Open Data Canada (ODC)

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Open Government Secretariat-Secrétariat du gouvernement ouvert
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Votes: 100

Make it easier to find, access, and compare open data from the different levels of government across Canada.

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Comments

Submitted by Charla Chitwood on February 06, 2023 - 1:47 AM

To the canada.ca administrator, Your posts are always well-supported by research and data.

Submitted by Mathieu Gauthi… on July 01, 2014 - 2:05 PM

L'idée proposée est intéressante, mais peut-être pas autant que celle de faciliter la recherche, la consultation et la comparaison de données ouvertes issues des divers ordres de gouvernement... à l'échelle de la planète, dans le respect des langues nationales et régionales.

Submitted by Fouad Hafiz on June 02, 2014 - 10:21 PM

I think there is a troubling degree of hype associated with so-called open data initiatives. It's simple enough for governments to put out all sorts of datasets in the name of "openness", but it strikes me as a fundamentally empty gesture. I'm much more interested in how "open data" can enable "open government", ie genuine openness and transparency in government. There is huge potential here to empower the democratic process and i'm surprised at how little discussion there is along these lines. As already mentioned above, a key issue related to this is the government's muzzling of scientists and their research. In the face of alarming developments such as this, the entire open data initiative rings extremely hollow.

Submitted by Brian Mosher on May 31, 2014 - 1:14 AM

I fail to see the confusion here, All data within the federal/ provincial gov bodies is bought and paid for by the people it represents. It belongs to the people of Canada. There should be a common avenue that is known and well documented to get any information deemed (public) by the people of Canada. Granted -- Their are security considerations that need to be taken into account on certain levels of information. but this data should sir-come to any viable request made for the information. sir/mam dg jones I agree with your statement. But -- data in its raw form through interpretation may be misinterpreted, manipulated (see your local news paper, tv, social media). Best scenario: The data that one can use in its raw form that is open to all Canadians. Common format xml, json, ymal etc... (absolutely nothing vendor specific) In accompaniment should be Standard Library Documentation. And its interpretation with clear concise methods on how this interpretation was calculated/brought to bear If available, any third party's interpretation Re: Mohsen Shamsi,Stacy D. What's the old adage? Garbage in, garbage out. Just think of it as being able to scrutinize the people we pay to deliver a service--- (Personally I think this is a long time in coming.) Imagine if you delivered such a product (once we finished laughing at you, you'd be scrambling to rectify the issue then convince your superior that you have a handle on the situation). As for the criers I know there are problems, you know there are problems. But blaming this or that is not the solution... Be Canadian. For the countless men and women who gave up so much so you may have the opportunity to do something about what's not right, to have the freedom to invoke change where change is due, to not be oppressed in body, mind nor soul. Be Canadian. Do... Soyez canadien. Pour les innombrables hommes et femmes qui ont donné tant et si bien afin que vous puissiez avoir l'occasion de faire quelque chose à propos de ce qui est pas juste, d'avoir la liberté d'invoquer le changement où le changement est exigé, afin de ne pas être opprimé dans le corps, l'esprit, ni l'âme. Soyez canadien. Passez à l'action...

Submitted by dg jones on May 30, 2014 - 8:42 PM

Canadians don't want "access to data." They want access to information so they can be better informed and make better decisions. Government has the same need, despite what the Clerk of the PC says.

Submitted by TheeKruger on May 27, 2014 - 5:11 PM

Could pairing up with an engine like: www.wolframalpha.com not allow data to become useful information very simply? It is at a perfect level for the public to interact, and the way they render data is very informative. Plus, I'm certain they would jump on the opportunity to work with government. Wish this discussion had social login tools. Were talking about being advanced and we can't even be up to date. Maybe I missed something, I didn't spend more than 5 minutes trying to make an account to contribute. Like most people, my attention span is short. You don't want to lose a chunk of your audience due to poor planning.

Submitted by Mohsen Shamsi on May 23, 2014 - 6:48 PM

iii. As a developer who participated in the CODE programming contest, I believe that data provided by ODC is not perfect by any means and needs to be refined a lot.

Submitted by Edward Ocampo-… on June 20, 2014 - 1:43 AM

As a fellow CODE participant, I can say that I didn’t find it that bad. The data is never going to be clean, consistent, and rarely in the format you want it. That kind of thing should be expected. However, what would be super awesome is having someone like a “data steward” who engages with consumers of the data and can take suggestions/corrections back upstream to correct mistakes and otherwise improve the authoritative data sets.

