digital asset management inside the City of Toronto #TOcouncil #opengov



The Digital Asset Library is a an application for managing images inside the City of Toronto


Recently, David Eaves' post on the future of academic research got me thinking again about the benefits of openness and collaboration.  Eaves praises a British Columbia scientist, Rosie Redfield, for blogging her way through an ongoing experiment.  In the process, she's encouraged international feedback and provided rare insight into her thought processes as a scientist.  Redfield stands out because she is breaking with protective scholarly publishing traditions that dampen collaboration. 

The pyschology of classification #opengov #taxonomy #EIM

A few years after hearing him speak in Toronto, I finally got around to reading David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous. The book is partly a history of classification and library science, and partly an investigation into how the web enables new approaches to organizing information. I enjoyed his writing very much, especially his accessible summaries of research. Today’s blog post focuses on how human perceptions of categories can shape how we develop and deploy classifications at the City of Toronto.

Can governments innovate? #govcamp grows up #opengov #opendata

Earlier this month I attended GovCamp, a conference for open government and open data enthusiasts and practitioners. A good breadth of speakers and panelists were loosely organized around three streams:  gov tech & open data, public involvement & communications, and public service innovation.  Dreamy!

The well attended conference did lose some of the free wheeling intimacy of the first evening GovCamp that met at the Toronto Reference Library in the summer of 2010.  That event, dubbed an “unconference” for its organic approach to the sessions, had every presenter introduce their topic for 1 minute on stage.   Attendees got a great preview of both the topic and the speakers themselves.  This approach beat deciding to attend a session based on a 4 or 5 word title by a long shot.  In the organizers’ defence, they had planned this but some opening speakers went over their time and the session introductions had to be cut.  Also owing to its smaller size, the previous GovCamp was more interactive.  Participants gathered to discuss particular topics at tables rather than listening to panelists and speakers in larger rooms.  That being said, there were many interesting speakers this year, and the unexpected conversations were equally enjoyable.  On to the sessions:

Stinky keywords at 311 Toronto

This Toronto Star article on the spring stench of Toronto came one database away from referencing some of my work here at the City of Toronto.  Curious to see if the City experienced a sudden upsurge in calls related to the mystery stink, a reporter called 311 management.  Neil Evans, the 311 director, reportedly typed the keywords “manure. smell. odour.” into the database of public calls to 311.  So close!  I worked on the development and implementation of a subject controlled vocabulary to describe content in 311’s knowledge base, which contains information about almost anything the public might want to know.

The subject controlled vocabulary, or subject thesaurus, brings together technical language that staff may use and terms commonly used by the public.  Regardless of which term you search on, you’ll get the same result.  So, if Neil was looking for possible sources of the smell, he could search the knowledge base by typing in “smell” or “sewer gas” (both synonyms) or “odour” (a preferred term).   Because these terms are linked together, he could search on any one and find the same information.

(the gritty details: the research analysts responsible for tagging content search on either synonyms or the preferred term.  All terms are then tagged as keywords in the metadata of each question and answer.  The full text of the question and answer as well as the keywords are then searchable by customer service representatives answering calls from the public.)

why classification matters in government #opengov #eim

David Brooks explores the complexity of translating government policy into action in this thoughtful NYT article, What government does.  As he notes, too often the complexity of government is not acknowledged when factions get caught up arguing purely ideological positions.  It is good to see someone as thoughtful as Brooks write on the challenges of meeting policy goals.

The government employees he observes recognize, as much as any company, that numbers matter.  Brooks praises a joint meeting between government agencies, noting with respect that “they had achieved a herculean task of getting two government agencies to agree on a single data set, a single methodology and a single progress report.”

But what exactly are the numbers measuring? To measure performance, it is necessary to define and disambiguate services.  As I described recently, defining, measuring and delivering government services is no easy project.  And it becomes increasingly complex as more departments and jurisdictions become involved.  Anyone practicing or studying classification, cataloging or information organization knows that describing the subject of something is deceptively complicated.  Yet agreeing on a common descriptive language is important for sharing knowledge, measurement and providing access to services.

