Feedback for Ontario's Open Data Directive

ONN just published their submission to the Government of Ontario's consultation on their draft Open Data Directive. We helped them with it, and we're proud of the end result.

Some excerpts from the submission:

Partnership with the nonprofit sector on Ontario’s Open Data Strategy will help the Government of Ontario achieve its stated goal of open government. The nonprofit sector plays a key role in building connection between individual community members and the government, by sharing information about new government initiatives, encouraging those participating in programming to vote and get involved in the democratic process, and delivering government programs and services. In addition, nonprofits act as repositories of knowledge and facilitate conversation and collective analysis of community trends and issues. In this work, nonprofits both collect key data sets and use data to inform their work. For these reasons, nonprofits have an essential role to play in the transition from closed data to data that is not only open, but actively accessed and used to provide innovative solutions and benefit Ontarians. The costs for this work should be considered in planning for a strong partnership between government departments and their colleagues in the nonprofit sector. [emphasis added]

and the main suggestion:

ONN proposes a joint working group comprised of the Treasury Board Secretariat, key ministries, nonprofit stakeholders and key municipalities and researchers focused on the use of data for public benefit. This working group would review data collection, data sets, data use, and ways to fill gaps or create new data sets for public benefit research and planning. The joint working group would act as a means to identify issues and opportunities relating to the nonprofit sector, which will enable the implementation of this Directive.

The work that ONN is doing on this file is trailblazing new ways to collaborate - both in the sector and with government - and we're excited to be a part of it. We're hoping that other sector leaders are following their work to see if could be repurposed for their jurisdictions.

Read the complete submission here: Submission to the Government of Ontario - Consultation on the draft Open Data Directive