Over at his blog and at Read Write Web, Marshall Kirkpatrick has taken the folks at data.gov to task for inflating the real numbers and nature of the data the US government is making publicly available. Marshall conclues that the data.gov number of approximately 168,000 datasets is inflated because approximately 99.4 per cent of that data is geodata available from the US Geological Survey and just 1000 data sets or so are from elsewhere.
He’s struck a nerve. The White House Office of Management and Budget emailed him, and they weren’t happy.
He contrasts the US situation with the effort being made in the UK, with help from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, where some 3000 datasets, including controversial information such as soldier suicide rates and other military data is already available.
I tend to agree with Marshall, 167,000 sets of geodata and 1000 others, while useful, does not open data make.
We have the same issue in Australia. We have growing volumes (but still small amounts) of geodata information and what amounts to a cherry-picked handful (literally) of other data.
The datasets available at data.australia.gov.au seem to have stalled in their growth since launching with much fanfare amongst the government 2.0 community late last year. There’s well under 100 datasets available from the site, and pointers to a number of other catalogs (mostly geodata). I wonder if this is symptomatic of the momentum stall risk I highlighted last month?
That’s not to say it’s not great to have access to the data we do. Far from it.
But the useful, socially important data that remains locked away in government agencies is a huge waste of a potentially powerful resource. Better to have a rich ecosystem of data that carries depth and meaning that we can mash up with geodata than predominantly geodata only.
So please, Australian government agencies (and everywhere else), publish your data in open, reusable formats with a license that permits us to make use of it. Follow the lead the UK is giving us. Listen to the words of Tim Berners-Lee when he says “RAW DATA NOW!”
