For questions about government-related datasets. If relevant, please also specify the country in a separate tag.
3
votes
1answer
36 views
How do you respond when government says it needs more proven results to release data?
We've rounded up some of the reasons governments cite for not releasing data to the public. We're asking for help now in refuting those reasons. You can read more in this blog post: ...
4
votes
1answer
32 views
How do you respond when government says it should be selling its data, not opening it?
We've rounded up some of the reasons governments cite for not releasing data to the public. We're asking for help now in refuting those reasons. You can read more in this blog post: ...
2
votes
1answer
33 views
How do you respond when government cites time concerns for not releasing data?
We've rounded up some of the reasons governments cite for not releasing data to the public. We're asking for help now in refuting those reasons. You can read more in this blog post: ...
2
votes
1answer
38 views
How do you respond when government cites costs for not releasing data?
We've rounded up some of the reasons governments cite for not releasing data to the public. We're asking for help now in refuting those reasons. You can read more in this blog post: ...
10
votes
2answers
139 views
What are your responses when people tell you they can't open data?
I'm part of Sunlight Foundation's local team working on opening up local governments and city data, specifically. We're working on a blog post rounding up the most common reasons cited by governments ...
9
votes
2answers
101 views
GitHub license for code written by US Government Employee
When I open a new project on Github, I see a selection of licenses in a drop-down list, which currently looks like this:
None
Apache v2 License
MIT license
Affero GPL
Artistic License 2.0
BSD ...
0
votes
2answers
26 views
Besides Vancouver and Chicago, what cities have open data on rental buildings bylaw infractions?
(Background - a previous answer to this question--not sure how to link it--tells us City of Chicago publishes building violations.)
We've developed a free mobile app (Vancouver RentalDog, currently ...
2
votes
1answer
25 views
What cities provide open data on rental building bylaw infractions?
We've developed a free mobile app (Vancouver RentalDog, currently in iTunes) that allows people to identify licensed rental buildings in Vancouver, which have outstanding bylaw infractions. Our data ...
2
votes
1answer
18 views
Solid Waste Production, Globally? Spatially Resolved?
I would like to know the rate of production and content of municipal and industrial solid waste, globally in units of mass per area or mass per city or region.
I would be particularly interested in ...
3
votes
1answer
24 views
U.S. Supreme Court record items
Is there source of U.S. Supreme Court record items (merit and amicus briefs, appendices, etc.) from 1942?
I'm interested in a general answer, but in particular, I'm interested in the record from ...
1
vote
2answers
53 views
Need clarification: if state or city gov releases data in non-open formats (i.e. book, microfiche), *must* they now also release it in CSV format?
Consider the following not-so-hypothetical situation:
A state or city government has, for many years now, released a certain data set in various "old school" formats, such as a printed book or ...
2
votes
1answer
11 views
What open data institutes in the US are working with the Open Government Partnership?
The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a global alliance of countries that are signatory to an Open Government Declaration. The United States is one of the eight founding signatories - I am curious ...
5
votes
2answers
66 views
Data on income information for India, China, and West/East African nations with GIS coordinates
I am planning a project to look at the spatial-temporal spread of income over time. Hence, I am looking for data on household or individual level income information for India, China, and East/West ...
4
votes
1answer
93 views
US Government API Usage
I'm unable to find very much data about the usage of APIs from United States federal agencies. Which APIs that have been released have the highest traffic number in terms of queries, and/or ...
2
votes
4answers
82 views
Is there (or should there be) a standard way to categorize procurement data at the municipal level?
One of the data sets that I see being released by cities is information about what services cities are procuring. For example, the City of Chicago lists their contract award data like this: ...
7
votes
7answers
189 views
Is there a roadmap for opening all the data for a city or municipality?
In Chicago, a lot of data has been released on the City's Data Portal, but I have no idea how much is left to be opened.
The strategy I've noticed governments seem to follow is to start with a ...
3
votes
1answer
32 views
Open and proprietary data in determining federal funding eligibility
For federal grant applications, specific geographical areas and populations often have to meet minimum qualifications in order to demonstrate a need that allows them to apply for a grant (e.g. median ...
3
votes
4answers
115 views
Appealing a “Mosaic Effect” restriction?
The U.S. Government Policy on Open Data Memo directs agencies to take into account the "mosaic effect."
Theoretically, it seems like the mosaic effect could justify the restriction of almost any ...
7
votes
6answers
104 views
What would be particularly useful basic APIs for the US Federal Government to offer?
There are already certain basic APIs for census tracts, school districts, energy costs, a range of geo data, zip codes, etc.
What I'm wondering is what would be other fundamental web services that ...
2
votes
2answers
65 views
Are there best practices that government API producers should follow more so than non-government API producers?
Clearly, government agencies should default to observing the broader trends of API producers but are there particular best practices that a government API should follow?
(Disclaimer - I am the Sr. ...
8
votes
4answers
137 views
What new open data do you need from the U.S. government?
Data.gov provides ~400,000 datasets from 180 federal agencies. However, I know you are interested in more data and more specific data than what is already included. What additional topics, formats, or ...
5
votes
1answer
26 views
How do United States federal agencies release data?
I'm interested in the process of how an agency, like the EPA, GSA, or Department of State, finds a dataset they wish to release, selects it, and how they go about releasing it to the public. How do ...
3
votes
1answer
37 views
Is there a centralized schedule of data release dates for U.S. federal agencies?
Is there some centralized or streamlined source of data release schedules for major U.S. government agencies? Something that combines sources such as the BLS Schedule of Data Release, ACS Data Release ...
1
vote
2answers
36 views
Non US-centric databases on boards of directors and government agency memberships?
Are there any open (and preferably inter/multinational, not just US) databases on membership to boards of directors and leaders of government agencies?
For instance, Little Sis has mostly US data ...
9
votes
4answers
129 views
Cost of ownership - CKAN for city/local government or small federal agency
What is average cost/effort to launch CKAN instance and what are operational expenses to maintain it going forward? (Assuming small size government with limited IT resources)
2
votes
1answer
30 views
API for information about Brazilian cities/states
I can already find data about Brazilian cities/states (e.g. population, localization, crime rates etc...), on some websites such as the government's open data portal and census data (which ...
4
votes
4answers
92 views
What is the best source for finding what businesses have opened/exist/closed in a given geographical area?
Is there a a standard source for finding out what businesses (with brick and mortar locations) exist in a geographical area (particularly in the U.S.)? This doesn't necessarily have to be a ...
13
votes
2answers
83 views
Is there an official/complete list of all US government agency “developers' pages”?
The FCC's developers page happens to have a sidebar linking to many other US government agencies' developers pages, APIs, etc. It's a handy list, but I assume the FCC hosts it only out of the goodness ...
8
votes
2answers
75 views
Is the data used to calculate national CPI public?
What data is used to calculate the CPI (Consumer Price Index) and if it is open, where can I find it?
9
votes
2answers
66 views
Is there a list of all municipal government forms in a machine readable format?
I've found a list of government forms at the US federal level by looking at the OIRA PRA Information Collections XML file. Is there a list of similar forms at the state/local level for the US?
19
votes
10answers
398 views
Is there a list of all US Government agencies and sub agencies and is it available via API?
Specifically I'm looking for:
Agency canonical names
Agency abbreviature/acronym
Hierarchy of agencies e.g. Census Bureau is
part of Department of Commerce
Agency logos
Website/social media accounts
...