Open-Government

As open data is gaining momentum an increasing number of organizations are thinking about ways to make their data available for others to use. Here are some thought on how to approach design issues when making open government data available. TL;DR See if it is possible to publish your open data as file dumps instead of building advanced API:s that force entrepreneurs to integrate their apps with your infrastructure. A fictional background It was supposed to be a regular day for John at the server facility at the government weather agency. But when he came in to work that morning his colleague Mike was in a panic. -“Look! We are in the middle of a DDoS attack. The API-server is flooded and the database server is on it’s knees. The meteorologists can not work” . John started looking at server logs. Between 7 and 8 a.m. there was a sharp increase in traffic. Loads of API calls were made from a lot of different IP:s. Then, all of a sudden server load decreased and everything was back to normal. ...

On september 4-5 we had our first open data hack day here in Sweden called Codemocracy. The event was a success (thank you Martin Svalin!) with close to 50 participants hacking away at various data sets. I did an intro on the state of open data but tried to keep it short so that everyone could start coding as soon as possible. On Sunday there were 12 teams presenting their apps. Some of the teams had used public transport data made available by the Viktoria Institute but many were scraping government websites for lack of proper API:s. In the 24 hours set aside for the competition the following apps were created: ...

Says the Open Government Working Group: The Internet is the public space of the modern world, and through it governments now have the opportunity to better understand the needs of their citizens and citizens may participate more fully in their government. Information becomes more valuable as it is shared, less valuable as it is hoarded. Open data promotes increased civil discourse, improved public welfare, and a more efficient use of public resources. ...