1. Case Study: US/UK open source SDGs National Reporting Platform
Philip Ashlock US, General Services Administration
Ann Corp UK, Office for National Statistics

2. Scope & Purpose of NRP
National data for global indicator definitions (could expand to include national defined indicators)
SDG focused (currently)
Institutional ownership
Data collection and dissemination (currently)

3. NRP Background & Features
Builds on existing open source collaboration platforms like GitHub
Rapidly reusable etc
Security, etc
Version tracking, provenance

4. Benefits of the Platform
Open source and free – opportunity to collaborate
No hardware/software investment
Quick to set up
Good foundation - met many NRP principles
Appropriate platform for experimenting
Modular and easily customizable
Small feasibility study looked at what was available within ONS, external procurement and at a small number of NRPs from countries in UN NRP task force.
ONS undergoing data collection transformation programme – service not yet ready to meet our needs. ONS website primarily for ONS data
Little needed to set up initial UK proof of concept – github login and an existing laptop and took matter of hours (takes longer to customise, remove US data etc)
Various features that met our needs already – secure login for data edits, audit trail of data changes, metadata, basic visualisations 4

5. Enhancements by UK NRP
Disaggregations – data filtering and visualisations
Data format ‘long’ (tidy) not ‘wide’ – more machine readable
Meet government service standards eg – accessibility standards – browser standards
New features eg search bar, enhanced charts
Additional national metadata requirements
Input validation to improve quality 5

6. Development & Maintenance Arrangements
Open source intermediaries supporting the platform, e.g. Center for Open Data Enterprise
Communities and institutions supporting different modular components.
In house developer support
Cross-border collaboration on features & fixes
Jekyll, Prose, Travis, GitHub, Javascript visualization libraries, etc 6

7. Benefits of open source
Open source helps great collaboration (started in Philadelphia)
Shared expertise and code
Collaboration means less overall resource required 7

8. What other lessons did US/UK learn?
Iterative development works best
Benefits of connecting with other countries
Understanding data characteristics makes development easier
Github is a great tool for collaboration 8

9. Next steps for NRP development
Review data/metadata input and processing
Data feeds: APIs and SDMX
Exploring how to expand to sub-national data
Use of GIS – users keen to see Geographical breakdowns
User research to inform future developments
Note US on UN SDMX project] 9

10. Want to copy the US/UK NRP?
It’s open source and free!
Online guidance and resources – US training guide, UK wiki pages
Some support available through International Development Initiatives
Collaboration with US/UK
Other countries (e.g. Armenia, and more)
International outreach and promotion – now taking forward with CODE 10

11. What it’s all about…
“It is absolutely key that we share what we learn with other countries,
and indeed we have benefitted too from sharing,
as our open source reporting platform for SDGs has been developed in collaboration with the US
and both countries are working with their international development teams to share our experience globally.”
John Pullinger
UK National Statistician 11

12. Contacts philip.ashlock@gsa.gov sustainabledevelopment@ons.gov.uk
Philip Ashlock
Ann Corp and Matt Steel
websites 12