Brooks touches on the complexity of classification and service modelling when he asks “how do you set up services for a homeless female veteran who has a drug addiction, psychiatric problems and is a victim of domestic violence?”  It’s clear there are multiple facets and attributes that can be broken down in any number of ways.  In the language of the Municipal Reference Model, this person would be called a “client” or “target audience” of multiple services.  In the language of library and information science, we would say this sentence is filled with impressively pre-coordinated subject headings or terms.

If anyone studying library and information science is worried that technology will somehow make their skills obsolete, don’t.  Technology for managing information in organizations is only as good as the conceptual models that are used to make sense of that information.

Openness, service classification and Rob Ford's service review #opendata #opengov #TOcouncil #TOpoli

Anyone following municipal politics in Toronto knows that there are huge pressures on next year’s municipal budget. Combined with Rob Ford’s promises to reduce government spending and outsource, the current performance and delivery of City services are being closely examined. As the Toronto Star has reported, consultants are being hired to review municipal spending and services looking for savings.

Defining Open Government #opendata #opengov #TOpoli

Awareness of Open Data within governments has gained considerable traction in the last few years. Arguably, Open Data has been successful partly because it is fairly easy to understand. It focuses on making freely available to the public an asset, data, that has already paid for through taxes. This government data can then be reused by programmers, web developers and others to build new services and applications. It also has the support of an active and engaged community of advocates inside and outside of government.

A related concept, Open Government, has been gaining attention recently. The idea is more abstract than Open Data, and also at an earlier stage of development. I was happy to read about these three pillars of Open Government proposed by an Australian Senator, Kate Lundy.

The father of taxonomies, part 1

Classifications and taxonomies help you anticipate where to find a particular kind of information. Imagine yourself browsing a website or looking for a particular kind of record- you should know where to look based on the name of the category or record series.

For instance, if you are browsing the City of Toronto’s website for information about city council, you would probably expect to find it in the accessing City Hall tab. However, new information is constantly being produced, potentially forcing changes in a classification. Today, it is widely recognized that classification systems need to strike a balance between organizing information as it exists at present, and being flexible enough to incorporate new information.

Carl Linnaeus is often considered the father of taxonomies, for his work developing biological classification systems. New research suggests that Linnaeus pioneered the index card, a seemingly simple tool that was in fact revolutionary advance for organizing information:

“Linnaeus had to manage a conflict between the need to bring information into a fixed order for purposes of later retrieval, and the need to permanently integrate new information into that order, says Mueller-Wille. “His solution to this dilemma was to keep information on particular subjects on separate sheets, which could be complemented and reshuffled.”

Read how Carl Linnaeus invented the index card on Science Daily.

Social innovation and competition

Both the US and the UK are experimenting with new ways of solving social problems that don't rely only on government, as described in this fascinating Economist article. Social innovation or social entrepreneurship is a new model for enabling residents, private and non-profit sectors to take the lead on issues that have long troubled societies and governments. For instance, projects have had success "reducing rates of reoffending by former prisoners or by helping children from the rougher parts of American cities to graduate from college".

Government defines measurable goals, and companies, organizations and residents are given freedom to experiment with the delivery of the service or program. The concept is meant to be considerably less government hands-on than public-private partnerships, but they are similar. In some models, the social entrepreneur (whether that be a private sector company or non-profit) is not paid unless the project meets its goals. Not all projects will be successful, but that's expected. Competition in solving problems would help identify successful approaches and weed out failed models. Projects that meet measurable criteria can build on their success with an expanded scope and budget. They also become models for other innovators. While the potential scope and benefits are huge, it's possible to start small. The UK government is encouraging departments to reallocate portions of their budgets as small as 1% to social innovation projects.

Social innovation is appealing partly because it has a broad base of support from across the political spectrum. On one hand, some citizens want to create a more perfect democracy through an engaged public and responsive government. Open government and open data types see making data and information accessible as a cornerstone for social innovation and entrepreneurial reuse. Data becomes the raw material required for the public to analyze and build on as they develop new approaches. Social innovation is also attractive to small government types who want to find innovative, lower cost private sector solutions to entrenched problems.

