Government data – by the people
Jinfo Blog

22nd March 2010

By Anne Jordan

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A Gartner analyst recently predicted that more government data will be published by citizens. I agree and believe that private companies and interest groups will also become increasingly involved. PublicTechnology.net reported last week that due to financial pressures, data will be published less by central government and collected more by citizens. The article at http://digbig.com/5bbgpr cites Andrea Di Maio, vice president and analyst at Gartner, who believes that rather than providing information, government will increasingly gather and manage information that citizens themselves collect. He uses the example of the public already providing and publishing data on issues of concern, such as potholes in local roads, and predicts this will become a more widespread activity. I foresee that interest groups will also become the collectors of public sector-related data. Websites have sprung up to facilitate this, such as FillThatHole (http://www.fillthathole.org.uk), maintained by the CTC, the UK’s National Cyclists’ Organisation. This allows road users to report potholes, and the website provides monthly totals and authority league lists. Private companies are also becoming more involved in public data. In some instances this is being encouraged by government through datasets being made available through initiatives such as data.gov.uk, as reported in my posting http://digbig.com/5bbgpx. Last week I noticed that ebrary has created a free Natural Disaster and Extreme Weather Information Centre, featuring important US government documents related to natural disasters and extreme weather. The site is available at http://site.ebrary.com/lib/disaster/home.action and follows an earlier initiative on the H1N1 health scare. This may be a way of demonstrating the company’s digital content capabilities, but provides useful information from a single point. When looking for government data, information professionals now have a broader range of potential sources. But this also means that the skills of critically evaluating content and correctly judging the validity of information are even more important.

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