Note of Open Data Governance Board Meeting 28th Jan 2016

Open Data Governance Board Meeting

B13 7-9 Merrion Street Thursday 28 January 2016 10.30am

Attendance:  Ms Emer Coleman (Chair), Ashling Cunningham, Dietrich Rebholz, Denis Parfenov, Cronan McNamara, Daithí Mac Síthigh, Dennis Jennings, William Beausang

Apologies:  Sandra Collins, Sue Duke

Secretariat: Evelyn O'Connor, Brian Costello 

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

1. The Progress report

The Chair of the ODGB had advised of the need, in the building of the number of datasets on the portal, to prioritise the wishlist from the Open Data community.  The approach proposed by the Unit is to focus on the wishlist, the suggestions made via the portal and those areas sought in international evaluations.  

The progress report set out the state of play in relation to the wishlist of datasets in terms of being on the portal as well as providing an update in terms of progress made by particular public bodies and information relating to meetings held with public bodies since the first ODGB meeting.  A brief update was given on meetings with the Government Departments and a short document giving portal statistics was also circulated.  It was agreed that good progress had been made.  Denis Parfenov mentioned the event he had hosted recently on data in the health sector and it was agreed that Denis would take ownership of progressing publication of datasets in this area.  It was also agreed that a meeting would be arranged by the Department between Denis and the D/Health.  Denis also questioned the availability of a budget to support the Open Data Initiative and the Department was asked to confirm whether it is appropriate to seek sponsorship in this regard.

It was proposed that a separate meeting would be held between the Department and Denis Parfenov to clarify what was being sought in terms of a number of the datasets.  However, in view of the number and span of the datasets sought and the number of public bodies involved, it was subsequently agreed that there was a need to prioritise.  A briefing note from D/CENR was requested on the position regarding postcodes and the Chair and Daithi agreed to consider specific uses of data in this regard.

The Chair asked for the Department to provide a short note on the key Departments that had been met, what datasets they hold and the Open Data community would be asked to prioritise.   The Board also agreed that we should track any reasons given by public bodies as to why they are unable to publish datasets  - it may be the case that the position changes over time or the Board could advise how other jurisdictions or organisations have handled similar issues to enable publication.  Denis (J) suggested that a Supplier Status Report might be developed that would give the Board an helicopter view of progress. 

2. Proposals for improving the portal

A paper setting out 8 proposed improvements including a monthly report consisting of dataset compliance with the technical Framework and general performance metrics, a moderated page enabling the suggesting of datasets for publication, development of a page for highlighting exemplars of Open Data usage, improving the searchability of the portal, the provision of visualisations to enable browsing of data and assist the understanding of it, etc.

It was agreed that all the proposals should be implemented but the ODGB would provide feedback on them and possibly suggest further improvements.  It was also agreed that Derilinx which provides technical support on the project would be invited to meet the Board at its next meeting to provide a technical briefing on the portal.  A note on the budgetary situation was also requested.

3. Draft Work-programme for the Unit for 2016

Six key functions were set out with more detailed action points around supporting the work of the ODGB, compliance with the Technical Framework to ensure availability of high quality dataset, development of a Unique Resource Identifiers Strategy for public bodies, building datasets on the portal, further development of the portal, promotion of usage and strategy for Open Data.

The approach outlined above under section 1 in relation to prioritising datasets for publication   will be adopted in relation to building the number of datasets on the portal.  In relation to the promotion of usage, it was envisaged that the Board would assist in particular as regards the building of business contacts, hosting of conferences (Cronan mentioned the Predict conference to be hosted in October at which Open Data could be showcased), in issuing blogs, etc.  The proposed work-programme was agreed. 

4. Public Sector Information Directive (PSI) and Open Data

A brief outline was provided on the PSI Directive and obligations in that regard.  The recent regulations transposing the amended Directive brings the PSI licence close to our Open Data licence in that a number of restrictions have been removed.  The PS Information that public bodies produce, hold or disseminate in relation to their public tasks must be made available for re-use with the fees capped at marginal cost, with important exceptions.  The information in question can be in any form including raw data, print, visual, digital, electronic and sound recordings.  Data that could be published in Open Data format would therefore be a subset of the wider PSI. 

It was agreed that public bodies should be advised of their obligations to publish information under the PSI Directive if requested and they should be encouraged to take one further step to publish datasets in open format free of charge.   It was also agreed that the existing PSI portal which contains lists of the main documents of public bodies which are available for re-use but is very out-of-date should be shut down.  Up-to-date lists of main documents published will need to be developed by public bodies and published instead on the Open Data portal in machine-readable format together with the associated metadata.     

Daithi mentioned the value of bringing together the different approaches to making data available such as FOI publication schemes, the PSI, Open Data etc and undertook to provide a note in this regard.   

Actions

• Issues a communication to Government Departments and other key public bodies (early adopters) outlining that the Board has asked them to reflect on what high-value datasets they hold and to revert with a list. A short note on the public bodies that had been met and what high value datasets they hold would then be provided to the Board and the Open Data community would be asked to prioritise
• ODGB and DPER: Draft email to CSO from Emer re Statbank to be provided
• ODGB and DPER: Meeting to be arranged between Denis Parfenov, DPER and D/Health
• ODGB: Cronan and Denis P agreed to follow up on any acedemic/university open data issues or meetings
• ODGB: Cronan suggested that the Tim Berners Lee's Openness Rating (5 star) should be incorporated into the portal and should be reported on for each dataset and there should be a search filter for users
• Briefing note on postcodes to be requested from DCENR
• ODGB: Emer and Daithi to think about specific use cases
• Report to be developed to give helicopter view of progress
• The reasons given by public bodies as to why datasets requested for publication cannot be published to be tracked
• Derilinx to be invited to the next ODGB meeting to provide a technical briefing on the portal
• Note on budgetary position to be provided
• ODGB: Board would review the suggested improvements to the portal
• Department to check the position re sponsorship and Denis Parfenov to revert with proposals to be used in seeking such sponsorship.
• The PSI portal to be shut down.  Obligations re publication under PSI to be referenced in communication to public bodies. 
• ODGB: Daithi to research the value in bringing together the different approaches to making data available and provide a note
• ODGB: Cronan to arrange a slot on open Data in the Predict conference
• Dates of meetings for the remainder of the year to be proposed – new doodle poll to issue.

ENDs