Open Data Institute
The twenty-four case studies in Made with CC were chosen from hundreds of nominations received from Kickstarter backers, Creative Commons staff, and the global Creative Commons community.
We did background research and conducted interviews for each case study, based on the same set of basic questions about the endeavor. The idea for each case study is to tell the story about the endeavor and the role sharing plays within it, largely the way in which it was told to us by those we interviewed.
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The Open Data Institute is an independent nonprofit that connects, equips, and inspires people around the world to innovate with data. Founded in 2012 in the UK.
theodi.org
Revenue model: grant and government funding, charging for custom services, donations
Interview date: November 11, 2015
Interviewee: Jeni Tennison, technical director
Profile written by Paul Stacey
Cofounded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt in 2012, the London-based Open Data Institute (ODI) offers data-related training, events, consulting services, and research. For ODI, Creative Commons licenses are central to making their own business model and their customers’ open. CC BY (Attribution), CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike), and CC0 (placed in the public domain) all play a critical role in ODI’s mission to help people around the world innovate with data.
Data underpins planning and decision making across all aspects of society. Weather data helps farmers know when to plant their crops, flight time data from airplane companies helps us plan our travel, data on local housing informs city planning. When this data is not only accurate and timely, but open and accessible, it opens up new possibilities. Open data can be a resource businesses use to build new products and services. It can help governments measure progress, improve efficiency, and target investments. It can help citizens improve their lives by better understanding what is happening around them.
The Open Data Institute’s 2012–17 business plan starts out by describing its vision to establish itself as a world-leading center and to research and be innovative with the opportunities created by the UK government’s open data policy. (The government was an early pioneer in open policy and open-data initiatives.) It goes on to say that the ODI wants to —
- demonstrate the commercial value of open government data and how open-data policies affect this;
- develop the economic benefits case and business models for open data;
- help UK businesses use open data; and
- show how open data can improve public services.
ODI is very explicit about how it wants to make open business models, and defining what this means. Jeni Tennison, ODI’s technical director, puts it this way: “There is a whole ecosystem of open — open-source software, open government, open-access research — and a whole ecosystem of data. ODI’s work cuts across both, with an emphasis on where they overlap — with open data.” ODI’s particular focus is to show open data’s potential for revenue.
As an independent nonprofit, ODI secured £10 million over five years from the UK government via Innovate UK, an agency that promotes innovation in science and technology. For this funding, ODI has to secure matching funds from other sources, some of which were met through a $4.75-million investment from the Omidyar Network.
Jeni started out as a developer and technical architect for data.gov.uk, the UK government’s pioneering open-data initiative. She helped make data sets from government departments available as open data. She joined ODI in 2012 when it was just starting up, as one of six people. It now has a staff of about sixty.
ODI strives to have half its annual budget come from the core UK government and Omidyar grants, and the other half from project-based research and commercial work. In Jeni’s view, having this balance of revenue sources establishes some stability, but also keeps them motivated to go out and generate these matching funds in response to market needs.
On the commercial side, ODI generates funding through memberships, training, and advisory services.
You can join the ODI as an individual or commercial member. Individual membership is pay-what-you-can, with options ranging from £1 to £100. Members receive a newsletter and related communications and a discount on ODI training courses and the annual summit, and they can display an ODI-supporter badge on their website. Commercial membership is divided into two tiers: small to medium size enterprises and nonprofits at £720 a year, and corporations and government organizations at £2,200 a year. Commercial members have greater opportunities to connect and collaborate, explore the benefits of open data, and unlock new business opportunities. (All members are listed on their website.)2
ODI provides standardized open data training courses in which anyone can enroll. The initial idea was to offer an intensive and academically oriented diploma in open data, but it quickly became clear there was no market for that. Instead, they offered a five-day-long public training course, which has subsequently been reduced to three days; now the most popular course is one day long. The fee, in addition to the time commitment, can be a barrier for participation. Jeni says, “Most of the people who would be able to pay don’t know they need it. Most who know they need it can’t pay.” Public-sector organizations sometimes give vouchers to their employees so they can attend as a form of professional development.
ODI customizes training for clients as well, for which there is more demand. Custom training usually emerges through an established relationship with an organization. The training program is based on a definition of open-data knowledge as applicable to the organization and on the skills needed by their high-level executives, management, and technical staff. The training tends to generate high interest and commitment.
Education about open data is also a part of ODI’s annual summit event, where curated presentations and speakers showcase the work of ODI and its members across the entire ecosystem. Tickets to the summit are available to the public, and hundreds of people and organizations attend and participate. In 2014, there were four thematic tracks and over 750 attendees.
