| Title | Plan of work |
|---|---|
| Date | 07.02.2018 |
Description
My sponsors for the project are David Doyle, David Christensen, and Will Saunders. David Doyle is from the City of Seattle, David Christensen is from the Seattle Central Public Library, and Will is from the State of Washington. This project focuses on frequent Public Records Requests and the possibilities for proactive publication, as well as the structuring of a continually Open Data Alliance meeting.
Goals
The goal of the project is to understand the kinds of records requests that state/city/county government offices get, and with what frequency. By understanding the frequency of requests, there can be an identification of datasets that are suitable for proactive disclosure on an open data portal.
Simply, as bullet points, this project is about:
- Identifying PRRs that receive a high frequency of requests and suggest their proactive disclosure.
- Create a guidebook for the Open Data Alliance that contains a set of open data principles and resources that will help facilitate members to continue advocating for open data initiatives in their respective agencies.
Deliverables
We initially decided to conduct interviews, so we could better understand the needs and concerns of public records officers (PROs) and people concerned with open data, as well as the way that they have (or lack) the power to influence their institutions to adopt new technologies or business practices that support better records management or open data policies. We obtained the list of interview participants initially through our project leads, David and Will, and expanded our list further using their colleague Sean Krier’s contacts.
We are developing a guidebook for the Open Data Alliance so that it can provide a cohesive meeting structure while allowing for the facilitation of members to begin identifying public records suitable for proactive disclosure and to share with other members their efforts. It will provide members with recommendations on how to identify what kind of data sets are optimal for proactive publishing in their agencies. This guidebook is necessary for the sustainability of the alliance by providing an architecture for current and future activities related to open data in government agencies.
Interim
The interim deliverables for the project will include:
- A document describing the interviews and a preliminary analysis of their results.
- A document containing the formation of open data principles and a description of the Open Data Alliance.
- A document containing an ODA agenda(s)
- A document containing a set of recommendations for identifying data sets for proactive publication
End of project The final output will be a guidebook for the Open Data Alliance that contains:
- Open Data Alliance Principles
- Interivew Consolidation - A Thematic Distillation
- Identifying Valuable Datasets for Open Data
- Growth & Outreach
- Open Data Alliance Agenda(s)
Plan for Sustainability
Managing deliverables will be based on understanding the possible data sources that the State and City have access to. After dialogue with intra-governmental stakeholders and a survey of the number and complexity of the data sources, we can start cleaning, standardizing, and analyzing data. For the Open Data Alliance, the group will be given a guidebook as a final product of this project and will use it to guide future meetings for a continuous meeting structure.
Milestones
In broad strokes, these are the different things we intend to undertake as part of this project.
- Weeks 1-2: Set up interviews; collect datasets; conduct interviews; project planning and logistics
- Weeks 3-4: Conduct interviews; clean data; conduct cursory analyses; write blog post; finish principles & resources list
- Weeks 5-6: Start work on reproducible visualizations; review interview data--understand and articulate needs of new ODA signatories; finish agenda;
- Weeks 7-8: Draft of final projects (visualizations/backend code/charter); final blog post; structure/goals for next ODA meeting