Finland Publishes Open Government Data Guidebook
Helsinki: 26 March 2010
Finland is experiencing some exciting ‘open data’ developments and has news to share with the open data community.
The Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications’ work developing a national information strategy and efforts to enhance the use of public sector information are producing tangible and first rate results.
The Finnish Open Government Data Guidebook, commissioned by the Finnish Ministry of Transportation and Communications, was officially published on the 25th March 2010. The following day on the 26th March 2010, 400 persons participated in the Aalto University Seminar “Linked Open Data “.
The Finnish title of the Guidebook is: “Julkinen data – johdatus tietovarantojen avaamiseen” or the English translation is: “Public data – an introduction to opening the information resources”.
And, the Guidebook lives up to its objective of creating a very valuable free (licencensed under Creative Commons) Guide for focusing the debate and advising on how public data can be opened for all.
The authors of the Guidebook are:
Antti Poikola (HILA Open Oy)
Petri Kola (Aalto University)
Kari A. Hintikka (University of Jyväskylä)
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The Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications’ news announcement (complete news release online) about the Guidebook in this excerpt comments.
“Publicly produced information has recently attracted much debate in Finland and the European Union. Almost every government organisation produces data that if made available free of charge could benefit citizens and businesses.
Now, the Finnish government has access to a free guide, which will help you start opening the assessment of the data for further processing. It is about re-using Public data (recycling and processing) and guidance on the use of public data all in an open-book written by Antti Poikola, Petri Kola and Kari A. Hintikka.”
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The Guidebook is currently only available in the Finnish language, but plans are to look for resources to make available an English translation so that the content could benefit the European open data communities and other European governments.
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In the preface to the Guidebook, Taru Rastas, Ministerial Adviser, Media and Communications Services, Ministry of Transport and Communications makes several important points among many including the following.
- This Guidebook will explain how public data can be opened in a controlled manner.
- The Guidebook describes an ecosystem and presents building blocks for open data policies and principles.
- In this age of the information society, we have woken up to see the extent that information transparency can offer solutions to social and economic challenges.
- Legislative and administrative changes are forthcoming within this context of the internet and technological developments.
- While the benefits of open data are indicative, we cannot wait. We need to adopt an experiment minded agile approach in opening the data resources. Finland is said to hold extensive and high quality public information resources as well as the technical know how.
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Here is an English version of the Executive Summary to the Guidebook published on Antti Poikola’s blog.
“The Information collected, produced and held by the public sector have recently been 'under close attention both in Finland and in European Union in general. During 2010, several governmental working groups in Finland have been set up and high level statements made on reviewing the current legislation and practices related to public sector information (PSI).
The current public sector position regarding PSI is based on the act on charging for public sector goods and services (1992), which stipulates that in many cases there is a charge for the use of public sector data. The act was passed before the Internet emerged. Nowadays, thanks to the Internet, the cost of providing data is drastically smaller than in those days.
The availability of public sector data free of charge would be beneficial for the Finnish business, civil society and for increasing the productivity of the public administration. There are no accurate economical calculations on this, but according to several studies and reports, the majority of income from public sector data currently comes from the public sector itself. This guide maintains that opening the public sector data for reuse free of charge would be economically more beneficial than the current practice.
The guide describes on a practical and general level the process of opening public sector data for general use free of charge. In the United States and in the UK, opening the public sector data is a part of policies and strategies. The guide presents the opening of public sector data also in a broader societal framework.
Opening the data should begin with an evaluation of the data of the organisation. Depending on the size and nature of the organisation, this may be an extensive process, but there is no need to complete everything at once. The data can be opened in stages, learning on the way, starting from the easier datasets. An inventory of the data may reveal data that individual departments of the organisation that produced the data were not even aware of or could not make use of.
Based on the inventory of the data, organisations can formulate their strategies and objectives regarding the utilisation of the data. The benefits may include the discovery of new use of data, new partners or development of the role of the organisation. This guide offers a toolbox for assessing the openness of the data. Once the inventory has been made, the data should be into machine-readable. Increasingly, data is used in internet and mobile applications that offer users better value than having him or her find the same data on the internet. Finland has produced very good quality data resources, but in many cases, the data is published only e.g. in pdf format, which is not easy to refine further.
A number of laws, directives and recommendations apply to public sector information and to publishing it. These include the act on the openness of government activities, privacy protection legislation, the act on the criteria for charging for public sector goods and services, copyright law, international recommendations, competition law and EU directives. None of these laws prevents opening of data, but to open the data in a controlled way, knowledge of these laws is required.
Opening of data can be seen as an interactive process, because the best uses are often found outside the organisation. The guide sees opening of data as an ecosystem, where various actors offer data, and the data is used without reciprocity in a way that benefits all actors. The data can be also seen as part of the infrastructure. Open data can be seen as an enabler and content that form a part of the infrastructure like the streets and electricity.
The guide presents some proposals for the process of opening the Finnish public sector data resources for reuse free of charge.
- Creating the basic infrastructure for open data
- Revising the legislation and ensuring national management of the process
- Making internal practices of the administration support open data
- Diffusing the benefits of open public sector data
- Making Finland an international pioneer and enabling the necessary mindset for change
In Finland, there is no public sector organisation for coordinating the opening of data as in the UK. For coordination of the process, and for making it easier for individual organisations, a clearing house of open public sector data could be created. The clearing house could coordinate practical issues, advise government agencies and would assist in resolving problem situations using the Consumer Agency as a model. In addition, a central data catalogue could be developed for Finland, that would act as a one stop shop for information on all public sector data.”
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The Guidebook can be downloaded from http://www.julkinendata.fi/ (julkinen means public) or directly from the site of the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The Guidebook is also published on the Reports page of the European Public Sector Information Platform.
The Guidebook (96 pages) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 1.0 Finland License
ISBN 978-952-243-145-5 (print)ISBN 978-952-243-146-2 (Web http://www.lvm.fi)
Edita Prima Oy, Helsinki 2010
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