Note of the ODGB meeting 5 September 2016

Note of Open Data Governance Board Meeting

Monday, 5th September, 2016

Attendance:  Emer Coleman (Chair) Dennis Jennings, Denis Parfenov, Sandra Collins,  Cronan McNamara, Barry Lowry,  Andrew O’Sullivan, Daithí Mac Síthigh,

Apologies: Ashling Cunningham, Dietrich Rebholz, Sue Duke

Secretariat: Evelyn O'Connor, Fiona Morley Clarke, Marian Beakey

Business Community Representatives: Joe Drumgoole (Mongo DB), Aidan Connolly (IDIRO), Paul Sweetman (IBEC), Jason Roe (Hubspot, formerly ParkYa), Karl O’Leary (Microsoft)

The Chair welcome Andrew O’Sullivan to the Board.  Mr. O’Sullivan is Chief Information Officer to the CSO and has been appointed to the Board by the Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform.

A number of documents had issued to the Board in advance of the meeting as follows:

1. Note of meeting on 12^th July;
2. Progress report;
3. Draft proposal on establishment of an Open Data Engagement Fund;
4. Draft proposal on reimbursement of expenses to Board members representing the board at Open Data events.

The items on the agenda were discussed as set out below:

1. Minutes of 12^th July meeting.

The Minutes were taken as approved.

1. Matters arising

• Feedback from the last meeting with researchers was received from Kalpana Shankar and Rob Kitchin.  These were in the main around the need for proper data management infrastructure and repositories and the need for investment in same. It was noted that Denis Jennings also had a subsequent meeting with Paddy Prendergast, DIT.  It was further noted that the Open Data Unit are following up with a number of public bodies regarding making research funding data available as Open Data.
• Adrienne Harrington of the Department of the Taoiseach had been invited to attend the meeting to give an update on the Government Data Forum.  As she is not available to attend she has agreed to attend the October 25th meeting instead.

Progress Report (circulated in advance of the meeting) was discussed. Some of the highlights include,

• A number of enhancements have been made to the portal.  These include the insertion of visualisations in the datasets, a number of examples of which are on the home page.  The portal has also been updated to make it easier to navigate.
• 84 new datasets were added in July and 116 in August.  (4898 datasets now in total).
• The HSE has published an Open Health Data Governance Strategy and Open Health Data policy which is available on the eHealthIreland website
• A showcase page and linked data page is being worked on and will be included on the portal shortly
• The Open Data Policy Unit are continuing to engage with Public Bodies to progress the proposed Framework Agreement for Open Data support.  It is hoped to have it in place by year end.
• Engagement with public bodies on Open Data is continuing with meetings held with D/Justice regarding their work on data cataloguing and with the OSI on the National Spatial Strategy.

• It was suggested that public bodies should be encouraged to write a blog for inclusion on the portal on Open Data initiatives underway in their respective organisations.   It was noted that OSI have recently submitted some material that could be used for a blog.
• The Board asked that the draft National Spatial Strategy be circulated to the Board so as to ensure that it is Open Data aware.
• The Board also asked if they could have sight of the Copyright Reform Bill as it would be of interest.  While a Press Release has issued a draft of the Bill has not been shared.
• The Board enquired if Open Street maps could give them a presentation at a future meeting.

Action 1 (Secretariat)  OSI Blog material to be included on portal

Action 2 (Secretariat)  National Spatial Strategy to be circulated to the Board in due course for obs

Action 3 (Secretariat)  Check if D/JEI can circulate a draft of the Copyright Reform Bill to the Board

Action 4 (Secretariat)  Invite Open Street maps to give the Board a presentation at a future meeting

1. Meeting with representatives of Business Stakeholder Group

Five representatives of the “Business” Stakeholder Group joined the meeting to discuss their views on Open Data and reflect on how business might engage with open data.   The Open Data foundation document’s “A Vision for Business” section noted the key role Business can play in identifying the economic, social and democratic opportunities of Open Data.

