From the White House to your local municipality, government agencies, NGOs, and corporations are making more data and applications available to citizens. Government agencies are promoting not only data, but application programming interfaces (APIs) and interactive widgets to help developers get access to timely data. Now anyone can look for patterns in data and identify trends that offer insight into issues facing people today. The open data movement is global. In July of 2011, the Open Government Partnership was launched to increase civic participation, fight corruption, and use technology to be more effective and accountable. President Barack Obama said, “I want us to ask ourselves everyday, how are we using technology to make a real difference in people’s lives.” In the meantime, open data standards are evolving and maturing. Sites like dbpedia, freebase, data.gov.uk, Dublinked and others are cataloging data in Resource Description Framework (RDF) to make data accessible anywhere anytime. New standards such as Open Data Protocol (OData) are maturing and being adopted by more open data practitioners. Corporations are doing their part as well. IBM Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs is sponsoring City Forward, a free, web-based platform that enables users–city officials, academics and interested citizens–to view and interact with data while engaging in an ongoing public dialogue. To learn more about the open data movement and how City Forward is addressing data, the value proposition, and legal challenges associated with enabling open data, view the City Forward Open Data Standards presentation. Presentation authors: Gina Cardosi, IBM Certified Senior Project Manager, and Dave Rook, IBM IT Architect.

1. cityforward.org
City Forward and open data standards
Gina Cardosi and Dave Rook
3-Aug-2012

2. More than ever before, human life
revolves around the city.
In 1900, In 2007, that By 2050,
13% number surpassed
70%
of the world’s
population
50% of all people on
earth will be city
—and it continues
lived in cities. to grow.* dwellers.
* We are adding the
equivalent of seven
New Yorks to the
planet every year.
© 2010 IBM Corporation
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3. Our Cities Generate Vital Signs
 Today, almost anything—any object, process or system—can be
instrumented, interconnected and infused with intelligence.
 Data is lying in archives, published on government websites, being
sensed from instrumentation in the environment, deduced from
aerial imagery, and built from the ground-up by citizens
electronically communicating about city life.
 This reality holds enormous promise for people everywhere. Nowhere
is the potential for progress more evident than in the world’s cities.
© 2012 IBM Corporation
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4. Open Data is global
“I want us to ask ourselves everyday, how are we using
technology to make a real difference in people’s lives.”
- President Barack Obama
Map provided by Data.gov http://www.data.gov/community#mapanchor
© 2012 IBM Corporation 4
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5. Our mission: To bring together information
about cities and communities in ways that lead
to new insights and support decision-making.
© 2010 IBM Corporation
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6. What is Corporate Citizenship?
IBM has developed a thoughtful, comprehensive approach to corporate citizenship that aligns
with IBM’s values and maximizes the impact we can make as a global enterprise. We focus on
specific societal issues, including the environment, community economic development,
education, health, literacy, language and culture.
© 2010 IBM Corporation
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7. © 2012 IBM Corporation
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8. © 2012 IBM Corporation 8
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9. Adding data to City Forward
 Once sources are identified there are still legal and technical steps
involved in adding data to City Forward.
Data challenges Value challenges Legal challenges
• Some cities don’t have data that’s • Data isn’t at a city level • Data is publicly available
publically available and free • Data doesn’t span years to but with restrictions, must
• Each new source introduces seek permission
allow for patterns over time
additional transformation rules
Identify Data Source
Assess the Value
Review Legality
Map to Data Structure
Load into Database
© 2012 IBM Corporation
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10. Data Issues
 Standard classifications
Integrating data from different countries introduces incompatibilities in classifications of
data. For example, defining poverty and education level varies by country. In
addition, defining the geography or time frame requires an administrative
organization to define the city or metro area boundaries and when the reporting
period starts and ends (e.g., school year).
 Aggregation
Non-additive data such as indicators cannot be aggregated over geography, time, or
other classification. For example, unemployment rates, poverty rates, gross domestic
product per capita are indicators that must be recomputed by geographic level and
time frame. Having the unemployment rate at the county level cannot be summed to
compute the unemployment rate for the metro area.
 Availability
Gathering data and making it available costs money. Most countries do not have data
like the US Census American Community Survey (ACS) that provides annual
estimates on many topics. The House of Representatives voted to eliminate funding
for the ACS and the Senate has yet to vote on the issue.
