Making Local Open Data Work for Local Government

At the Open Government Data Camp in Warsaw on 20 and 21 October I hosted a workshop on 'making open government data work for local government'.

If open government data is here to stay then only because it has become an instrument to government bodies themselves, and not because government are releasing data only because of compliance with transparency and re-use demands from others (central government or citizens).

This workshop started from the premise that there is opportunity in local governments treating open data as a policy instrument to find new solutions to the issues local communities face, amongst others in coming up with new ways of working in light of budget cuts.

Contributions were made by the local open government data initiatives of the cities of Berlin, Munich (Germany), Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Enschede (Netherlands), Linz and Vienna (Austria), who all shortly presented the current status of their initiatives. It was great to be able to have seven cities take the stage after each other to explain their work in and with local government on open data, and it shows how much things have changed in the past year alone.

Slides of the introductory presentation I gave are available, and are embedded below.

After the introductions, the workshop participants worked in little groups on identifying local issues where open government data could be used towards new approaches by local government and citizens.

This was done in three steps:

• Identify issues that are currently relevant to your local community.
  
• Try to define which datasets might be connected to these issues.
  
• Discuss what new steps are possible, using the datasets mentioned.
  

The collective output of the workshop has been made available as a document I wrote for the ePSIplatform.eu (download PDF), and is embedded below.

Making Local Open Data Work

Tags: communitybuilding, enschede, opendata, workshop