data_in_the_city.html 14.2 KB

Raw Blame History Permalink

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
  <head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
    <style type="text/css" media="all">
    @import "/QA/2006/01/blogstyle.css";
    </style>
    <meta name="keywords" content='' />
    <meta name="description" content="On Monday of this week I attended a hearing in New York City organized by the Technology and Government Committee of the New York City Council. On the agenda was a proposal (Int. No. 991) regarding the use of open..." />
    <meta name="revision" content="$Id: data_in_the_city.html,v 1.36 2011/12/16 01:39:15 mirror Exp $" />
   <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom" href="http://www.w3.org/QA/atom.xml" />
   <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 1.0" href="http://www.w3.org/QA/news.rss" />
   <title>Data in the City - W3C Blog</title>

   <link rel="start" href="http://www.w3.org/QA/" title="Home" />
   <link rel="prev" href="http://www.w3.org/QA/2009/06/reflections_on_semtech_2009.html" title="Reflections on SemTech 2009" />
   <link rel="next" href="http://www.w3.org/QA/2009/07/hmac_truncation_in_xml_signatu.html" title="HMAC truncation in XML Signature: When Alice didn't look." />

   <!--
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
         xmlns:trackback="http://madskills.com/public/xml/rss/module/trackback/"
         xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
<rdf:Description
    rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/QA/2009/07/data_in_the_city.html"
    trackback:ping="http://www.w3.org/QA/sununga/mt-tb.cgi/278"
    dc:title="Data in the City"
    dc:identifier="http://www.w3.org/QA/2009/07/data_in_the_city.html"
    dc:subject="eGov"
    dc:description="On Monday of this week I attended a hearing in New York City organized by the Technology and Government Committee of the New York City Council. On the agenda was a proposal (Int. No. 991) regarding the use of open..."
    dc:creator="Ian Jacobs"
    dc:date="2009-07-01T22:09:21+00:00" />
</rdf:RDF>
-->

    <!-- <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.w3.org/QA/mt.js"></script>-->

</head>
<body class="layout-one-column">
      <div id="banner">
      <h1 id="title">
	<a href="http://www.w3.org/"><img height="48" alt="W3C" id="logo" src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/WWW/w3c_home_nb" /></a>
W3C Blog
</h1>
    </div>

    <ul class="navbar" id="menu">
        <li><strong><a href="/QA/" title="W3C Blog Home">[ W3C Blog ]</a></strong></li>
        <li><a href="/QA/Library/" title="Documents and Publications on Web and Quality">Documents</a></li>
        <li><a href="/QA/Tools/" accesskey="3" title="Validators and other Tools">Tools</a></li>
        <li><a href="/2007/12/qa-blog-help/index#feedback">Feedback</a></li>
    </ul>
<div id="searchbox">
<form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded">
<p id="formbox"><input type="text" size="15" class="textfield" name="q" accesskey="E" maxlength="255" /> <input type="submit" class="submitfield" value="Search" id="goButton" name="sa" accesskey="G" /> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="T:black;LW:72;ALC:#ff3300;L:http://www.w3.org/Icons/w3c_home;LC:#000099;LH:48;BGC:white;AH:left;VLC:#660066;GL:0;AWFID:0b9847e42caf283e;" /><input type="hidden" id="searchW3C" name="sitesearch" checked="checked" value="www.w3.org/QA" /><input type="hidden" name="domains" value="www.w3.org/QA" /></p>
</form>
</div>


    <div id="main"><!-- This DIV encapsulates everything in this page - necessary for the positioning -->

                     <p class="content-nav">
                        <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/2009/06/reflections_on_semtech_2009.html">&laquo; Reflections on SemTech 2009</a> |
                        <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/">Main</a>
                        | <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/2009/07/hmac_truncation_in_xml_signatu.html">HMAC truncation in XML Signature: When Alice didn't look. &raquo;</a>
                     </p>

