Wrapping up with Public Records & the Open Data Alliance in Washington
Recap
In my previous post, we discussed the life cycle of a public records request as done through the City of Seattle. In that piece, I highlighted the issues seen in many governments when it comes to public records requests — it all costs too much. The problem of money and budgeting isn’t new to governments, but because such a request must be available to the public by law, there are very few ways of mitigating the loss of funds and continually fulfilling requests. While this is such a wicked problem, there are attempts to quell the tide of requests by utilizing open data portals. Identifying such an opportunity is why this internship at the Open Data Literacy Project is so valuable and could help impact the use of open data and open data portals as a possible solution for some public records requests.
As this internship winds down and our project wraps up, we are beginning to solidify our understanding of the public records/open data relationship. It is this relationship that the second half of our project, the Open Data Alliance, aims to take advantage of because of the commonality inherent in public records requests. We feel that beginning to tackle such an issue is a great way to start such an alliance for individuals who are focused on open data and understand the problems related to public records requests.
The Final Result
The final deliverable for this internship will be an Open Data Alliance Guidebook for the group to utilize through their time working with open data and with the initial focus of public records. The guidebook will include five documents overall. The first is a set of agendas created for the first several meetings of the Open Data Alliance to facilitate the sharing of knowledge about open data as well as plans for action and the learning and sharing of skills. The second is a set of Open Data Alliance principles to guide the members of this group with their work concerning open data for the present and future. It highlights several key features that we have identified as being vital to open data projects. The third is a thematic distillation of our interviews with several public disclosure officers from the state and city levels, as well as others who advocate for open data either in their professional capacity or in addition to their current government position. The fourth is a document to help these members identify valuable datasets for proactive publication and the steps needed to do so in a manner that allows for focused guidance. The fifth and final document is filled with resources dedicated to growth and outreach opportunities for the Open Data Alliance.
Final Words
Overall, my time as an intern at the City of Seattle and with the state of Washington has taught me about the complicated processes and levels of risk associated with the public records and open data. It seems that in the world of public records, in particular, there are a plethora of risks to consider, and with those risks comes a tendency to remain static. Whereas with open data, there is a push for making data available to aid in innovation elsewhere. While identifying trends by public records request is a good start, future work needs to be done to make sure that these trends genuinely reflect the public as a whole and that community engagement may be a better indicator of what data is needed.
