Good to see this conversation being sparked more.
Some very quick initial reactions:
- The examples under ‘the role of the open data movement’ are very dataset centric. I wonder if democratising the data revolution involves staking a step back from here, and finding out how to have the conversation about knowledge, information and evidence for policy at a more thematic level.
E.g. finding spaces that connect the policy (rather than data staff) in public institutions, and the policy people in civil society, with conversations about data requirements - and only then moving into the data-details. In other words, pushing for more of a critical conversation of data as part of talking about environment, health, welfare policy etc.
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As far as I understand, ODUG is also defunct/not active at present, so may not be a great example to major on;
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There is an important contextual issue to think about here: much of the data revolution debate is also about using big data and real-time data from private firms to shape policy. Establishing a principle that policy should not be made on data that can’t be shared with citizens in some form (either proactively or reactively), and that it should always be possible for government to account for policy outcomes from its data, may be important. Otherwise we risk a situation in which the data on which policy is made is going to be increasingly proprietary.