                        <h2 class="entry-header">Data in the City</h2>
                           <div class="entry-body">
                              <p>On Monday of this week I attended a hearing in New York City organized by
the <a href="http://council.nyc.gov/html/committees/technology.shtml">Technology
and Government Committee</a> of the New York City Council. On the
<a href="http://www.nyccouncil.info/html/calendar/calendar_meetingdetail.cfm?meetingid=5684">agenda</a> was a
<a href="http://webdocs.nyccouncil.info/textfiles/Int%200991-2009.htm">proposal (Int. No. 991)</a> regarding the use of open standards for publishing New York city government data. I picked up a printed copy of the proposal and a summary when I walked into the
hearing. To my surprise the handout referred to W3C by name (the online proposal does not) and included a reference to the recent publication of the eGovernment Interest Group
<cite><a href="/TR/2009/NOTE-egov-improving-20090512/">Improving Access to Government through Better Use of the Web</a></cite>.</p>

<p>So I filled out a form requesting to speak. To my surprise, the Chair invited me to testify early in the hearing.</p>

<p>Before I spoke, however, a representative from the Mayor's Office voiced
opposition to some specifics of the proposal. Earlier that day, at the <a
href="http://personaldemocracy.com/">Personal Democracy Forum</a>
elsewhere in the city, the Mayor himself <a
href="http://nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fnyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2009a%2Fpr294-09.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1">announced</a>
several initiatives regarding publishing government data. This had
generated some excitement, and a number of people who had been
attending the conference (I had not) were present at the hearing.</p>

<p>The Mayor's Office cited 5 or 6 reasons why it opposed the particular
proposal (which I trust will
appear in the public record that I've not yet located) but the main
ones I recall were cost and burden. I would paraphrase some of the
exchange between the city council committee and the Mayor's office as
follows:</p>

<ul>
<li>City Council: Please put raw data on the Web.</li>
<li>Mayor's Office: We prefer publishing information
that is less raw and more citizen-friendly.</li>
<li>City Council: Citizens won't know what they are missing unless you put
it up there.</li>
<li>Mayor's Office: That will cost too much (e.g., scanning old documents). We have lots and lots of documents.</li>
<li>City Council: By choosing what to provide and massaging the data, you
are not letting people make better use of it.</li>
<li>Mayor's Office: See the initiatives we just announced. We think that we are meeting customer needs (which we
hear through surveys, complaints, etc.)</li>
<li>City Council: You shouldn't decide what people want. Let them decide.</li>
</ul>

<p>W3C's <a href="/2007/eGov/IG/wiki/Main_Page">eGovernment Interest
Group</a> has been working with a growing number of agencies to gather
information that will help address these sorts of concerns. Now they will develop
best practices and guidelines for publishing government data. This is not an area
I know well, so I look forward to being able to refer to the eGov IG's findings.
However, I'm sure New York City is not the first
government to wrestle with the technology, the cultural issues ("why should
I publish <em>my</em> data?"), and how to use taxpayer money to do this.</p>

<p>When my turn came to speak, I said something like this:</p>

<ul>
<li>Thanks for using open standards.</li>
<li>Use W3C Semantic Web Standards to publish data. As a starting point,
I referred to Tim Berners-Lee's
recent draft of <a href="/DesignIssues/GovData.html">Putting Government Data online</a></li>
<li>Don't try to do everything at once. Start with what is already
available electronically, for example.</li>
<li>Don't require agencies to coordinate through a single portal. Let them publish data at their own speed. Then aggregate (through a single portal if you wish and if people find that easy to use).</li>
<li>Participate in the <a href="/2007/eGov/IG/wiki/Main_Page">eGovernment Interest Group</a>.</li>
</ul>

<p>I hope my summary here is backed up by the public record. </p>


                           </div>
                           <div id="more" class="entry-more">

                           </div>
                       <p class="postinfo">Filed by <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/">Ian Jacobs</a> on July  1, 2009 10:09 PM in <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/archive/technology/semantic_web/">Semantic Web</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/archive/technology/egov/">eGov</a><br />
<span class="separator">|</span> <a class="permalink" href="http://www.w3.org/QA/2009/07/data_in_the_city.html">Permalink</a>
                                 | <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/2009/07/data_in_the_city.html#comments">Comments (2)</a>
                                 | <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/2009/07/data_in_the_city.html#trackback">TrackBacks (0)</a>
</p>


<h3 class="comments-header" id="comments">Comments</h3>
<div class="comment" id="comment-182542">
<p class="comment-meta" id="c182542">
<span class="comment-meta-author"><strong>Adrian Walker </strong></span>
<span class="comment-meta-date"><a href="#c182542">#</a> 2009-07-02</span>
</p>
<div class="comment-bulk">
<p>So, now Gov will put this great linked data out there, so that it could be used in an astonishing variety of new and amazing ways -- if only nontechnical users would learn to write code?  Which they will not do.</p>

