Start a business. Manage your power use. Find cheap rents, or avoid crime-ridden neighborhoods. Cities and their citizens worldwide are discovering the power of “open data”—public data and information available from government and other sources that can help solve civic problems and create new business opportunities.
Open North – Building trust in data, for the common good
Open North is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing the common good. Working alongside governments and civic-minded organizations of all sizes, we provide data expertise to enhance decision-making, drive innovation, optimize public and civic services, and address society's most pressing challenges. Our work focuses on building the capacity of organizations to make better decisions about managing their data so that it is useful, actionable, secure, and trustworthy throughout its entire lifecycle.
The 8 Principles of Open Government Data (OpenGovData.org)
A set of principles of open government data developed by advocates on On December 7-8, 2007. The meeting, held in Sebastopol, California, was designed to develop a more robust understanding of why open government data is essential to democracy
Out of the box
The open-data revolution has not lived up to expectations. But it is only getting started
A City in Common: A Framework to Orchestrate Large-scale Citizen Engagement around Urban Issues
As part of the Digital Library's transition to Open Access, new features for researchers are available in the Premium Edition. Click here to learn more.
Using and publishing Open Data and Information
Detailed guidance on working with data and APIs, guidance for institutions to publish proactive publications, open data and information. Using Open Data How to work with data and APIs Information and tips using some of the formats presented in the Open Data Portal
Home - Data For Good
Empowering Communities Through Data Learn About Us Volunteer Get Support Donate Who Are We? Data For Good is a collective of do gooders, who want to use their powers for good, and not evil, to help make our communities better through data. We are a national not for profit organization, with chapters across the county, […]
Common Knowledge: Citizen-led data governance for better cities
Key lessons from the DECODE pilots and tips on how other cities and governments can apply the technologies and methods.
The Open Data Challenge Series
A series of seven challenge prizes to generate innovative and sustainable open data solutions to social challenges
Reclaiming the Smart City: Personal Data, Trust and the New Commons
Why and how city governments are taking a more responsible approach to the collection and use of personal data.
A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences
<strong>A bold reassessment of "smart cities" that reveals what is lost when we conceive of our urban spaces as computers</strong> Computational models of urbanism—smart cities that use data-driven planning and algorithmic administration—promise to deliver new urban efficiencies and conveniences. Yet these models limit our understanding of what we can know about a city. <i>A City Is Not a Computer</i> reveals how cities encompass myriad forms of local and indigenous intelligences and knowledge institutions, arguing that these resources are a vital supplement and corrective to increasingly prevalent algorithmic models. Shannon Mattern begins by examining the ethical and ontological implications of urban technologies and computational models, discussing how they shape and in many cases profoundly limit our engagement with cities. She looks at the methods and underlying assumptions of data-driven urbanism, and demonstrates how the "city-as-computer" metaphor, which undergirds much of today's urban policy and design, reduces place-based knowledge to information processing. Mattern then imagines how we might sustain institutions and infrastructures that constitute more diverse, open, inclusive urban forms. She shows how the public library functions as a steward of urban intelligence, and describes the scales of upkeep needed to sustain a city's many moving parts, from spinning hard drives to bridge repairs. Incorporating insights from urban studies, data science, and media and information studies, <i>A City Is Not a Computer</i> offers a visionary new approach to urban planning and design.
The Politics of Open Infrastructures: Power, Governance, and Justice in Digital Knowledge Practices
This volume examines how openness is designed, governed, contested and lived in contemporary digital knowledge infrastructures. From open source software and internet standards, to citizen science platforms, public sector data systems and alternative computing practices, the book shows that infrastructures are never neutral technical backbones.
Open Infrastructure Map
Open map of the world's electricity, telecoms, oil, and gas infrastructure, using data from OpenStreetMap.
Living in Data: A Citizen's Guide to a Better Information Future (Paperback)
Jer Thorp’s analysis of the word “data” in 10,325 New York Times stories written between 1984 and 2018 shows a distinct trend: among the words most closely associated with “data,” we find not only its classic companions “information” and “digital,” but also a variety of new neighbors—from “scandal” and “misinformation” to “ethics,” “friends,” and “play.”To live in data in the twenty-first century
The Paradox of Open
Numerous organisations and initiatives have been launched with a belief in openness and free knowledge. Their proponents placed their bets on the combined power of networked information services and new governance models for the production and sharing of content and data. We – as members of this broad movement – were among those who believed it possible to leverage this combination of power and opportunity to build a more democratic society, unleashing the power of the internet to create universal access to knowledge and culture. For us, such openness meant not only freedom, but also presented a path to justice and equality.
The Paradox of Open
Numerous organisations and initiatives have been launched with a belief in openness and free knowledge. Their proponents placed their bets on the combined power of networked information services and new governance models for the production and sharing of content and data. We – as members of this broad movement – were among those who believed it possible to leverage this combination of power and opportunity to build a more democratic society, unleashing the power of the internet to create universal access to knowledge and culture. For us, such openness meant not only freedom, but also presented a path to justice and equality.
Out in the Open: This Man Wants to Turn Data Into Free Food (And So Much More)
The aim is a simple one: 25-year-old software developer Max Ogden wants to make it easier for governments to share their data with a world of software developers.
