Entry for Locations / United Kingdom

Open Data Index Global Open Data Index 2016
1

I was the submitter for this entry and would like to raise an objection to the review.

http://global.survey.okfn.org/entry/gb/postcodes

My submission has been rejected with the following comment (and the UK has been scored 0% for this category):

“There are datasets available form the Ordnance Survey and ONS, but none are fully compliant with the requirement of this theme. There have been no address links to postcodes found.”

My submission mainly described the availability of open geocoded postcode datasets available for the UK, as that was the focus of the category description. I had not understood that the requirement this year was only for datasets that contained addresses as well as postcodes.

Although there is no open address data available, the UK should receive at least some points in this category due to the availability of Ordnance Survey’s AddressBase products. AddressBase contains full address details with postcodes and coordinates, and covers all of Great Britain.

In my view the responses under “How open is the data?” should be as follows:

  • It’s not openly licenced
  • It’s not available free online
  • It is available in bulk
  • It’s not available free of charge
  • It is up-to-date
  • It is in an open format
2

@codrina - any answers?

3

I agree with Owen’s previous comments.

It would be helpful to understand how we explain to non experts that GB is being rated as 0% open against this indicator when there are ways to access the data. This could appear a bit contradictory.

4

Dear @owenboswarva, @nickmhalliday,

thank you very much for the pointer. We will follow up on your input, and will get back to you in the coming days, together with our reviewer.

All the best
Danny

5

The changes, as proposed by @owenboswarva, have been implemented by our reviewer. We agree that his assessment is correct.

6

Hi, I was in a similiar situation to @owenboswarva in that I answered the question locations / northern ireland with a focus on postcodes rather than postcodes + addresses.

As I result, I referred to the Central Postcode Directory (which does not contain addresses) - I should in fact have referred to the Pointer dataset, which does contain addresses and coordinates as you can see from the free sample data, though it does use Irish Grid reference coordinates and not the WGS84 CRS.

N.B. Northern Ireland addresses are also included in the OS AddressBase Islands product, but Pointer is the locally-produced version providing full coverage of Northern Ireland only.

Therefore, I think the same answers should apply to Northern Ireland

  • It’s not openly licenced
  • It’s not publically available
  • It is available in bulk
  • It’s not available free of charge
  • It is up-to-date
  • It is in an open format

@dannylammerhirt

7

Hi @BobHarper1,

I verified the URL you sent me, and it complies as you say.

I assume this dataset has an irregular update frequency, but as the technical specs say, each entry is automatically updated when entered into the system. So it is up-to-date.

Thanks Bob for the pointer (no pun intended) ;)!

1 Like
8

Thanks Danny, yes that it my understanding of the update frequency from
those who’ve used it.