Building the Open Data Impact Map
This article is cross-posted from the International Open Data Conference Blog.
The past few years have seen a number of projects, reports, and other research highlighting examples of open data use and innovations from around the world. Now, as part of the OD4D network, the Center for Open Data Enterprise (www.opendataenterprise.org) is developing the Open Data Impact Map to pull many of these efforts together and build on them. The Map showcases a wide range of new examples through an interactive visualization and centralized database, built with contributions from:
- Our research team at the Center,
- Regional Supporters from a growing network of organizations around the world, and
- an online & mobile survey that will launch on May 20th 2015.
All this information is organized, vetted, curated, and transformed into interoperable data for display on the Map, and for download and re-use in secondary research.
The beta version of the Map will be showcased for the first time at the IODC.
More about the Map
The Open Data Impact Map will provide a searchable, sortable database of open data use cases from around the world. It will include all types of organizations using open data in an effort to capture the broad spectrum of open data uses. The Map will make it possible to explore the applications of open data through a number of filters, and has been structured to facilitate comparative analysis by region, country, and city.
Its goals are to:
(1) demonstrate the value of open government data in a range of applications;
(2) identify key trends and best practices in open data use; and
(3) provide a basis for research on the impact of open data globally.
Bringing research together
The Map will support cross-national analysis by using common classifications for data types, data sources, organizations that use the data, and areas of impact. This system builds on past efforts to develop systems for analyzing the uses of open data. The Map can inform the Measurement Action Session and other work at the IODC on the assessment of use cases. We hope it will help refine common approaches to capturing examples and help build a broader and more in-depth shared knowledge base about open data use cases and impact.
Get on the Map!
Are you an organization using open data? Do you want to become a Regional Supporter to help us find new examples? Email us at [email protected].