Release Notes
Open Government Action Plan Consultation Data 
Series Name: Open Government Action Plan Consultation Data

Key Words
OGAP2, Open Government Action Plan, Consultation, Consultations, COGAP, Public Consultation, Public Consultations, Comments, OGP, Open Government Partnership, What We Heard. 

Series Description:
From April 24 to October 20, 2014, the Government of Canada conducted public consultations in support of developing Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government 2014-2016.  The datasets contain the comments, questions and ideas received, as well as the coding added to conduct the qualitative analysis. Personal identifiers have been removed from the data. There are two sets of data; one entitled Compilation and, the other Individual Comments, as well as a supporting document entitled release notes that describes the content in detail. 
For additional information on the methodology used please see the Methodology section of the “What We Heard” report. 

Official Languages:
Consultations were conducted in English and French, and comments were always encouraged in either official language. 
Comments and summaries provided by citizens who participated in the consultations appear in the language in which they were provided.
Summary notes created by government employees are provided in both official languages and the complete What We Heard report is available in French and English.

Each dataset is described below, along with a list of abbreviations at the end of the document.   

Compilation —Open Government Action Plan Consultation Data 
Description:
The dataset includes comments, questions and ideas from a variety of sources identified in the source field; these include web comments, in-person event table worksheets, meeting notes, and social media posts. The compilation data includes data from two fields also found in the Individual Comments data. 

Field Descriptions: 
Row# - is a unique identifier
Phase - refers to the phase of the consultation process: 
•	Consultation Plan - CP
•	Idea Dialogue- ID
•	Activity Discussion - AD
•	Activity Discussion - Comments on the Draft Action Plan - AD1

Source – identifies the source of the comment:
•	AD Online	
•	Advisory Panel on Open Government June 2014	
•	Advisory Panel on Open Government October  2014	
•	Canada’s Draft Action Plan on Open Government 2.0	
•	CP Online	
•	CSO  Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Telephone, April 10, 2014	
•	CSO  Charity Data Standardization, March 27, 2014	
•	CSO  Halifax, September 11, 2014	
•	CSO  Open Data Summit, Vancouver, February 21, 2014	
•	CSO  Open Government CoP meeting, June 20, 2104	
•	CSO  Open Victoria, Victoria BC, May 28, 2014  	
•	CSO  Roundtable on Geomatics, Ottawa, April 17, 2014	
•	CSO PWYP  Ottawa, February 6, 2014	
•	Edmonton bonus question	
•	Edmonton Group	
•	Fredericton bonus question	
•	Fredericton Group	
•	Halifax bonus question	
•	Halifax Group	
•	ID Comment	
•	ID Group ARMA	
•	ID Group CLA	
•	ID Group Goc Open Data	
•	ID Group Kitchener	
•	ID Group Montreal	
•	ID Group Ottawa	
•	ID Group Toronto #1	
•	ID Group Toronto #2	
•	ID Group Vancouver	
•	ID Online Sum	
•	Ind Comments  ARMA	
•	Ind Comments  CLA	
•	Ind Comments  Congress	
•	Ind Comments  Edmonton	
•	Ind Comments  Fredericton	
•	Ind Comments  Halifax	
•	Ind Comments  Kitchener	
•	Ind Comments  Montreal	
•	Ind Comments  Ottawa	
•	Ind Comments  Toronto #1	
•	Ind Comments  Toronto #2	
•	Ind Comments  Vancouver	
•	LinkedIn	
•	Ottawa Summary	
•	twitter.com	

See http://open.canada.ca/en/consultations/what-we-heard-summary-report for more detail on the in-person sessions and samples of the data collection forms.

#votes – some ideas generated online have votes, when the result is a number it indicates the number of votes the idea received, when it is Yes, it indicates that it was the number one idea from an in-person table as determined by the table, when there is no entry, there are no votes associated with that comment. 
Context – In some cases additional context is provided for the comment.  
•	Engagement with CSOs - Bonus Question: How can the Government of Canada better engage with the public and civil society on Open Government?
•	Collaboration across sectors – Bonus Question: What can the Government of Canada do to facilitate collaboration across jurisdictions and sectors? 
•	Civic Engagement – Bonus Question: What can the Government of Canada do to improve civic engagement across the country at all levels of government? 
•	Goal Statement – In the Activity Discussion, participants were asked to define goals for the various activities under discussion
•	Practical Idea – 1 practical idea from in-person Individual Comment forms
•	Detailed Submission X-1 – represents a record that has been subdivided to account for multiple comments in one submission

Comment, Question or Idea– this is the main body of the comment. Some comments that included more than one idea are broken into separate entries that are connected by the context field. Text is displayed in the language it was provided. 

PLEASE NOTE: Some comments are quite lengthy and may exceed the cell display limit in some programs such as Excel 2003, if this occurs, the entire text can usually be viewed in the formula bar which can be expanded by clicking and dragging.   
Comment, Question or Idea Translation if available – In accordance with the official languages statement, when the comment was summarized by an employee of the Government of Canada, it is translated, when the comment was provided directly by a participant in their own words, it is not. 

