データはオープンにした。それからどうする?

ここまでは、政府の持つ情報を法的にも技術的にも再利用可能にする方法について見てきた。その次の段階として、公開したデータを多くの人に使ってもらうためにはどうすればいいのかを考えよう。

このセクションでは、データの再利用を促すためにできるいくつかのことを取り上げる。

広めよう!

何よりもまず大切なのは、あなたの担当分野で {term:オープンデータ} の活用に乗り出したという事実を知らせることだ。

大量のデータセットを公開したのなら、ある程度手間をかけてでもその事実を人々に告知する(少なくとも発見してもらえるようにする)価値がある。

プレスリリースやウェブサイトでの告知などのほかにも、次のようなこともできる。

• その地域で働いていたり興味を持っていたりする著名な組織や人などと連絡をとる
• 関連するメーリングリストやソーシャルネットワークを活用する
• そのデータに関心を持ってもらえるであろう人たちと直接連絡をとる

対象者について理解する

あらゆる広告と同様、データコミュニティへの広告もきちんと対象を絞り込む必要がある。あらゆるステークホルダーと同様、いくら正しいメッセージでも送り先を間違えれば見落とされてしまう。

デジタル世代は新たな情報を共有したがる傾向が強い。しかしその情報を消費するのも速い。自分が書いたメッセージはさっと流し読みされるものだと考えよう。きちんと熟読されることはない。

技術者のコミュニティでは、一般大衆に比べてMS Windowsの使用率が低い。つまり、オフラインでも読めるようにドキュメントをMS Officeフォーマットで保存するなどしてはいけないということだ。理由は次の二点である。

• まず、そのドキュメントのアクセシビリティが下がる。あなたが今画面上で見ているドキュメントではなく、ユーザーが見るのは代替手段を使って何とか見えるようにした劣化コピーになるだろう。
• 次に、そんなことをすれば「開発者たちに歩み寄る気はない」という暗黙のメッセージを送ることになってしまう。そうではなく「技術者のコミュニティのほうから自分たちに歩み寄れ」という考えを示すことになる。

サードパーティのサイトに投稿する

Many blogs have created a large readership in specialised topic areas. It may be worthwhile adding an article about your initiative on their site. These can be mutually beneficial. You receive more interest and they receive a free blog post in their topic area.

ソーシャルメディアで広めやすくするための方法

職員がソーシャルメディアに入り浸って宣伝するべきだと期待するのは非現実的だ。しかし、テクニカルなユーザーの間でコンテンツを共有しやすくさせるためにできることはいくつかある。そのコツをまとめた。

• Provide unique pages for each piece of content

メッセージを共有するときに、それを受け取った人がより素早くコンテンツにたどり着けるようになる。

• Avoid making people download your press releases

プレスリリース自体はよいことだ。要点をまとめた簡潔なメッセージとなる。しかし、ダウンロードして別のソフトで開かないと読めないようなプレスリリースなら、それを読む人は少なくなるだろう。サーチエンジンに捕捉されにくくなるし、わざわざクリックしてダウンロードしようとする人も少なくなる。

• Consider using an Open license for your content

コンテンツを共有したいと考える人たちに対して共有可能であることを明示するだけでなく、コンテンツを提供する組織が「オープンであること」について理解しているというメッセージにもなる。そのほうが、オープンデータに賛同する人たちに対してより大きな印象を残せる。プレスリリースにどんな文言を載せるよりも、その効果はずっと大きい。

ソーシャルメディア

厳しい財政状況の組織がソーシャルメディアサイトに時間を費やすのは非効率的だ。ソーシャルメディアサイトのフォーラム上で話題を広めるための最も効率的な方法は、ブログに投稿した記事を共有しやすくしておくことだ。そのためには、次のセクションに進む前にこれを読んでおこう。ここで、いくつかの案を示す。

• Discussion fora

Twitterは、情報を手早く広めるための選択肢としての地位を確立している。#opendata タグをつけておけば、すぐに何千人もの目に留まる。

LinkedInには、オープンデータに興味をもちそうなグループが多数存在する。

Facebookはごく一般的な人たち向けには優れているが、オープンデータコミュニティの中での認知度はそれほどではない。

• Link aggregators

ギーク向けのニュースサイトにコンテンツを投稿する。RedditとHacker Newsが、現時点での二大巨頭だ。それには及ばないが、SlashdotやDiggもそれなりに有用なサイトである。

These sites have a tendency to drive significant traffic to interesting material. They are also heavily focused on topic areas.

