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Open data are sets of data produced or collected by public bodies that are made available to citizens (usually from public portals) so that they can be used simply, freely and conveniently.
Making them available to society is an exercise in transparency that allows citizens to have information about the actions and services of the Administration and about the management of public resources.
The reuse of data also allows different actors in society (citizens in general, entities, associations, companies, etc.) to develop new products and services that provide value, innovation and knowledge, and even become potential business opportunities.
REGULATORY FRAMEWORK
Beyond the ethical or economic values that the promotion of open data may imply, it is important to mention that the reuse of public sector data is regulated by Law 37/2007, of November 16, on the reuse of public sector information, which was modified by Law 18/2015, of July 9, to adapt it to European Directive 2013/37/EU .
For its part, the National Interoperability Scheme (ENI), regulated by Royal Decree 4/2010, of 8 January , establishes the set of criteria and recommendations that public administrations must take into account to make technological decisions that guarantee interoperability. Specifically, the Technical Interoperability Standard for the Reuse of Information Resources establishes the set of basic guidelines for reusing documents and information resources produced or held by the public sector.
It is worth highlighting the push for data reuse associated with laws linked to the promotion of Transparency. Article 5.1 of Catalan Law 19/2014, of 29 December, on transparency, access to public information and good governance , highlights that “mechanisms will be established to facilitate transparency information in a clear, structured and reusable format through a comprehensive system of information and knowledge in electronic format”.
OPEN DATA AND ITINERARIES PROPOSED BY AOC
At AOC we have the firm will to promote open data in the local world and to do so we offer local entities different resources and itineraries to move forward.
Starting from a first phase of using open data (automatic and by default linked to the AOC transparency portal solution), we will gradually develop experiences, resources and services to advance towards self-management and publication of our own open data, taking advantage of the latest improvements to the transparency portal to automate its items based on their interrelationship between the transparency and open data portals.
- First phase: a generic open data platform
Designed for all those entities that do not have the capacity to create their own datasets in the short term, the solution currently includes 39 datasets published by default .
These data sets are key to maintaining the information on the transparency portal and include data from different supramunicipal sources (Ministry of Finance, Generalitat de Catalunya, Consortium AOC, Diputació de Barcelona- CIDO...), and we can find interesting data such as personnel calls, ordinances, subsidies, contracts, agreements, etc.
This open data portal is found by default in all existing transparency portals in the local world, so we have more than 1,180 . To access it, you just need to click on the “Open Data” environment available on the portal of each entity. From the AOC we work to expand the number of datasets published automatically.
If you detect any dataset that you do not want to display, you can access the dashboard (as an editor of the transparency portal) and make it not visible. For more information, see "Open data: dataset to display in the transparency portal" .
Beyond the supramunicipal open data that we supply by default, the second level that we propose from AOC offers local entities an agile, simple and customizable open data portal, which allows them to publish their own data in an open and reusable format and at the same time federate them in an open data portal of the Catalan local world.
This phase is designed for entities that have or can create their own data sets and want to publish them on the AOC portal and link their own graphic resources to them: tables, maps, graphs.
At this stage we find mostly large town councils although increasingly small and medium town councils are showing more interest and are beginning to advance in the service. Globally around twenty local bodies already have their own datasets based on the AOC solution and currently the own datasets generated already exceed 150 datasets globally.
At this level we find municipalities such as:
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It should be noted that other entities such as the Tarragona Provincial Council or the AOC Consortium itself are users of this service and currently a good number of town halls such as Sant Cugat del Vallès, Calafell, Matadepera, Parets del Vallès, or county councils such as Baix Camp, among others, are working to begin publishing data sets in a short period of time.
These are four interesting examples of open data published via the AOC portal:
1.- Actions of the municipal brigade on the Tarragona City Council's open data portal
The City Council of Tarragona openly publishes the actions of the municipal and cleaning brigade in the city from 2014 to the present . The information, beyond the tables with data, includes georeferenced maps made with Instamaps (ICGC) with the points and concentrations of actions in the territory.
The Tarragona DDOO portal is one of the pioneers in the use of the AOC portal and includes many other interesting layers such as: weather data, electric vehicle charging points or gifts, invitations and trips from elected officials. More information on the Tarragona City Council open data portal .
2.- Empty commercial premises available on the open data portal of the Granollers City Council
The Granollers City Council openly publishes data on available empty commercial premises . The information is also published georeferenced through maps made with Leaflet, a solution generated directly by the portal.
Granollers is the first city council to publish this data with the AOC solution and, as with all new proposals that arise from the local world, its incorporation into the next version of the guide to data set normalization models will be evaluated, which currently has 18 proposals that we are enriching.
The Granollers City Council's open data portal includes many other interesting layers such as: buildings and plots available in industrial estates, routes through the city, playgrounds or the location of defibrillators. More information on the Granollers City Council's open data portal .
3.- Population and visitor profile data on the Sitges City Council's open data portal
Sitges City Council has been the latest to join the publication of its own data using the AOC portal and although, for now, only with 3 sets of its own data. It has started with very interesting data.
Specifically, it has published the data set of population and visitor profiles (based on data from mobile phone operators). This information allows them to extrapolate interesting topics such as daily overnight stays, single-day visits by nationality... It will serve them to share with hoteliers to improve management or have more resources to reduce illegal tourist beds/rooms. You can visit the Sitges City Council's open data portal .
