Note of Open Data Governance Board meeting - 25 October, 2016

Attendance: Dennis Jennings (acting Chair), Denis Parfenov, Sandra Collins,  Cronan McNamara, Barry Lowry,  Andrew O’Sullivan, Daithí Mac Síthigh,  Ashling Cunningham

Apologies: Emer Coleman (Chair), Dietrich Rebholz, Sue Duke

Secretariat: Evelyn O'Connor, Fiona Morley Clarke, Marian Beakey

Civil Society Representatives: Nuala Haughey (Tasc), Antoin Ó Lachtnain (Digital Rights Ireland), Danielle Martin (The Wheel), Ryan Meade (Climate Gathering), Rebecca O’Neill (Wikimedia Community Ireland), Stanislav Nazarenko (Open Knowledge Ireland).

Other Adrienne Harrington, Department of the Taoiseach, Head of the Government Data Forum

A number of documents had issued to the Board in advance of the meeting as follows:

1. Note of meeting on 5^th September;
2. Progress report;
3. Submission on the draft Open Data Strategy 2017-2020 from Health Research Board;

The items on the agenda were discussed as set out below:

1. Minutes of 5^th September meeting.

The Minutes were taken as approved and it was noted that these have been published on the portal.  It was suggested that the Progress Report circulated in advance of each ODGB meeting should also be published on the portal.  This will be considered but will require technical changes to be made to the portal to allow same.  It was agreed that minutes should be made available and published as soon as possible after each meeting.

1. Matters arising

• Feedback has been invited from business representatives who attended the last meeting.
• Since the last ODGB meeting, a meeting of the Public Service Bodies Working Group took place on Wednesday, 21 September - the minutes of the meeting will be circulated to the Board.
• OSI Blog material has now been included on the portal.
• A submission received from the Health Research Board on foot of the Boards meeting with researchers in July was noted.  This has been circulated to the board and summarised in the Progress Report circulated.
• A draft of the National Spatial Strategy is not yet available but OSI have advised that it will be available for circulation to the Board in the coming weeks.
• With regard to circulation of the Copyright Reform Bill Board, the sponsoring department - D/Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation - has advised that the draft Heads of the Copyright Reform Bill are not in the public domain.  The Board suggested that officials from D/JEI should be invited to attend a meeting of the ODGB to give an update on the Bill.
• Open Street Maps will be invited to attend a future meeting.  This will be followed up in the New Year as the Agenda for both today’s and the November meeting are full.
• To ensure that the ‘Suggest a Dataset’ function is more transparent all requests will be follow through in full and the portal updated to reflect why any datasets requested have not been made available.   The issue of allowing ‘open comments’ by members of the public on the portal was discussed – so as to encourage greater interaction with the public i.e. the public could, for example, ‘like’ a dataset.  The department were not in favour of open access at this time and it was noted that the public can email the Open Data unit if they so wish.  The option of a ‘log in’/or registration could be considered.   The secretariat were also asked to check why datasets from OSI are showing on the portal as zero star. This sometimes happens when datasets are first added to the Portal until they are verified but will be followed up by the Secretariat.

1. Update on Progress

Progress Report (circulated in advance of the meeting) was discussed. Some of the highlights include,

• A number of enhancements have been made to the portal.  These include a ‘suggest a showcase’ which has been added so as to encourage developers to showcase applications they have developed using datasets on the portal.  3 suggestions have been submitted so far.
• The ODGB Blog section has been retitled as ‘Latest News’ which is now prominently placed on the Home Page. The new section will include ODGB blogs and minutes of meetings as well as other news that might be of interest to portal users such as upcoming conferences, updates of the engagement fund, new publications of interest etc.    A twitter account @GovDataIE has also been activated.
• 116 new datasets added in August and 125 in September. 4465 datasets now in total.
• The Open Data Policy Unit are continuing to engage with Public Bodies to progress the proposed Framework Agreement for Open Data support.  It is hoped to have it in place by year end.
• Engagement with public bodies on Open Data is continuing with meetings held with Dublinked in recent weeks.
• It was noted that the Engagement Fund was launched on 5 October and the closing date for applications is 16 November.  Minister Murphy issued a press release, a blog has been put on the portal, and details of the fund have been widely circulated to numerous public bodies, schools, universities etc.  The board were asked to consider it they could advertise the Fund more widely to business contacts etc.

Action 1 (Secretariat) Circulate minutes of the PBWB meeting to the Board.

Action 2 (Secretariat) Consider putting Progress Reports on the portal

Action 3 (Secretariat)  Invite officials from D/JEI to attend a meeting of the ODGB to give an update on the Copyright Reform Bill

Action 4 (Secretariat)  National Spatial Strategy to be circulated to the Board in due course for obs.

Action 5 (Board) Board to consider it they could advertise the Engagement Fund more widely to business contacts etc.

Action 6 (Secretariat) Check if option to ‘like’ a dataset can be put on portal. Secretariat to check why datasets from OSI are logged on the portal as zero star.    Consider the option of a ‘log in’/or registration to encourage interaction with the public on the portal at a future stage.

