Technological impacts
This section unpacks the technological benefits of open standards, with focus on producing better quality data and encouraging the development of new tools and services
Last updated
Was this helpful?
This section unpacks the technological benefits of open standards, with focus on producing better quality data and encouraging the development of new tools and services
Last updated
Was this helpful?
‘Which datasets should I publish?’ and ‘How should I publish them?’ are frequent questions from data publishers who are looking to publish open or shared data.
Open standards for data can:
help publishers identify datasets others are sharing
act as a guide to help publishers share data in consistent ways
make it easier for data users to reuse shared data
encourage publishers to share data that was previously closed
build publishers’ confidence that they are sharing useful data
encourage the development of new tools for data users and publishers
Publishing data in standard ways means existing standard tools can be used by the publisher and its stakeholders, as the following case study shows.
In 2010, DfID launched the (UKATG), committing the UK government to greater transparency and clarity on international aid spending.
Partner organisations receiving grants or contracts from DfID must publish tracking information using the International Aid Transparency Initiative ((), unless specifically exempted.
As part of a with and , DfID reported that new information was published by its partner organisation which helped it understand activity and aided making decisions in countries receiving aid.
Open standards encourage the development of tools and services to help data publishers produce good quality data, including tools to validate, preview and compare data.
Open standards can advise data publishers how often data should be published. Some standards include ways to share publication schedules, publication dates, location and methods of accessing data. Sharing this information makes it easier to trust published data.
A data publisher can publish good quality data without standards. However, open standards reduce barriers to data publication by allowing publishers to focus on sharing consistent and quality data.
As a federal agency protecting human health and the environment, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) collects environmental data from a number of organisations.
When data is published consistently, the time, cost and processes involved in using it are reduced.
Consistent publication encourages the creation of new tools and services that are designed to take advantage of data that conforms to a standard.
Tools and services can be developed to:
Tools developed using BLDS:
In her book ‘’, Danette McGilvray defines data quality as “the degree to which data can be trusted for any required use”.
The EPA developed data standards and the (CDX) platform to address issues of data quality and cost. This describes the benefits of using , including improved consistency and reduction of redundant data.
For example, are required to . As each dataset is different, combining data about grants becomes a bespoke activity for each council.
support data publishers by making it easier to validate and publish data that conforms to the standard – for example, the for validating data published to the
support data users by making it easier to analyse and use data that conforms to the standard – for example, Development Gateway created tools to support using the
support developers by making it easier to access and use consistently formatted data that conforms to the standard – for example, Google developed tools for , that conform to the (GTFS)
The (BLDS) standard focuses on publishing building and construction permit data consistently in the US, where each state collects permit data differently. The standard was developed collectively by technology and building services companies in the private sector, and US state governments.
developed a to extend access to land use information using the open standard for the public and developers
built a so data users can compare permits across regions
support data publishers on its platform