From the White House to your local municipality, government agencies, NGOs, and corporations are making more data and applications available to citizens. Government agencies are promoting not only data, but application programming interfaces (APIs) and interactive widgets to help developers get access to timely data. Now anyone can look for patterns in data and identify trends that offer insight into issues facing people today. The open data movement is global. In July of 2011, the Open Government Partnership was launched to increase civic participation, fight corruption, and use technology to be more effective and accountable. President Barack Obama said, “I want us to ask ourselves everyday, how are we using technology to make a real difference in people’s lives.” In the meantime, open data standards are evolving and maturing. Sites like dbpedia, freebase, data.gov.uk, Dublinked and others are cataloging data in Resource Description Framework (RDF) to make data accessible anywhere anytime. New standards such as Open Data Protocol (OData) are maturing and being adopted by more open data practitioners. Corporations are doing their part as well. IBM Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs is sponsoring City Forward, a free, web-based platform that enables users–city officials, academics and interested citizens–to view and interact with data while engaging in an ongoing public dialogue. To learn more about the open data movement and how City Forward is addressing data, the value proposition, and legal challenges associated with enabling open data, view the City Forward Open Data Standards presentation. Presentation authors: Gina Cardosi, IBM Certified Senior Project Manager, and Dave Rook, IBM IT Architect.

1. cityforward.org
City Forward and open data standards
Gina Cardosi and Dave Rook
3-Aug-2012

2. 2© 2012 IBM Corporation 2© 2010 IBM Corporation© 2012 IBM Corporation
More than ever before, human life
revolves around the city.
In 1900,
13%
of the world’s
population
lived in cities.
In 2007, that
number surpassed
50%
—and it continues
to grow.*
By 2050,
70%
of all people on
earth will be city
dwellers.
* We are adding the
equivalent of seven
New Yorks to the
planet every year.
2

3. 3© 2012 IBM Corporation
Our Cities Generate Vital Signs
 Today, almost anything—any object, process or system—can be
instrumented, interconnected and infused with intelligence.
 Data is lying in archives, published on government websites, being
sensed from instrumentation in the environment, deduced from
aerial imagery, and built from the ground-up by citizens
electronically communicating about city life.
 This reality holds enormous promise for people everywhere. Nowhere
is the potential for progress more evident than in the world’s cities.

4. 4© 2012 IBM Corporation
Map provided by Data.gov http://www.data.gov/community#mapanchor
Open Data is global
4
“I want us to ask ourselves everyday, how are we using
technology to make a real difference in people’s lives.”
- President Barack Obama

5. 5© 2012 IBM Corporation 5© 2010 IBM Corporation
Our mission: To bring together information
about cities and communities in ways that lead
to new insights and support decision-making.

6. 6© 2012 IBM Corporation 6© 2010 IBM Corporation
What is Corporate Citizenship?
© 2012 IBM Corporation 6
IBM has developed a thoughtful, comprehensive approach to corporate citizenship that aligns
with IBM’s values and maximizes the impact we can make as a global enterprise. We focus on
specific societal issues, including the environment, community economic development,
education, health, literacy, language and culture.

7. 7© 2012 IBM Corporation© 2012 IBM Corporation

8. 8© 2012 IBM Corporation© 2012 IBM Corporation 8

9. 9© 2012 IBM Corporation
Adding data to City Forward
 Once sources are identified there are still legal and technical steps
involved in adding data to City Forward.
Load into Database
Identify Data Source
Map to Data Structure
Review Legality
Assess the Value
Data challenges
• Some cities don’t have data that’s
publically available and free
• Each new source introduces
additional transformation rules
Value challenges
• Data isn’t at a city level
• Data doesn’t span years to
allow for patterns over time
Legal challenges
• Data is publicly available
but with restrictions, must
seek permission

10. 10© 2012 IBM Corporation
Data Issues
 Standard classifications
Integrating data from different countries introduces incompatibilities in classifications of
data. For example, defining poverty and education level varies by country. In
addition, defining the geography or time frame requires an administrative
organization to define the city or metro area boundaries and when the reporting
period starts and ends (e.g., school year).
 Aggregation
Non-additive data such as indicators cannot be aggregated over geography, time, or
other classification. For example, unemployment rates, poverty rates, gross domestic
product per capita are indicators that must be recomputed by geographic level and
time frame. Having the unemployment rate at the county level cannot be summed to
compute the unemployment rate for the metro area.
 Availability
Gathering data and making it available costs money. Most countries do not have data
like the US Census American Community Survey (ACS) that provides annual
estimates on many topics. The House of Representatives voted to eliminate funding
for the ACS and the Senate has yet to vote on the issue.