© 2012 IBM Corporation
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11. Open Data Movement timeline
© 2012 IBM Corporation Source: http://visual.ly/open-data-movement
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12. Impact on everyday life
 How safe is
my neighborhood?
 Which career is
right for me?
 What type of
education do I need?
Sources: http://www.chicagocitycrime.com/, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm, http://cityforward.org
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13. The United States advocates agencies make
data available via APIs and widgets and
provides an open source version of data.gov
Source: http://www.data.gov/opengovplatform
© 2012 IBM Corporation
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14. Options for data analysis and integration are
increasing
 Government agencies are promoting not only data, but application
programming interfaces (APIs) and interactive widgets to help
developers get access to timely data
 Sites like DBpedia, Freebase, and Tetherless World Constellation
(TWI) are cataloging data in Resource Description Language (RDF) to
make data accessible anywhere anytime.
Linked data is prominent at data.gov.uk, dublinked, and other open
data sites.
 Non profit organizations are proving community level data to enhance
citizen engagement.
© 2012 IBM Corporation
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15. Linked Data
 DBPedia
http://dbpedia.org/About
 Freebase
http://www.freebase.com/
 Data.gov.uk
http://data.gov.uk/
 Dublinked
http://www.dublinked.ie/
 Data.gov
http://www.data.gov/
Sourc: http://linkeddata.org/
Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-cloud.net/
© 2012 IBM Corporation
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16. The Open Data Protocol (OData) is an
emerging standard
 Based on web technology standards
HTTP, Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub), JSON, and REST
 OData is used to access data in various data sources
Relational databases, file systems, content management, web sites, etc.
 See ecosystem link on odata.org to see current list of
Consumers: Applications to process OData
Applications: Applications exposing OData
Producers: Live OData Services
Sample Services and Sample Code
 Link to article about OData and RDF ->
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/standards-odata/
Source: http://www.odata.org/
© 2012 IBM Corporation
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17. Socrata is an open data vendor gaining market share
Customer Web site
City of New Orleans data.nola.gov
 Growing list of customers (see list ->) MetroChicagoData.com
City of Baltimore
metrochicagodata.com
data.baltimorecity.gov
City of Austin data.austintexas.gov
SAMHSA info.samhsa.gov
 G7 cities working together on sharing City of San Francisco data.sfgov.org
applications by standardizing data U.N.D.P.
Kenya
data.undp.com
opendata.go.ke
formats: Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, New York City nyc.gov/data
State of Illinois data.illinois.gov
New York, Seattle, Washington, DC, King County datakc.org
Cook County datacatalog.cookcountyil.gov
and San Francisco. City of Edmonton data.edmonton.ca
Data.gov explore.data.gov
Medicare data.medicare.gov
 SODA is the Socrata Open Data API State of Oregon data.oregon.gov
State of Oklahoma data.ok.gov
City of Chicago data.cityofchicago.org
City of Seattle data.seattle.gov
State of Colorado data.colorado.gov
Region of Lombardia dati.lombardia.it
State of Missouri data.mo.gov
Ethics.gov ethics.gov
City of De Leon deleon.socrata.com
source: http://www.socrata.com/customer-spotlight/
© 2012 IBM Corporation
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18. Widgets
Government
agencies are now
creating interactive
widgets and gadgets
that can be
embedded into other
web sites.
Examples:
US Census
Environment
Protection Agency
(EPA)
© 2012 IBM Corporation Sources: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/index.php, http://www.epa.gov/enviro/facts/widgets.html
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19. Open 311
Source: http://open311.org/
© 2012 IBM Corporation
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20. For more information
 Open Government Initiatives -> http://wiki.civiccommons.org/Initiatives
 Global Pulse -> http://www.unglobalpulse.org/
 Open Government Data Catalog (RDF) ->
http://logd.tw.rpi.edu/demo/international_dataset_catalog_search
 Global City Indicators -> http://www.cityindicators.org/
 NNIP Best Metro Data Releases of 2011 ->
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2011/12/best-metro-data-releases-of
 US Census Developer page -> http://www.census.gov/developers/
 Dept of Labor Developer web site -> http://developer.dol.gov/
 EPA Developer page -> http://www.epa.gov/developer/index.html
© 2012 IBM Corporation
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21. cityforward.org
Thank you.