This week, the Mayor’s Office for Data Analytics published its 2018 Open Data for All Report, the fifth annual report on New York City’s compliance with the Open Data Law of 2012. The law was designed to “make the operation of city government more transparent, effective and accountable to the public” (NYC Open Data Law) but in my opinion, Open Data alone does not make it possible for the public on the whole to fulfill the brief of holding government accountable. Open Data provides data to the public, but does it provide meaningful information?
Let’s take for example one of the most popular datasets on Open Data, the 18.6 million row 311 service request dataset (311 service requests from 2010 to present, 2018). BetaNYC, recognizing a need, built a series of dashboards that reflect the data accurately, but in my opinion, fail to convey any underlying meaning.
I think the thing that can be done to improve Open Data is to incorporate analysis alongside the data — to provide at least some “so what?” to users. Even if it just provided links to outside analyses that use the data set (like this truly inspired article which uses dog registration data to analyze gentrification (Chen, 2018)), it would help less data-literate citizens discover what can actually be done with the data.
References
311 service requests from 2010 to present. (2018). Retrieved from https://nycopendata.socrata.com/Social-Services/311-Service-Requests-from-2010-to-Present/erm2-nwe9
BetaNYC. Retrieved from https://beta.nyc/
Chen, S. (2018, -02–08). The Yorkie’s dominance: We analyzed every dog registration in New York. The New York Times Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/08/realestate/dogs-of-new-york.html
Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics. (2018). 2018 NYC open data for all report. (). Retrieved from https://opendata.cityofnewyork.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2018-NYC-OD4A-report.pdf
NYC open data law. Retrieved from https://www1-nyc-gov/site/doitt/initiatives/open-data-law.page