Re: Weekly Skype Discussion about Open Data

From: S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com>
Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 13:39:02 -0700

Hi Dan,
At 12:34 26-05-2015, Daniel Laeng wrote:
>I'd like to join in. Are you saying that the skype call is at 20:50
>on Thursday?

I gather that you have heard the usual local excuses when it about
being on time. :-) The weekly Skype Call is from 21:00 to 22:00. I
asked for people to join the call at 20:50 so that we have 10 minutes
to deal with the usual difficulties. Please send me your Skype ID.

>Some suggestions on things it would be interesting to discuss:
>
>1. Discovery service for Open Data
>
>It would be really nice (essential?) for there to be a single
>website which publishes (or at least indexes) all Mauritian open data.

There is a decision to set up an Open Data Portal. In my opinion,
this could be used to delay the release of the datasets. My position
is for the government to make the datasets publicly available as soon
as possible.

I'll list the discovery service for Open Data as something nice. Let
me know if you agree to to that.

>Reading the Open Government Data Initiatives (2012) document
>(mentioned by SM a few weeks ago), I would assume that there should
>now be several government departments which have open data
>available. I'm unable to find much of that data, either because I
>don't know where to look, or because it hasn't actually been
>published. Having a nice index would at least make that clear.

Please see dataportal.statsmauritius.govmu.org As far as I know,
there isn't any Open Data available from other government
departments. A lot of information is paper-based. The difficulty is
getting that as a file which can easily be parsed.

>2. Agile Style Approach
>
>It would be nice if we could have a unified voice advocating small
>steps towards opening up data *now*, rather than a 10 year bumbling
>government initiative that aims to do everything, but delivers nothing.

Agreed.

I prefer not to have government initiatives, workshops, etc.

>Specifically, although it would be wonderful to have a public API
>offering fully linked data from all government data, complete with
>unique IDs, I doubt anybody has the resources, desire or ability to
>do this in any meaningful time frame. So, I'd rather see the focus
>on delivering useful (but less perfect) data as soon as possible,
>then improve the offering over time. i.e. publish raw data now,
>work towards improving the data and the tech incrementally.

I am not keen about having an API as it might require:

   - a login

   - have usage limits

It is useful to have unique identifiers. However, that may turn into
a government project and cause delays. AS you mentioned, it is
better to get the raw data now and work towards improving the data
and the tech incrementally.

>I have no experience in how the government here tackles open ended
>projects like Open Data, and would be interested to know your experiences.

It can cause a lot of frustration as nobody is responsible for anything.

>3. Prioritise Geographic Data!
>
>SM mentioned this in his email to Mr Hawabhay, and I can't emphasise
>enough how much I agree. Geographic data is a requirement for many
>web style business, and often for making sense of raw data.

I agree that geographic data should be a priority. My guess is that
it may be very difficult to get access to it.

>I have not seen a reliable source of map data in Mauritius, and that
>seems to be a huge problem. I assume that the government maintains
>the only detailed geographic data for Mauritius (maps, streets,
>addresses, everything) - I think there is a strong case for publishing this.

There are:

   - 3D large scale aerial maps

   - Orthophoto

   - Data from the Land Administration and Management Systems

   - GIS mapping data

There is also a National Spatial Data Infrastructure project to
provide access to geo-spatial information.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy
Received on Tue May 26 2015 - 20:39:27 PST