4.- Registration data of entities in the municipality on the open data portal of the Les Preses City Council
The City Council of Les Preses openly publishes its register of municipal entities .
The case of Les Preses is very interesting because it is the smallest City Council user of the service (less than 2,000 inhabitants). Currently, Les Preses already has 4 published data sets of its own and uses as a basis for its work two essential documents that are offered among the resources of the service:
- Portal manual and resources for local entities , with a multitude of technical topics to advance the publication.
- Standardized dataset models , for working with standard and country models.
You can visit the open data portal of the Les Preses City Council
Beyond the four previous examples, we also provide you with different links to other pioneering open data portals with the AOC solution, where you can find a multitude of parameterized datasets with standard models and datasets with different graphic resources or interesting maps:
To advance in this proposed second phase, we are providing you with a series of technical and outreach resources:
- Portal registration procedure with uploading your own data
- Portal manual and resources for local entities
- Standardized Dataset Models , includes 18 sets that serve as a reference.
- Materials from the “Open your data” conference . Videos and presentations from the last session that include interesting municipal experiences.
Open data to comply with the data reuse law, to be more transparent, to offer a range of public information to citizens in open format... In this final stage we want to begin to derive internal fruit from the open data that is published and make life easier for transparency editors.
In this last phase we want to promote the automated relationship between the information published in open data and the items on the transparency portal: this need, long demanded by the local world, is now possible.
We automate transparency automatically and from the source
The AOC transparency portal provides the possibility of linking automatic views (such as data tables, graphs or maps, etc.) created in the open data environment to any transparency item. This option is available on all sets of items on the transparency portal, whether items offered by default to comply with Law 19/14, or on items of your own creation.
To explain this functionality we will do so using the example of the Sant Just Desvern City Council and the automation of municipal facilities:
- Sant Just Desvern has a manual maintenance item on its transparency portal called "municipal facilities"
- The city council wants to improve the information on the item by optimizing its flows from its back-office and improving its views. To do this, it will use open data.
- Sant Just Desvern has the AOC open data portal with self-management capacity.
- He has created a CSV of facilities that he publishes to open data automatically and has made two views: a table and a map.
And how will the City Council link these open data resources to the transparency item in question?
- All you have to do is go to the transparency edition environment. Enter the item and associate the different available open data resources with it:
- You will need to select “ Add open data view ”, select “ Municipal facilities ” and link to it, for example, the map generated from the open data environment. Specifically:
- Once you select the data set (Equipment) you will need to define the details of the selected resource (in this case a map, but it could be a table, a graph...):
- The result is a perfect relationship between the Open Data Portal and the Transparency item and all in an automated way:
To conclude, we include three real examples of automated transparency items via open data. In this case, they are all from the Castellar del Vallès City Council , a pioneer in the use of this evolution.
CASE 1: List of suppliers, awardees and/or contractors (family: contracts, agreements and subsidies)
Before : Manual publication of an excel annually by the transparency editor based on information provided by the accounting team.
After : Automatic integration with the management database, with addition of information to the CSV and automatic, and automated, publication in the transparency item.
Example of Castellar del Vallès: list of suppliers, awardees or contractors
CASE 2: “Directory of associations and entities” (family: participation)
Before : Manual publication of an excel (annually)
Then : Obtaining the information via the municipal website database (on external hosting), and publication in the transparency item.
Example of Castellar del Vallès: Directory of associations and entities
CASE 3: “Free wi-fi internet access point” (item specific to the family of services and procedures)
Before : Manual publication of an excel annually
Then : Obtaining the information via the municipal website database (on external hosting), and publication in the transparency item.
Example of Castellar del Vallès: Free internet access points
Conclusions
Promoting open data is not an easy task. Open government in general, and obligations regarding transparency and publication of open data in particular, require public administrations to leave their comfort zone with the consequent resistance to change and innovation, and often the approach taken is minimal towards mere compliance with the laws.
And we could continue with other arguments that do nothing more than put "spokes in the wheels" of promoting the reuse of public sector data. Such as the lack of technical knowledge, human or economic resources. We could also cite potential technological or organizational problems such as the need to have standards, roadmaps... and, finally, also enter into more "pilgrim" arguments such as the feeling of "unnecessity" or "fad", extremely important due to the difficulty of managing change, and which are often used from both technical and political perspectives.
But we need to make progress, and not because specific laws such as the reuse of public sector information or transparency laws say so, but because more data reuse can be synonymous with greater transparency, better accountability, improved credibility of our institutions, and even higher quality citizen participation, in other words, the foundations of open government.
And to all these arguments from AOC we add a new one: advancing in open data to be more efficient, automating information for transparency from the origin: doing the job alone and incorporating good graphic resources such as data tables, graphs or maps that, coming from the open data portal, are updated daily.
Therefore, we put at your disposal a wide range of resources. Starting with the AOC's own open data portal at no cost, completely adaptable to your needs so that you can start creating your own data sets and also relate them with transparency, up to manuals, guides, models, etc. We hope that this entire series of resources will help you to commit decisively to the promotion of open data in your organization.