Getting folks in a room: Unconferences, Meetups and Barcamps

Face-to-face events can be a very effective way to encourage others to use your data. Reasons that you may consider putting on an event include:

• Finding out more about prospective re-users
• Finding out more about demand for different datasets
• Finding out more about how people want to re-use your data
• Enabling prospective re-users to find out more about what data you have
• Enabling prospective users to meet each other (e.g. so they can collaborate)
• Exposing your data to a wider audience (e.g. from blog posts or media coverage that the event may help to generate)

There are also lots of different ways of running events, and different types of events, depending on what aim you want to achieve. As well as more traditional conference models, which will include things like preprepared formal talks, presentations and demonstrations, there are also various kinds of participant driven events, where those who turn up may:

• Guide or define the agenda for the event
• Introduce themselves, talk about what they’re interested in and what they’re working on, on an ad hoc basis
• Give impromptu micro-short presentations on something they are working on
• Lead sessions on something they are interested in

There is plenty of documentation online about how to run these kinds of events, which you can find by searching for things like: ‘unconference’, ‘barcamp’, ‘meetup’, ‘speedgeek’, ‘lightning talk’, and so on. You may also find it worthwhile to contact people who have run these kinds of events in other countries, who will most likely be keen to help you out and to advise you on your event. It may be valuable to partner with another organisation (e.g. a civic society organisation, a news organisation or an educational institution) to broaden your base participants and to increase your exposure.

Making things! Hackdays, prizes and prototypes

The structure of these competitions is that a number of datasets are released and programmers then have a short time-frame -running from as little as 48 hours to a few weeks - to develop applications using the data. A prize is then awarded to the best application. Competitions have been held in a number of countries including the UK, the US, Norway, Australia, Spain, Denmark and Finland.

Examples for Competitions

Show us a better way was the first such competition in the world. It was initiated by the UK Government’s “The Power of Information Taskforce” headed by Cabinet Office Minister Tom Watson in March 2008. This competition asked “What would you create with public information?” and was open to programmers from around the world, with a tempting £80,000 prize for the five best applications.

Apps for Democracy, one of the first competitions in the United States, was launched in October 2008 by Vivek Kundra, at the time Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the District of Columbia (DC) Government. Kundra had developed the groundbreaking DC data catalog, http://data.octo.dc.gov/, which included datasets such as real-time crime feeds, school test scores, and poverty indicators. It was at the time the most comprehensive local data catalog in the world. The challenge was to make it useful for citizens, visitors, businesses and government agencies of Washington, DC.

The creative solution was to create the Apps for Democracy contest. The strategy was to ask people to build applications using the data from the freshly launched data catalog. It included an online submission for applications, many small prizes rather than a few large ones, and several different categories as well as a “People’s Choice” prize. The competition was open for 30 days and cost the DC government $50,000. In return, a total of 47 iPhone, Facebook and web applications were developed with an estimated value in excess of $2,600,000 for the local economy.

The Abre Datos (Open Data) Challenge 2010. Held in Spain in April 2010, this contest invited developers to create open source applications making use of public data in just 48 hours. The competition had 29 teams of participants who developed applications that included a mobile phone programme for accessing traffic information in the Basque Country, and for accessing data on buses and bus stops in Madrid, which won the first and second prizes of €3,000 and €2,000 respectively.

Nettskap 2.0. In April 2010 the Norwegian Ministry for Government Administration held “Nettskap 2.0”. Norwegian developers – companies, public agencies or individuals – were challenged to come up with web-based project ideas in the areas of service development, efficient work processes, and increased democratic participation. The use of government data was explicitly encouraged. Though the application deadline was just a month later, on May 9, the Minister Rigmor Aasrud said the response was “overwhelming”. In total 137 applications were received, no less than 90 of which built on the re-use of government data. A total amount of NOK 2.5 million was distributed among the 17 winners; while the total amount applied for by the 137 applications was NOK 28.4 million.

Mashup Australia. The Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce invited citizens to show why open access to Australian government information would be positive for the country’s economy and social development. The contest ran from October 7th to November 13th 2009. The Taskforce released some datasets under an open license and in a range of reusable formats. The 82 applications that were entered into the contest are further evidence of the new and innovative applications which can result from releasing government data on open terms.

Conferences, Barcamps, Hackdays

One of the more effective ways for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to demonstrate to governments the value of opening up their datasets is to show the multiple ways in which the information can be managed to achieve social and economic benefit. CSOs that promote re-use have been instrumental in countries where there have been advances in policy and law to ensure that datasets are both technically and legally open.

The typical activities which are undertaken as part of these initiatives normally include competitions, {term:open government data} conferences, “unconferences”, workshops and “hack days”. These activities are often organised by the user community with data that has already been published proactively or obtained using access to information requests. In other cases, civil society advocates have worked with progressive public officials to secure new release of datasets that can be used by programmers to create innovative applications.