By starting small, encouraging experimentation, and measuring success against concrete targets, social innovation may help build better governments and societies.

What information should be open? #opengov #opendata Mississauga's secret plan to subsidize attendance at Hazel's birthday party

Lately, Mississauga city politics have been almost as exciting as Toronto's. Seems there was a plan to "send councillors and senior staffers to the Mayor's birthday gala on the city's dime, at a potential cost of $12, 000". Evidently, someone wasn't happy about this use of taxpayer funds, and leaked the confidential memo discussing it. Other councillors saw this leak as a serious breach and demanded an investigation by the integrity commissioner. He ruled that the leak may be a symptom of "a serious systematic problem for the city".

That may be. But what is the larger systematic problem? Leaks of confidential information? Or lack of openness from council and staff about spending?

Rob Ford, Open Data Activist?

Open government is not a partisan issue. Rob Ford's mayoral victory was a clear signal that change is coming to municipal government. Fortunately, the City of Toronto's work on open data continues to gain support.

The National Post's Chris Selley reported that Ford "honourably […] wants to expand the city's Open Data Initiative, which is one of the coolest things going". Selley does a good job making the case for open data. Interested developers can build, for example, a "web tool that translates real-time data on streetcar locations onto a constantly updating map". All residents can benefit from these innovative reuses of data.

"The principle of the thing should appeal to everyone. They're our streetcars, our tracks laid on our roads, we pay the drivers and we pay to ride. It's our data."

Ford has long presented himself as advocate for more open and transparent government, as seen by his publishing of voting and councillor expenses on his own website. Note that Ford publishes "a selection of how Toronto City Council is voting on issues that affect you" rather than publishing all votes. Since 2008, City council office salaries and expenses have been available on the City's website. Work is also underway through the City Clerk's Office Toronto Meeting Management Information System to make all council and committee meeting information more accessible. Through the open data portal, machine-readable data on council attendance and councillor voting is also available for download and reuse.

Ford won't be the first politician promoting more open government. George Smitherman had a great open government platform. Ironically, and unlike Rob Ford and Joe Pantalone, he held off releasing his list of campaign donors until the date required under the law.

At the Federal level, the Liberal Party is embracing a default position of openness in government. The Federal Conservatives also came to power promising to improve transparency. However, they have generally opted for a less open government through tight control of government information combined with interference in Freedom of Information requests. Multiple times.

Nonetheless, the rising interest in openness from the public, media and politicians across the political spectrum is a cause for optimism. Hopefully Ford's commitment to transparency and accountability will continue throughout his term as mayor.

open government (behind the firewall)?

Hello world (again!)

After a long hiatus, it is time to return to blogging in the wider world. Perhaps some context is in order:

Around the time of my last post here, I started working full time at the City of Toronto. Between studies at the University of Toronto, I had worked several summers at the City as a research assistant in Information Technology (working on controlled vocabulary, document and records management system projects). This experience helped get me hired and continue some of this work, particularly developing and implementing a subject controlled vocabulary in Toronto 311 and other systems to improve search and retrieval.

Almost two years ago, some of my colleagues and I decided to start up an Information Management (IM) community of practice blog. We wanted to share best practices, projects and ideas among ourselves, and coworkers whom we might not see daily or even weekly. I think we've been fairly successful, and have a number of regular contributors and commenters.

However, our IM blog is only accessible internally, to City of Toronto staff. Many times, I would find myself writing posts about an interesting newspaper article or project that I wanted to share with people outside the City. And perhaps inevitably, some of my observations would stray into politics... I even had one of my posts deleted, with the following policy cited: "Do not include controversial or potentially inflammatory topics in your postings such as politics, sex, race, religion or any other non-business related subjects." I thought I was being fairly even handed. How do you advocate for open government without talking politics sometimes?

So, in the spirit of collaboration and openness, I'm going to use this blog to share my thoughts on information management, classification, conferences, building an open government and the like. I'll repost old and new favourites from the internal blog but also add writings that might not be possible to post there. To be clear, these posts represent my own views and not the official views of the City of Toronto.

Thanks for reading!