Business were of the view:

• That the imperative for Open Data should come from Government – that policy making should be driven by data.
• That the more useful data is not the data being released by government organisations.  Data released needs to be useful and to be linked e.g. – Data from Enterprise Ireland on success of start ups
• That the procurement process is not user friendly – in developing the Open Data Framework, consider if the process can be more flexible
• The need to encourage organisations to be more proactive in releasing data was discussed – sometimes it takes too long for a decision to be made on whether to release data as open data
• There should be a process in place to flag anomalies with data back to the owner organisation in a ‘goodwill’ manner.
• The Board acting as an interlocutor between data users and public bodies would be useful
• There can be a ‘data obesity’ risk if too much data is released. There should be a focus on key areas.
• Data needs to have value added in the form of compressing/aggregating/reforming data as having a multiplicity of formats in the one source can be a challenge. At the same time raw data is needed rather than PDFs etc.
• Need to standardise formats, have a timeframe for release of data and frequency of updates.

The Board advised that it would be useful if the private sector could flag what datasets might be useful to them as we need business to exploit data so as to develop use cases to demonstrate the value of better data management and Open Data publication.

The board wish to engage business in the Open Data initiative and for example wondered if IBEC could survey their members to look at the portal and to send back any feedback.

It was noted that the ‘Suggest a Dataset’ function should be more transparent and that a process needs to be put in place to ensure that all requests are followed through and that information should be on portal as to why any datasets requested have not been made available.  A request should only be either ‘Closed – will be done’ or ‘Closed –can’t be done’

Action 5 (Business)

Engage better on Open Data.Consider suggestions of datasets to be released (using the portal).Forward back any feedback to the Secretariat

Action 6 (Secretariat)

Make the ‘Suggest a Dataset’ function on the portal more transparent and put a process in place to ensure that all requests are followed through

4.      AOB

a). Civil Society Stakeholders

It was noted that representatives from Civil Society will attend the next meeting of the Board - 25 October.  The Board to consider possible representatives and revert to the Secretariat in time for invitations to issue in advance of the meeting.

b). Role of the Board (and reimbursement of travel expenses)

• A draft paper on the reimbursement of board travel expenses prepared by the Secretariat and circulated to the Board in advance of the meeting was discussed and agreed.

c). Engagement Fund

• A draft paper on the establishment of an Engagement Fund to support open data initiatives which was circulated in advance of the meeting was discussed.  A number of changes were suggested which the Secretariat will take on board.    A further reiteration of the document will be circulated in due course for sign off by the Board.  Further guidance is sought from the Board on scale/allocation of funding. It is hoped that a call for proposals will be made in the coming weeks with the applications considered by a sub group of the Board 4-6 weeks after the call.

d). Other Business

• Sandra Collins suggested that the Board meet with some of the library community leaders who are currently working on a proposal for managing Open Data.  It was also noted that a request for datasets on research funding has been received and this is being referred to the relevant bodies that provide funding for their consideration (see earlier update).   Secretariat to mail Sandra separately re outcome of the dataset request.
• It was agreed that ‘Anonymisation’ be included in the Agenda for the next meeting.
• It was noted:
  • that there would be an Open Data panel discussion at the forthcoming Predict Conference (4/5 October), chaired by Dennis Jennings;
  • that the Open Data Unit held an exhibition stand at the recent Global Big Data Conference in Dublin Castle;
  • that representatives from the Unit would also attend Open Data Conference in Madrid on 5/6 October;
  • That a Data for Managers event will take place on 16 November in Dublin Castle (hosted by the CSO);
  • A proposal to hold an Open Data Conference in Q4 2016/Q1 2017 was briefly discussed – ideas in this regard are sought from the Board;
  • It was noted that an Institute of Public Health event on Open Access will take place on 24-28 September which will include a half day event on Open Data.

Action 7 (Board)

Revert with suggested representatives of Civil Society for the meeting on 25^th October.

Action 8 (Board)

Revert with guidance on funding scale/allocation in order to finalise the Engagement Fund document

Action 9 (Board)

Revert with ideas regarding holding a conference. Consider if it would be better to host this in early 2017.

Action 10 (Secretariat)

Include ‘Anonymisation’ in the Agenda for the October meeting.

Action 11 (Secretariat)

Invite librarians/information professionals to a future meeting

_______________________

Open Data Unit

Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

September 2016