1. Meeting with representatives of Business Stakeholder Group

Seven representatives of the “Civil Society/Community” Stakeholder Group joined the meeting to discuss how the Open Data Initiative can deliver benefits for civil society and for their views on the forthcoming Open Data Strategy. The civil society/community representatives had been advised that by way of preparation it may be useful for them to look at the foundation document for an Open Data Strategy and reflect on how civil society might engage with open data.

The attendees were:

• James Doorley, National Youth Council of Ireland

• Nuala Haughey, Tasc
• Antoin Ó Lachtnain, Digital Rights Ireland
• Danielle Martin, The Wheel
• Stanislav Nazarenko, Open Knowledge Ireland
• Ryan Meade, Climate Gathering
• Rebecca O’Neill Wikimedia Community Ireland

Some of the main points that arose were as follows:

• The lack of ‘joined up thinking’ within some departments with regard to ‘open data’.  For example some sections within a department might have copyright restrictions attached to certain information where individual permission has to be sought for use, limiting potential for re-use.
• Datasets not being in a machine readable format (only available in pdf)
• Copyright issues –for example maps that can be downloaded but not made available for commercial usage - Rebecca O’Neill is to send in specific details of some copyright issues for D/PER to follow up.
• The view was that all data released under FOI should be made available as Open Data.
• Open Data should be a two way conversation – there should be procedures in place to allow data users to revert to the data owner with corrections/discrepancies in data published. It was noted that CSO lists the person responsible for individual datasets on their sites and welcome any feedback. There should be a strategy in place to allow a ‘feedback loop.’
• Some agencies use the PQ system on a routine basis to obtain data as this is sometimes perceived as being the quickest way to obtain data required from some public bodies.  D/PER advised that requests should be sent in through the portal where possible.   It was also suggested that PQs could be searched to see what data is routinely released and then requested to be included on the portal through the Open Data Unit in D/PER.
• Data should be routinely published by public bodies as ‘Open Data’
• It would be useful to have a structured approach to data storage
• Citizens need to be able to easily interpret data (it should be available in easily readable formats so as to enable citizen engagement in a meaningful way).
• A map of where data is available would be useful and should be included in the strategy – i.e. government departments should provide a map of the data that they have. It was noted that lack of resources in some departments can make this difficult i.e. most departments do not have dedicated staff dealing with open data.
• Quite a lot of information is available on climate issues but there can be a gap between supply and demand. Data can have a role in providing user friendly information around climate change. It was suggested that Climate Gathering put together a note for the ODGB on relevant issues and outputs being sought.

The Board advised that it would be useful if the civil society sector could flag what datasets might be useful to them. Secretariat also to forward on details of the Engagement Fund to the attendees.

Action 5 (Civil Society)

Engage better on Open Data.Consider suggestions of datasets to be released (using the portal).Forward back any feedback to the Secretariat. Climate Gathering to consider submitting a note on issues raised to the ODGB.Issues around copyright to be forwarded to the Secretariat for consideration.

Action 5 (Secretariat) Consider if PQs could be searched to see what data is routinely released and then requested same to be made available through the Open Data portal.

Action 6 (Secretariat)

Send details of the Engagement Fund out to the civil society representatives.

4.            Update on Government Data Forum.

Adrienne Harrington of the Department of the Taoiseach gave a general overview of the work of the Government Data Forum.  The Terms of Reference and membership of the Forum were circulated in advance of the meeting.

The Government Data Forum is willing to work collaboratively with Open Data Governance Board and other structures such as groups concerned with open access. The Forum has a broad remit which is not limited to data protection issues.

It was suggested that one of the areas of overlap with other data groups which the Government Data Forum might explore would be mapping of government data that each entity collects, generates or already has.

Adrienne also advised that a two day Data Summit is planned for May 2017(25/26 tbc) and that the Forum would welcome our participation in this (seminars/data showcases etc.)

5.            AOB

Consultation on Open Data strategy

It was noted that librarians would be invited to attend the next meeting of the Board – 30 November.  Sandra Collins to contact the Secretariat with suggestions.

d). Other Business

Due to time constraints a number of items under Any Other Business were not discussed and these will be followed up on separately via email/Slack. These include

• Inviting Northern Ireland Minister with responsibility for Open Data (Minister Martin O Muilleoir and secretariat) to participate in a joint meeting with the ODGB Board and Minister Eoghan Murphy.
• The suggestion that a Board member attend the launch of NI Open Data Initiative on 25th November.
• Discussion on Anonymisation
• Engagement Fund – establishment of sub- committee of the board to assess applications for the Engagement Fund

(e ) Next meeting

The next meeting will take place on 30 November, 2016.

Action 10 (Secretariat)

Follow up by email with the Board on Agenda items not reached on the agenda. These include ‘Anonymisation’, Northern Ireland visit, joint meeting with NI Minister and Minister Murphy and Board, establishing a selection committee for the Engagement Fund.

Action 11 (Secretariat/Sandra Collins)

Invite librarians/information professionals to the November meeting

_______________________

Open Data Unit

Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

October 2016