Submitted by open-ouvert on June 20, 2014 - 2:13 PM

Thanks for your comment. Could you elaborate a bit more on your idea of having a “data steward” and how you would like them to engage with data consumers? data.gc.ca does provide a dataset commenting feature. (See the “Comment” button towards the bottom of any dataset profile page.) Feedback received as a comment is then shared with the dataset provider, who is encouraged to issue a reply in response to the comment. We recognize that not all of the data released at data.gc.ca is in the optimal format for all users. Our primary objective is to publish as much data that is relevant to Canadians as possible. Currently we provide guidance to data owners about improving the quality of the data that they are releasing. We are working on formalizing and standardizing data.gc.ca’s data quality guidance. Continual feedback on the quality of all datasets is useful! Please comment on specific datasets if you recognize an issue, or if you have recommendations for overall data quality criteria, you can share your thoughts through our contact us form. We can create documentation and standards for data.gc.ca, but implementation is always the hardest part. Having a data steward is a great idea. We have talked about this internally at data.gc.ca; do you envision the data steward as an external and independent steward? Some of the aspects of data quality that we consider are: – Naming conventions – Controlled vocabulary – Data formats (i.e. financial data) – Frequency (how often should data be released) – Completeness

Submitted by Stacy D. on May 23, 2014 - 8:30 PM

I wholeheartedly agree. The dataset that I was using was extremely incomplete and the data was very skewed. It's difficult to avoid bias when the data is so inconsistent.

Submitted by Mohsen Shamsi on May 23, 2014 - 6:47 PM

ii. One of the models that I really like and I thinks works very well in practice is the http://stackexchange.com/ model. The same model can be used for a Q/A like website to discuss the results of the previous step that I described.

Submitted by Mohsen Shamsi on May 23, 2014 - 6:47 PM

i. Supporting raw data accessible to everyone is not enough or so useful at all. Data needs to be processed to become useful. An essential part of the model is the ability to query, aggregate and visualize the data by users (public). What I have in mind is a simple but comprehensive web interface that enables the users to generate aggregate data and charts from the open data. This is important because: 1) Most people do not have technical expertise, computational resources, time, money or energy to use complicated development tools. 2) The process of generating the aggregate data will be verifiable by public. This is not necessarily true if someone uses any other aggregation tools.

Submitted by Douglas Mariano on May 23, 2014 - 3:34 PM

Basic, but I believe essential: To document every new official project or action is the first step. With IT we started saving all data, so, losing control of the essential. IM has to become part of every project since start and orient its data collection. Technology alone is not the answer. We have to invest in IM people, qualification and participation in business processes.

Submitted by John Anderson on May 23, 2014 - 2:47 PM

It's a bit of a sham when a site about open government has to have moderators approve all the comments - how do we know you're not just censoring anything close to disagreeing that the current government is in no way open at all?

Submitted by open-ouvert on May 23, 2014 - 3:37 PM

data.gc.ca moderates comments to ensure that they are respectful and relevant to the discussion topic. Otherwise, all comments meeting the rules of engagement are posted on the site. Thank you.

Submitted by Duncan Sanderson on May 23, 2014 - 2:23 PM

Open data is an important step, but after that? What specific support will be provided to organizations who want to analyze or present the data in some way? A variety of measures can be anticipated. Priorities may be useful, such as certain themes or subjects. It may be useful to distinguish between profit and not for profit organizations. Potential measures could be grants for projects, or matching funds. Seed projects will be important to allow people to understand what open data is all about.

Submitted by Paul Florea on May 23, 2014 - 2:00 PM

Establish government programs that promote the usability, accessibility, and innovation with the given open data sets. Integrate the new, innovative applications being produced regarding the open data into data.gc.ca. Keep the data more rigorously complete and up-to-date, while optimising the format for usability in software and data models. Optimise searching in data.gc.ca to be more contextually organised. One such example would be through the use of tags (e.g. 'law', or 'mining').

Submitted by Reuven Cohen on May 23, 2014 - 1:23 PM

Make the data accessible, both for humans and machines alike. Think API's as well as platforms to help visualize and utilize the data in ways that make it useful. @rUv

Submitted by Rodger Guinn on May 22, 2014 - 4:03 PM

Gov of Canada to take lead and fund establishment of common purpose open data sets, standards, and platform. Key areas could be a national GIS platform, citizen registry, and employment openings /data.

Submitted by Anonymous on May 14, 2014 - 8:06 PM

Super! it's live / c'est parti!