Inventories and Data Publishing a. k Inventories and Data Publishing a.k.a how to make data easier to publish, compare and find Dave Burdge Corporate Information Manager North Somerset Council david.burdge@n-somerset.gov.uk

Data management at NSC Established centralised management of spatial data Creation of central Business Intelligence service in 2015 Austerity has been a catalyst for culture shift Senior sponsors - Open Data / transparency But not enough people/money to do everything DataShare used for publishing transparency datasets * Caveat with changes to ICT – have successfully broken the site but working on this and mostly functioning

Open Data publishing and inventories DataShare site implemented in 2014 Participants in incentive scheme All transparency datasets published via DataShare + others Aligning datasets with other LA schemas wherever possible to ensure consistency Tagged to ESD service list for internal tracking / monitoring DataShare used for publishing transparency datasets * Caveat with changes to ICT – have successfully broken the site but working on this and mostly functioning

Open Data publishing and inventories Inventories and schemas are automatically harvested and visible via: NSC DataShare APIs Data.gov.uk LGA Consistent formatting enables automated updates and publishing* DataShare used for publishing transparency datasets Caveat with changes to ICT and service users – have successfully broken the site but working on this and mostly functioning Issues with data formatting and headers

A non-transparency example: Using open data to discover North Somerset’s heritage and culture Fields, ex tractors and combined harvesters...

Culture and heritage project 3 core stages Create and centralise corporate datasets Events Sites and attractions Historic imagery Publish as open Build a website using this data That’ll be easy, won’t it... Disperate datasets, no control over format; many data updaters, no data owners Pending retirement of archaeologist – extract knowledge whilst it still existed

Understanding standard standards Not that easy to find existing standards... ...but some very useful sites exist Incentive scheme & transparency code LGA standards site National archives Data.gov.uk BSI Existing open data sites (e.g. Bath:Hacked)

Data collation Data pulled into one place and mapped to agreed schemas Data owners identified Update mechanism agreed & implemented Creation of automated data ‘blending’ using UPRN and Safe FME Geolocation public transport distance URLs, etc

Publishing and inventories Datasets published via NSC DataShare site Automatically harvested to Data.gov.uk Schemas all visible and available to others Created Flickr site for 1000+ images Automated updates and publishing* DataShare used for publishing transparency datasets * Caveat with changes to ICT – have successfully broken the site but working on this and mostly functioning

Discover North Somerset website Creation of website using open data Live APIs from DataShare Links to imagery on Flickr site DataShare used for publishing transparency datasets * Caveat with changes to ICT – have successfully broken the site but working on this and mostly functioning

Overall benefit realisation Consistency – data and schemas Ability to automate updates* Easier for others to explore data Reduction in FoI, data requests and calls Becoming understood by ‘non-nerds’ Near real-time view for internal and external uses Growing library of schemas** ** this is also a potential concern – how can this be managed and who looks after it?

Where next? Continue to understand / engage with data users Make existing schemas easier to explore More great national work like the incentive scheme Define more national standard field names / schema ‘building blocks’ Addresses, unique referencing systems / URIs Make Schema and APIs more flexible (semantic?) More collaboration with software suppliers to automate data publishing from source APIs / web services

Where next? Complete review of development sites Brownfield sites Active development sites Linked to LLPG/BS7666 and monitored at property level Aggregated then published for partners as open – text based and inspire compliant web services