Edmonton, Alberta: Canada’s Open Data Capital

Carleton University undergraduate students in Ottawa, Canada, are studying the link between communication and open government. In the class, the students examine how communication can be used to improve governance and to foster a more collaborative relationship between governments and citizens. This series of blog posts is related to a range of topics concerning the issues that challenge open government. These posts will appear on the OGP blog over the coming weeks. We hope you enjoy them.

Canadian open data initiatives have multiplied at  the local, provincial, national and international levels. Among all the initiatives, Edmonton, Alberta’s open data initiative was ranked number one among all the municipalities in the country. The municipality consists of almost 900,000 citizens, and is the  home to the largest mall in North America, West Edmonton Mall. Though the city may not be known worldwide, many see it as a leader in open government in Canada. At this time the city manages about 1.64 petabytes of data, which is 14 times the physical collection in the Edmonton Public Library.

The open data initiative in Edmonton began in January of 2010 and has released almost 900 datasets over the past six years. Open data in Canada is still a growing initiative, therefore the city of Edmonton helps to set a standard of openness for other  municipalities use as an example. Edmonton defines Open Data as “a practice that makes data freely available, easy to access, and most importantly, simple for the public to reuse in machine-readable formats. Open Data can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone.”

Open City Policy:

In April of 2015, the city launched the Open City Policy, where they define both open city and open government in order to create a policy of “transparency, participation, collaboration, inclusiveness and innovation.” The committee for open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... advisory in Edmonton was put in place to make sure the steps laid out are followed and solidified across the municipality. The policies include promises from the city to manage information and datasets as a strategic resource, ensure information is open by default except where it is appropriate to be private, expand opportunities for collaboration with citizens, embrace new technology and models to deliver services to Edmontonians, remove barriers and open up possibilities and work with the public and private sectorGovernments are working to open private sector practices as well — including through beneficial ownership transparency, open contracting, and regulating environmental standards. Technical specificat... More for advancement.

The way in which the city of Edmonton defines open government and open city are important to the implementation of their open data initiatives. Open city is seen as a civic perspective, that is narrower than open government, which emphasizes greater transparency, participation and accountability with the release of data and information. All datasets and information on the open data initiative in Edmonton are available at the Edmonton Open Data Portal, which allows users to navigate the datasets and keep the government accountable for the data they are showcasing. Within the data site there is a user guide which has video guides to help with the navigation of datasets, and shows how raw data is turned into useful information for citizens.  

Terms and Conditions:

The city laid out terms and conditions on their open government website that outlines the way the datasets can be reused as a resource. The city of Edmonton allows the royalty-free reuse and modification of all their datasets released, stating that individuals “are free to copy, modify, publish, translate, adapt, distribute or otherwise use the datasets in any medium, mode or format for any lawful purpose.” Therefore, as long as there is no malice and illegal intent with the information these datasets are meant to be an asset to Edmontonians.

The City also does list Privacy Guidelines according to the Alberta Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The guidelines state that if personal information is being collected the individual will be notified, as well you have access to your information, you can control how the city discloses this information, which therefore means you have the right to deny information unless it is for a legal purpose that does not fall under the act.

Edmonton Public Library:

One major step that the movement has done in the municipality is access to resources in the Edmonton Public Library (EPL). The library is meant to open up learning and resources through their library. The EPL also shares their information through the terms and conditions laid out by the city and places all data alongside other services such as transit in the Open Data Catalogue. The guidelines under the EPL are meant to match the principles of the G8 Charter on Open Data. These guidelines focus on open by default, the quality and quantity, the usability by all people, the releasing of data to improve governance and the release for innovation.

Conclusion:

Edmonton’s open by default principles allows the municipality  to stand out above other Canadian cities. In terms of transparency and accountability, Edmonton as a whole has much to offer to Canada’s Open Government Partnership National Action Plan, as an example of how change occurs from the local level. The open by default initiative was promised on a Federal level in Canada’s National Action Plan for Open Government the same such promise is seen in Edmonton’s Open City Policy.