In addition to memberships and training, ODI provides advisory services to help with technical-data support, technology development, change management, policies, and other areas. ODI has advised large commercial organizations, small businesses, and international governments; the focus at the moment is on government, but ODI is working to shift more toward commercial organizations.
On the commercial side, the following value propositions seem to resonate:
- Data-driven insights. Businesses need data from outside their business to get more insight. Businesses can generate value and more effectively pursue their own goals if they open up their own data too. Big data is a hot topic.
- Open innovation. Many large-scale enterprises are aware they don’t innovate very well. One way they can innovate is to open up their data. ODI encourages them to do so even if it exposes problems and challenges. The key is to invite other people to help while still maintaining organizational autonomy.
- Corporate social responsibility. While this resonates with businesses, ODI cautions against having it be the sole reason for making data open. If a business is just thinking about open data as a way to be transparent and accountable, they can miss out on efficiencies and opportunities.
During their early years, ODI wanted to focus solely on the United Kingdom. But in their first year, large delegations of government visitors from over fifty countries wanted to learn more about the UK government’s open-data practices and how ODI saw that translating into economic value. They were contracted as a service provider to international governments, which prompted a need to set up international ODI “nodes.”
Nodes are franchises of the ODI at a regional or city level. Hosted by existing (for-profit or not-for-profit) organizations, they operate locally but are part of the global network. Each ODI node adopts the charter, a set of guiding principles and rules under which ODI operates. They develop and deliver training, connect people and businesses through membership and events, and communicate open-data stories from their part of the world. There are twenty-seven different nodes across nineteen countries. ODI nodes are charged a small fee to be part of the network and to use the brand.
ODI also runs programs to help start-ups in the UK and across Europe develop a sustainable business around open data, offering mentoring, advice, training, and even office space.3
A big part of ODI’s business model revolves around community building. Memberships, training, summits, consulting services, nodes, and start-up programs create an ever-growing network of open-data users and leaders. (In fact, ODI even operates something called an Open Data Leaders Network.) For ODI, community is key to success. They devote significant time and effort to build it, not just online but through face-to-face events.
ODI has created an online tool that organizations can use to assess the legal, practical, technical, and social aspects of their open data. If it is of high quality, the organization can earn ODI’s Open Data Certificate, a globally recognized mark that signals that their open data is useful, reliable, accessible, discoverable, and supported.4
Separate from commercial activities, the ODI generates funding through research grants. Research includes looking at evidence on the impact of open data, development of open-data tools and standards, and how to deploy open data at scale.
Creative Commons 4.0 licenses cover database rights and ODI recommends CC BY, CC BY-SA, and CC0 for data releases. ODI encourages publishers of data to use Creative Commons licenses rather than creating new “open licenses” of their own.
For ODI, open is at the heart of what they do. They also release any software code they produce under open-source-software licenses, and publications and reports under CC BY or CC BY-SA licenses. ODI’s mission is to connect and equip people around the world so they can innovate with data. Disseminating stories, research, guidance, and code under an open license is essential for achieving that mission.
It also demonstrates that it is perfectly possible to generate sustainable revenue streams that do not rely on restrictive licensing of content, data, or code.
People pay to have ODI experts provide training to them, not for the content of the training; people pay for the advice ODI gives them, not for the methodologies they use. Producing open content, data, and source code helps establish credibility and creates leads for the paid services that they offer. According to Jeni, “The biggest lesson we have learned is that it is completely possible to be open, get customers, and make money.”
To serve as evidence of a successful open business model and return on investment, ODI has a public dashboard of key performance indicators. Here are a few metrics as of April 27, 2016:
- Total amount of cash investments unlocked in direct investments in ODI, competition funding, direct contracts, and partnerships, and income that ODI nodes and ODI start-ups have generated since joining the ODI program: £44.5 million
- Total number of active members and nodes across the globe: 1,350
- Total sales since ODI began: £7.44 million
- Total number of unique people reached since ODI began, in person and online: 2.2 million
- Total Open Data Certificates created: 151,000
- Total number of people trained by ODI and its nodes since ODI began: 5,0805
Web links
- e642e8368e3bf8d5526e-464b4b70b4554c1a79566214d402739e.r6.cf3.rackcdn.com/odi-business-plan-may-release.pdf
- directory.theodi.org/members
- theodi.org/odi-startup-programme; theodi.org/open-data-incubator-for-europe
- certificates.theodi.org
- dashboards.theodi.org/company/all
