placed on some data that is still called "open." The Open Knowledge Foundation has coined an open knowledge definition and provides an Is It Open Data? website to help people find out whether data is open or not.

Using other words to describe what open data means can actually be one way of helping to drive home the importance and relevance of this, not only to community service organisations outside the usual data circles, but to the general public who we all hope will use it. So I ask the question, when you hear the term “open data”, what do you think?

Image by Open Knowledge Foundation