The following represent category fields that were added during the analysis it is these fields that drive most of the data visualization in the “What We Heard” report: 

Sub-theme – is the most granular of the categories, data will be one of the following: 
•	Accountable Individual
•	APIs (Application Programing Interfaces) 
•	Beneficial Ownership Transparency
•	Biz Collaboration
•	Civic Literacy
•	CODE (Canadian Open Data Experience)
•	Consultation Process
•	CSO Collaboration
•	Culture Change
•	Data Platform
•	Data Quality and Delivery Standards
•	Digital Divide
•	Digital Literacy
•	Direct Participation
•	Directive on Open Government
•	Engagement Platform
•	Extractive Transparency
•	Funding for Data Innovation 
•	Funding for Departments
•	IATI (International Aid Transparency Initiative)
•	Improve Services
•	Libraries
•	Modernize data and IM regime 
•	Multilateral Collaboration: Data Standards
•	Multilateral Collaboration: Solutions
•	NA
•	Open Data Promotion
•	Open Government Promotion
•	Open Public Servants
•	Open science
•	Open Source
•	Other
•	Partnership Culture
•	Performance Measurement 
•	Political
•	Preservation
•	Prioritization
•	Privacy
•	Procurement Reform
•	Reform/Modernize Access to Information 
•	Scalability
•	Shared services
•	Specific Data 
•	Transparency
•	User Experience
•	Virtual Library
•	Whistleblower protection

Theme – represents the themes that emerged during analysis:
•	Citizen Engagement & Civic Literacy
•	Data Quality & Availability  
•	Governance & Resourcing
•	Innovation & Data Literacy
•	NA
•	Open & Agile Culture
•	Other
•	Stewardship
•	Transparency

Activity Code – assigns the comment to one of the proposed Action Plan activities:
•	Consulting Canadians
•	Directive
•	Extractives
•	Literacy
•	NA
•	Open Data for Development
•	ODC (Open Data Canada)
•	ODI (Open Data Institute) – since renamed CODEX (Canadian Open Data Exchange)
•	Open Budgets
•	Open Contracting
•	Open Data
•	Open Dialogue
•	Open Info
•	Open Science
•	Other

Core Code – assigns the comment to one of the Open Government pillars; 
•	Foundation
•	Open Data
•	Open Dialogue
•	Open Information

INDIVIDUAL COMMENTS —Open Government Action Plan CONSULTATION Data
Description:
All comment data collected from Individual Worksheets that participants completed as part of the in-person sessions. This data is presented in the language in which it was provided by participants.  
A sample of the worksheet can be found in the appendices of the “What We Heard” report.  A subset of this data (the Public Engagement Question and 1 Practical Idea) is included in the Compilation dataset.   

Field Descriptions:
Row – is a unique numerical identifier
Event – represents the event at which the Individual Feedback form was collected:
•	ARMA
•	CLA
•	Congress
•	Edmonton
•	Fredericton
•	Halifax
•	Kitchener
•	Montreal
•	Ottawa
•	Toronto #1
•	Toronto #2
•	Vancouver
Phase – refers to the phase of the consultation process:
•	Same as compilation data
Source –identifies the source of the comment:
•	Same as compilation data
Sector – The sector the participant self- identified with:
•	Academia
•	Business
•	C/NP
•	Hybrid
•	Hybrid (Acad/NP)
•	Hybrid (Biz/Muni)
•	Hybrid (Biz/NP)
•	Hybrid (Biz/PS)
•	Hybrid (NP/PS)
•	Hybrid (PS/NP)
•	Hybrid NP/Biz
•	Hybrid: NP/Media
•	Hybrid:Biz/NP
•	NA
•	Other
•	Other: Amateur data scientist
•	PS Fed
•	PS Gen
•	PS Muni
•	PS P/T
•	(blank)
3 words – Three words that describe why the participant was attending the event
OG is important because – participant’s answer to the question, “Open Government is important to me because:”
1 Practical idea – participant’s answer to the question; “One practical idea about how to make government more open might be:” 
Public engagement question – participant’s answer to the question; “One question I would like to see explored in public engagement sessions on Open Government is:”  
Preferred way(s) to participate in OG – participant’s answer to the question; “Ways I would like to participate in the Open Government initiative in the future is/are: 
1-Online forums and surveys
2- Social Media
3-In-person meetings focused on particular topics
4-Open public meetings
5-Workshops
6-Mailings
7-Other
What did you like most – participant’s answer to the question; “What did you like most about the session?”
Dislike – participant’s answer to the question; “What did you dislike most about the session?”
Improvements - participant’s answer to the question; “How can we improve the Open Government consultation experience”
Would you recommend - participant’s answer to the question; “Overall, would you recommend a colleague to participate in this consultation session” 1 = Not at all, 10 = definitely
Other Comments – participant’s general comments

Abbreviations: 
Acad – Academic
AD – Activity Discussion Phase
AD1 – Activity Discussion Draft Action Plan phase
APIs - Application Programing Interfaces
ARMA – American Records Management Association
Biz - Business
CP – Consultation Plan Phase 
C/NP – Community/Non-profit 
CoP – Community of Practice
CLA – Canadian Library Association
CSO – Civil Society Organization
CODE – Canadian Open Data Experience
Fed – Federal
Gen – General
GoC – Government of Canada
IATI – International Aid Transparency Initiative
ID – Idea Dialogue 
IM – Information Management 
Ind – Individual
Info – Information
Muni – Municipality
NA – Not Applicable
NP – Non-profit
OD – Open Data
ODC – Open Data Canada
ODI – Open Data Institute (See ODX) 
ODX – Open Data Exchange (formerly CODEX – Canadian Open Data Exchange and/or the Open Data Institute)
OGAP2 – Open Government Action Plan 2 (Released October 2014)
PS – Public Service
P/T – Province/Territory
PWYP – Publish What You Pay
Sum – Summary 

APPENDIX 6: Consultation Data	
These files contain the raw comments and coding used to produce the What We Heard report. 
•	Individual Comments —Open Government Action Plan Consultation Data
•	Compilation —Open Government Action Plan Consultation Data
•	Release Notes —Open Government Action Plan Consultation Data

Context WORDS
•	Engagement public and civil society
•	Collaboration across sectors
•	Online idea