A fine mainstream media report on a new OpenData resource from Alberta, Canada has surfaced on the CTV (Alberta) web portal. What I like really like about this report is that it is quite accurate and truthful, getting right to the point and describing exactly why opendata is important to users and the business community. The report interviews a local consultant who describes several projects he’s accomplished thanks to the use of new opendata products. Users have already created a couple of apps (nice to see the featured product is a map) and there’s no doubt that many apps and products will follow.
A Government rep admits the data will be difficult to interpret for the average user and that there are about 250 datasets currently available. They do point out that within a year the amount of data available should swell to over 1,000 products. The government focus is to make information public so that developers and the public can innovate and create value from the data after all, that’s really what opendata is meant for!
According to the province, the data is meant to provide raw information for a number of purposes, such as for researchers and academics to apply to research, and for entrepreneurs to use to help with business decisions.
About the Open Data Portal
The portal makes data the provincial government collects on behalf of citizens publicly available in machine readable formats with an open licence. This means there are no technical or legal restrictions for using the data. By sharing this data, the Alberta government is increasing the transparency of government business, promoting economic opportunity and increasing citizen involvement in government.
Popular and new datasets include:
- business listings
- oil sands public offerings
- FOI requests
- Baby names
- Population predictions
Read more and see the video on the CTV news website
and check out the new Alberta Open Data portal at http://data.alberta.ca/
of interest, see also the Alberta Oil Sands Information Portal
Suggested Reading:
- OpenData Tip – Save the Rain Map App – Find out how much water you could capture in a year
- Whitehouse OpenData Update and Project OpenData
- When Government Shuts Down Open Government – Canada Post Suing Over the use of the Postal Code
Source: data.alberta.ca via Glenn on Pinterest
