Making APIs for government data - should agencies do this or leave it to third parties?

APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are a technique for interacting with data (usually on the web) which liberates users from relying on particular applications or having to do complex programming to reuse the data in interesting ways.

Unfortunately few government agencies go the extra distance to release their data with an API, instead using specific data formats which require specific applications to access them.

This is a real shame, as APIs essentially makes data application free - great for accessibility and both easier and faster for any web user or website to reuse the data effectively.

It is often relatively easy for to create APIs from an agency's released data, as demonstrated by the Farmer Market API example from Code for America, which took less than an hour to convert from a spreadsheet into a map visualisation.

Agencies can certainly take the position that they don't want to do the extra work (however little it may be) to provide APIs for their public data and leave it up to third parties to do this - wherever and whenever they wish.

This is a choice, however, that comes with risks.

Where an agency simply 'dumps' data - in a PDF, CSV, Shapefile or other format online, whether via their site or via a central open data site - they are giving up control and introducing risk.

If a third party decides to create an API to make a dataset easier to access, reuse or mash-up, they could easily do so by downloading the dataset, doing various conversions and clean-ups and uploading it to an appropriate service to provide an API (per the Family Market API example).

Through this process the agency loses control over the data. The API and the data it draws on is not held on the agency's servers, or a place they can easily update. It may contain introduced (even inadvertent) errors. 

The agency cannot control the data's currency (through updates), which means that people using the third party API might be accessing (and relying on) old and out-dated data.

The agency even loses the ability to track how many people download or use the data, so they can't tell how popular it may be.

These risks can lead to all kinds of issues for agencies, from journalists publishing stories to people making financial decisions relying on out-dated government data. 

Agencies might see a particular dataset as not popular due to low traffic to it from users of their site, and thereby decide to cease publication of it - when in reality it is one of the most popular data sets they hold, hence a third party designed an API for it which is where all the users go to access it.

As a result of these risks agencies need to consider carefully whether they should - or should not - provide APIs themselves for the data they release.

Open data doesn't have to mean an agency loses control of the datasets it releases, but to retain control they need to actively consider the API question.

Do they make it easy for people to access and reuse their data directly, retaining more control over accuracy and currency, or do they allow a third party with an unknown agenda or capability to maintain it to do so?

Agency management should consider this choice carefully when releasing data, rather than automatically jumping to just releasing that CSV, PDF or Shapefile, or some other file type.

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Victorian Government launches consultation on draft 'digital by design' ICT strategy

The Victorian Government has announced it is seeking public feedback on a proposed ICT strategy, Digital by design developed by the Victorian Information and Communications Advisory Committee (VICTAC).

The draft provides advice on the future management and use of ICT by government and how the Victorian Government can design and use information and technology to deliver better services.

The public consultation is for just over two weeks, finishing on 17 October.

The strategy sets out objectives and actions focused in three key areas and proposes eight principles to guide ICT decision making (per the chart below).

While not focused on Government 2.0, the draft strategy takes into account the increasing digitalisation of communications, expectations of citizens and the need to increasingly co-design and co-produce policy and service deliver programs and to design code for reuse, as well as the need to embed innovation within ICT and release more public data.

To learn more and to leave comments, visit www.vic.gov.au/ictstrategy/

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Opening up government in NSW

While largely unreported, earlier this year the NSW government became the first state jurisdiction in Australia to provide a formal written commitment to open government at a Premier level.

In Victoria, which took an early lead as a state, Government 2.0 (which isn't quite the same as open government) never received a formal commitment from the Premier, and while the ACT has done good work in this space, and is actively pursuing an open government agenda, there's not been an actual formal written commitment from the Chief Minister.

Equally in Queensland, which pioneered a whole-of-government open copyright framework, or in South Australia, which has done great work in the online community engagement space, there's not been a formal mandate issued under the names of their Premiers.

Even the Commonwealth Government, with the Declaration of Open Government, could only manage a senior cabinet Minister, Lindsay Tanner - who resigned shortly after the Declaration was published.

So what did NSW's commitment to open government actually say?

To quote NSW's Open Government Memorandum,

This memorandum advises Ministers of the Government’s commitment to a new era of open government. The NSW Government is committed to the open government principles of transparency, participation, collaboration and innovation. 