<p>Fortunately, projects such as the Tabulator and the system online at the site below [1] are starting to point the way towards higher level platforms on which non-programmers can put linked data to their own unexpected uses.</p>

<p>Perhaps a useful extension to TIMBL's recent paper [2] might be a list of such high level, nontechnical-author-enabling platforms, and other design approaches?  (Tim does mention the Tabulator in passing).</p>

<p>[1] Internet Business Logic
A Wiki and SOA Endpoint for Executable Open Vocabulary English over SQL and RDF
Online at www.reengineeringllc.com    Shared use is free</p>

<p>[2] <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/GovData.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/GovData.html</a></p>

</div>
</div>


<div class="comment" id="comment-182606">
<p class="comment-meta" id="c182606">
<span class="comment-meta-author"><strong>Joly MacFie </strong></span>
<span class="comment-meta-date"><a href="#c182606">#</a> 2009-07-07</span>
</p>
<div class="comment-bulk">
<p>Video of the hearing can be found at <a><a href="http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=762" rel="nofollow">http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=762</a></a></p>

</div>
</div>


  <div class="comments-open" id="comments-open">
<h3 class="comments-open-header">Leave a comment</h3>

<div class="comments-open-moderated">
   <p>
   Note: this blog is intended to foster <strong>polite
   on-topic discussions</strong>. Comments failing these
   requirements and spam will not get published. Please,
   enter your real name and email address. Every
   individual comment is reviewed by the W3C staff.
   This may take some time, thank you for your patience.
   </p>
   <p>
   You can use the following HTML markup (a href, b, i,
   br/, p, strong, em, ul, ol, li, blockquote, pre)
   and/or <a href="http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax">Markdown syntax</a>.</p>
</div>

<div id="comments-open-data">
<form method="post" action="http://www.w3.org/QA/sununga/beach.pl" id="comments-form">
<h4>Your comment</h4>
<div id="comments-open-text">
  <textarea id="comment-text" name="text" rows="20" cols="100"></textarea><br />
<label for="comment-text">Write your comment text here. Remember, keep the discussion on topic and courteous.</label>
</div>

<h4>About you</h4>
<div id="comment-form-name">
  <input type="hidden" name="static" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="entry_id" value="6375" />
<input type="hidden" name="__lang" value="en" />
<label for="comment-author">Your Name</label>
<input id="comment-author" name="author" size="30" value="" />
</div>
<div id="comment-form-email">
<label for="comment-email">Your Email Address</label>
<input id="comment-email" name="email" size="30" value="" />
</div>

<div id="comments-open-footer">
<input type="submit" accesskey="s" name="post" id="comment-submit" value="Submit" />

</div>
</form>
</div>
</div>


<p id="gentime">This page was last generated on $Date: 2011/12/16 01:39:15 $</p>

      </div><!-- End of "main" DIV. -->

<address>

This blog is written by W3C staff and working group participants,<br />
&nbsp;and maintained by <a href="/People/CMercier/">Coralie Mercier</a>.<br />
Authorized parties may <a href="/QA/new">log in</a> to create a new entry.<br/>
<span id="poweredby">Powered by Movable Type, magpierss and a lot of Web Technology</span>
    </address>


    <p class="copyright">
      <a rel="Copyright" href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Copyright">Copyright</a> &copy; 1994-2011
      <a href="http://www.w3.org/"><acronym title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym></a>&reg;
      (<a href="http://www.csail.mit.edu/"><acronym title="Massachusetts Institute of Technology">MIT</acronym></a>,
      <a href="http://www.ercim.eu/"><acronym title="European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics">ERCIM</acronym></a>,
      <a href="http://www.keio.ac.jp/">Keio</a>),
      All Rights Reserved.
      W3C <a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Legal_Disclaimer">liability</a>,
      <a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#W3C_Trademarks">trademark</a>,
      <a rel="Copyright" href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-documents">document use</a>
      and <a rel="Copyright" href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software">software licensing</a>
      rules apply. Your interactions with this site are in accordance
      with our <a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/privacy-statement#Public">public</a> and
      <a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/privacy-statement#Members">Member</a> privacy
      statements.
    </p>

  </body>
</html>