11. 11© 2012 IBM Corporation
Open Data Movement timeline
Source: http://visual.ly/open-data-movement

12. 12© 2012 IBM Corporation
Impact on everyday life
 How safe is
my neighborhood?
 Which career is
right for me?
 What type of
education do I need?
Sources: http://www.chicagocitycrime.com/, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm, http://cityforward.org
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13. 13© 2012 IBM Corporation
The United States advocates agencies make
data available via APIs and widgets and
provides an open source version of data.gov
Source: http://www.data.gov/opengovplatform

14. 14© 2012 IBM Corporation
Options for data analysis and integration are
increasing
 Government agencies are promoting not only data, but application
programming interfaces (APIs) and interactive widgets to help
developers get access to timely data
 Sites like DBpedia, Freebase, and Tetherless World Constellation
(TWI) are cataloging data in Resource Description Language (RDF) to
make data accessible anywhere anytime.
Linked data is prominent at data.gov.uk, dublinked, and other open
data sites.
 Non profit organizations are proving community level data to enhance
citizen engagement.

15. 15© 2012 IBM Corporation
Linked Data
 DBPedia
http://dbpedia.org/About
 Freebase
http://www.freebase.com/
 Data.gov.uk
http://data.gov.uk/
 Dublinked
http://www.dublinked.ie/
 Data.gov
http://www.data.gov/
Sourc: http://linkeddata.org/
Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-cloud.net/

16. 16© 2012 IBM Corporation
The Open Data Protocol (OData) is an
emerging standard
 Based on web technology standards
HTTP, Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub), JSON, and REST
 OData is used to access data in various data sources
Relational databases, file systems, content management, web sites, etc.
 See ecosystem link on odata.org to see current list of
Consumers: Applications to process OData
Applications: Applications exposing OData
Producers: Live OData Services
Sample Services and Sample Code
 Link to article about OData and RDF ->
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/standards-odata/
Source: http://www.odata.org/

17. 17© 2012 IBM Corporation
Socrata is an open data vendor gaining market share
 Growing list of customers (see list ->)
 G7 cities working together on sharing
applications by standardizing data
formats: Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston,
New York, Seattle, Washington, DC,
and San Francisco.
 SODA is the Socrata Open Data API
Customer Web site
City of New Orleans data.nola.gov
MetroChicagoData.com metrochicagodata.com
City of Baltimore data.baltimorecity.gov
City of Austin data.austintexas.gov
SAMHSA info.samhsa.gov
City of San Francisco data.sfgov.org
U.N.D.P. data.undp.com
Kenya opendata.go.ke
New York City nyc.gov/data
State of Illinois data.illinois.gov
King County datakc.org
Cook County datacatalog.cookcountyil.gov
City of Edmonton data.edmonton.ca
Data.gov explore.data.gov
Medicare data.medicare.gov
State of Oregon data.oregon.gov
State of Oklahoma data.ok.gov
City of Chicago data.cityofchicago.org
City of Seattle data.seattle.gov
State of Colorado data.colorado.gov
Region of Lombardia dati.lombardia.it
State of Missouri data.mo.gov
Ethics.gov ethics.gov
City of De Leon deleon.socrata.com
source: http://www.socrata.com/customer-spotlight/

18. 18© 2012 IBM Corporation
Widgets
Government
agencies are now
creating interactive
widgets and gadgets
that can be
embedded into other
web sites.
Examples:
US Census
Environment
Protection Agency
(EPA)
Sources: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/index.php, http://www.epa.gov/enviro/facts/widgets.html

19. 19© 2012 IBM Corporation
Open 311
Source: http://open311.org/

20. 20© 2012 IBM Corporation
For more information
 Open Government Initiatives -> http://wiki.civiccommons.org/Initiatives
 Global Pulse -> http://www.unglobalpulse.org/
 Open Government Data Catalog (RDF) ->
http://logd.tw.rpi.edu/demo/international_dataset_catalog_search
 Global City Indicators -> http://www.cityindicators.org/
 NNIP Best Metro Data Releases of 2011 ->
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2011/12/best-metro-data-releases-of
 US Census Developer page -> http://www.census.gov/developers/
 Dept of Labor Developer web site -> http://developer.dol.gov/
 EPA Developer page -> http://www.epa.gov/developer/index.html

21. cityforward.org
Thank you.