What data policies are in place in your state? If there’s an “Open Data” policy, how well does it work? How can Brigades work with lawmakers to craft more meaningful policies, and get rid of bad ones?
The 4 Buckeye Brigades are forming a mini-BAT to look at the status of Open Data in Ohio.
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Ohh I missed something before when we discussed this @janmic
So right now, you’ve got your regional collaboration of brigades already underway, that might be kind-of BAT-like
I see two potential BATs here:
- The 4-brigade collaboration you have now could be indexed as a regional BAT and make use BAT resources (e.g. discourse, GitHub, online profile), connecting a finite set of brigades sharing a focus on Ohio State policy objectives
- A general state policy BAT to connect those folks with people doing similar work in other states to share experiences, references, materials, etc. Maybe even coordinate objectives and actions some day.
Would either/both help the Buckeye crew right now?
Do any other brigades or civic tech groups have active or recent state policy efforts?
Like so much of what we do, it’s near impossible to tell what will help/hinder an effort until we try it. We’re making this up as we go, so sure, let’s try the two tier and see if that clicks.
As for others working on policy, I believe CfA is doing so via the Clear my Record effort, though I’ve no idea if that is in conjunction with any brigade or in parallel. I reached out directly to Greg Jordan-Detamore Code for DC who works at the Sunshine Foundation where last year he authored this
https://sunlightfoundation.com/2018/08/30/introducing-open-data-policy-hub/
He gave us some suggestions for our Q&A coming up Saturday.
I still have a lot of homework to do.
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You can find all the the state open data policies we’ve heard of as of Sept 2018 here: https://opendatapolicyhub.sunlightfoundation.com/collection/alpha/ (the places listed as “state”)
It’s even easier to read the list of the 12 states here: https://opendatapolicyhub.sunlightfoundation.com/collection/analytics/
Note that that second link was created for internal use, and so there’s some filler text on the page and we’ve never promoted it or linked to it from the rest of the site. But the lists there are accurate for the policies that are included on the site.
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Gregg - this makes me feel like a lottery winner- THANK YOU!!!
HELP!
Our State Rep/Brigade partner unexpectedly decided to introduce Open Data Policy in 2 days, and I haven’t got anything to offer in place of the old bill the Republicans were pushing last session. I do not have a good feeling about it, but if we can’t bring something better to the table, this is what will go forward.
I’m particularly uneasy about the idea of establishing a permanent board under an elected official. How is that going to be stable and/or bipartisan when there’s an administration change? If the current party in power gets to decide where the board members will come from in perpetuity, doesn’t that give them an opportunity to pad the board with ringers?
Please take a look at this and let me know what you think…
Thanks. OhioHB3(2017-18)OpenDataBill.pdf (85.8 KB)
Using the Open Data Policy Hub as suggested by @GJordanDetamore, I determined that there are 12 state level Open Data Policies in place.
I am reading them all in chronological order, and half way through, I’m noticing that the policies are largely about defining “data” in a narrow way, then exempting even that data from being truly open for a range of subjectively determined reasons. Other policies exempt the entire legislative and judicial branches of government!
to be continued…
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wowowowowwww. Are you annotating while reading? I’d be super interested in seeing that.
I am, Nina. I’d like to post some links re this discussion, but Discourse doesn’t seem to have a place for anything other than posts and replies. Am I missing something?
Hrm, are you trying to post links so that they can be referenced? If so, we can turn your first post in this thread into a Wiki post so it can be regularly updated.
This Federal law may supersede much that is in the state level laws, and may be the reason there don’t seem to have been any new state policies passed, by legislation or executive order, since 2016.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4174/text
I’ve activated wiki mode for this thread, so everyone can start editing the top post into a current top-level map of all the goods in this space