1. Mark Cartwright 9 September 2010 Preparing the ground: how can we make data open? Traveline Conference 2010 Aston University, Birmingham

2. Overview

• Context

• Some philosophy

• Practicalities

• Incentives

• Standards

3. Two important characters... Ms Hedd Mr Hart

4. Context my perspective

5. Context

6. Context the law

• Who owns data?

• And so what?

7. My data imported generated exported available

8. Who should I give my data to?

• Everyone

• Anyone who can pay a decent price

• My friends (Ill decide who they are)

• Properly authorised officers of the law, etc

• Noone

9. ...and why?

• Because its freely available anyway

• Because its taken from me or I am forced to give it

• Because I benefit from someone else having it

• Because I get something in exchange

• Because I am altruistic

10. Examples

• A software package

• A personal photograph

• A bank statement

• A newspaper

• A bus timetable

• A map

11. Practicalities I

• To share data, I need to

• • Decide what data I wish to share

• • Decide who I want to share it with

• • Decide the basis on which I want to share it

• • Separate it from my other data

• • Put it in a suitable format

• • Put it somewhere accessible

12. Practicalities II

• To make it pointful, you need to

• • Know the data is available

• • Understand what it describes

• • Understand its characteristics: scope, volume, last update etc

• • Understand and agree the terms on which you use it

• • Have a mechanism for getting to it

• • Be able to interpret the fomat correctly

• • (Potentially) be able to protect it, or trace and account for your use of it, if so agreed

• • (Potentially) pay for it, if so agreed

13. Practicalities III

• Simple usage conditions simple/widespread sharing

• • Accessibility

• • Cost

• • Usage restrictions

• Where to put the slider is decided by

• • Law

• • The data owner

• Law is stronger, but beware the law of unintended consequences...

14. Making it easy

• Resistance to sharing typically comes down to one of two positions

• • Hedd the cost-benefit doesnt stack up

• • Hart its just wrong, I wont do it

• For Ms Hedd you could

• • Improve the benefit (through creating incentives)

• • Improve the cost (by simplifying mechanisms)

• Mr Hart is harder...

• • Show him how other people are sharing happily

• • Talk to him nicely and hope he changes his mind

15. Incentives

• Contractual

• • I wont buy your services unless I can have your data too

• Risk/threat

• • If you dont provide data, this fact may affect bid evaluation/ lawsuits/performance incentives/regulatory fines/etc

• Financial

• • I will pay you for your data

• Barter

• • If you give me your data I will do X in return for you

16. Simplifying mechanisms

• Do it all for them

• • Intrusive, requires a lot of control to be ceded

• Trusted central service

• • Who says its trusted?

• Limit what you ask for

• • You may not get what you want though

• Arrange it so their systems are pre-equipped

• • Hard to do over the wishes of the buyers, and takes time

17. Standardisation

• Limits the amount of manual intervention

• • Reduces operational cost

• Limits supplier lock-in and avoids the need to re-equip

• • You can use your favourite systems, Ill use mine

• Allow a degree of pre-agreement, across the industry

• • Level playing field

• Even helps a bit with Mr Hart

• • Makes data provision feel more normal and less threatening

18. Who sets the standards?

• Innovative potential users?

• Trusted central system?

• Data providers?

• Government?

• ...All of the above?

19. Conclusions: Hedds and Harts

• You cant please all of the people all of the time

• Be clear what you want and why you want it

• Other people are people too

• What we do together we do better