I’m re-posting a short how-to in honour of the last OpenDataDay hackathon. This uses City of Waterloo’s Open Data catalogue, which has a number of useful datasets, one of which I particularly liked for a small app project. I decided to do my own “mini-hackathon” during my Saturday lunch break using the new Finder & Hero templates for Windows [...]
Peter Krantz published this article discussing whether Governments really need APIs for open data? Wouldn’t a “download” of a dataset suffice? My perspective: It depends! Is it one or multiple related datasets? Are you looking to expose the relationships between the datasets? How large is your dataset & do you have the infrastructure to support [...]
Open Data in Milton, ON? Not quite yet, possibly not at all! But why? Things seem to progress so well with the Open Data motion!? What happened: Councilor R. Di Lorenzo withdrew his motion and asked staff to report back to council on the risks, benefits and costs involving the possible implementation of an Open [...]
Today Milton, ON town council is considering an open data motion put forward jointly by two Milton councilors: Rick Di Lorenzo and Zeeshan Hamid. The motion specifically calls out Open Government, Open Data and Open Standards as the areas that contribute towards transparency, sharing of information, improving services, efficiency of government services and creating a [...]
Happy 2012! Things have been busy on the Open Data front in the Halton Region – with Burlington, ON open data pilot announced and launched in the fall, and even some apps & visualizations of Parks Data built by open data hackers like Matt Down. Right before the holidays, I also heard from the Milton [...]
If you’re a government agency evaluating ways to get started with your Gov 2.0 / Open Gov / Open Data initiatives, keep in mind these 3 simple strategies for a quick win: 1. Review the terms of use Even if your agency doesn’t have an Open Data policy, your agency’s website could have potentially restrictive [...]
a Case Study for Municipal Open Data The heat is scorching! Residents across Ontario, Quebec and part of the US are trying to stay cool. Many seek out public swimming pools and splash-pads, and turn to their municipalities for information. Others, like Joey Coleman of OpenHamilton and yours truly seek out ways to make that [...]
Yesterday’s article in Toronto Sun claims: Toronto’s data open but almost useless. The author argues that Toronto’s open data catalogue isn’t "truly open" because citizens need to rely on “web-savvy developers to do the hard work for them”. A corollary point is that Toronto’s open data is “almost useless” until the Government builds or implements [...]
The City of Burlington has invited anyone interested in open data / open gov / gov 20 community to participate in the following e-Gov Focus Group: Session 5: Targeted to OPEN DATA July 6: 7 to 9 p.m. Brant Hills Community Centre 2255 Brant Street Participants will discuss ideas on how e-Goverment can provide interested [...]
For a site focused on the Halton Region this blog has way too many posts about Vancouver. That’s because both the city & the province have such active Open Data / Open Gov initiatives. There’s a constant stream of new datasets being released by the City of Vancouver, and the City staff actively participates in [...]
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