In the memorandum, Premier O'Farrell stated that the NSW Government would be:

• Open in our work for the people of NSW 
• Open to participation in the policy process 
• Open to collaboration on how we do business 

These would be achieved by enhancing:

• Online access to government services to make them available anywhere, anytime
• Online communications, including social networks, for internal and public dialogue 
• Online mechanisms for community and industry collaboration on innovative solutions 

Now these are just words, the proof will be in how the NSW Government executes these approaches.

There are still some worries. The memorandum is framed as part of the NSW ICT Strategy, and has a very strong IT-first focus.

Those of us who have worked in the Government 2.0 and open government space for some time and who have also worked with colleagues oversears very clearly recognise that it is rare for ICT executives to lead in this space.

Openness is a business goal requiring culture change across government. ICT executives rarely have the skills to lead human change in this way.

However ICT does has an enabling role, in providing the base infrastructure on which openness can be built. Hopefully the NSW Government will supplement it's ICT strategy with corresponding business strategies and change programs, drawing on Government 2.0 and open government expertise from across Australia and internationally.

This approach will ensure that the NSW Government doesn't only build the infrastructure layers, but simultaneously builds the business understanding and capability to use these layers effectively to deliver on the Premier's promise.

The next milestone will be at the end of this year when, under the NSW Government ICT Strategy 2012, each Director-General is required to report to the ICT Board with a plan to:

• Identify priority datasets for publication at data.nsw.gov.au 
• Increase open access information available at publications.nsw.gov.au 
• Facilitate public participation in the policy development process 
• Make greater use of social media to communicate with staff, customers and industry 
• Increase online access to government services 
• Collaborate with community, industry and research partners to co-design service solutions 

Those of us in the Government 2.0 space will be watching - and helping where we can, both openly and behind the scenes.

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How do you know that's really a government social media account?

On the internet, as they say, no-one knows if you're a dog - or a government agency.

This can become a problem when Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, even websites, are set up that look like government accounts, but aren't.

We've seen this issue in the private sector, such as with fake Shell accounts that took in the media and the public.

It has also happened in the public sector, most often in the US and the UK.

It happens here in Australia too. Do we really know whether, for example, @ACTGov is a government Twitter account, or a fake account? (in fact I'm not really sure, but don't think it is)

This can obviously create problems for citizens and for governments. What if citizens get taken in by a fake account and make a poor financial or health decision?

What responsibility does the government has to ensure that citizens don't get defrauded in this way?

The US government has now taken steps to address this in a proactive way (ie - before there's a media scandal).

As reported by the eGovernment Resource Centre, the US government is developing a new tool that verifies the authenticity of government social media sites.

The tool will require agencies to use a special system that only allows people with authentic government email accounts to register their official government social media accounts.

There will then be a public validation facility on leading US government sites where users can check whether a particular account in listed or not.

This turns the burden of proof around. If an agency fails to register its accounts, they will have lower authenticity because they won't be in the central database. This provides an incentive for agencies to register.

Users can check whether accounts are listed and feel secure that if one is then it is government operated.

Simple but smart. It protects citizens and also keeps track of government social media accounts, allowing a central directory to be crowdsourced.

I wonder if our government will consider similar steps to protect Australians and promote engagement with agencies?

It isn't a hard system to build, and it isn't expensive to operate.

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Is Parliament House the peoples' house? Beth Noveck: Demand a more open-source government

Is Parliament House the peoples' house or the government's house?

This is one of the fundamental considerations within the open government movement. Does government exist to serve the public? Who participates in developing policy, creating laws and deciding what is best for citizens and communities?

Beth Noveck, in her TED Global presentation, Demand a more open-source government, poses a number of challenges to citizens and governments around the world to open up governance processes, involving citizens at every stage.

Brought to my attention by Andrew Krzmarzick of Govloop, Beth Noveck Delivers Terrific TED Talk on Open Government, Noveck's talk is the best I've seen on the topic this year.

There's also a great blog post about the presentation at the TED site, Demand a more open-source government: Beth Noveck at TEDGlobal 2012

I strongly recommend that you watch Noveck's talk and share it widely with your colleagues.

 

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