ISCN Global Mixer | Providing Open Data: Orientation through a Sample Data Catalogue

How can municipalities can start or expand their open data initiatives? Which data municipalities publish as open data? 

Mario Wiedemann, Head of the project “Data for Society” at Bertelsmann Foundation, answered these questions and more in the ISCN Global Mixer event on the Sample Data Catalogue.

The catalog was developed by the Bertelsmann Foundation in collaboration with GovData, KDZ – Centre for Public Administration Research, and the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany. It encompasses all German municipalities whose open data is accessible via GovData.de, providing valuable insights for those looking to start or expand their open data initiatives. Currently, the sample data catalogue has around 30,000 data sets and offers the following benefits:

• Better Overview of Open Data in Municipalities: The catalogue provides a comprehensive view of available open data, helping municipalities understand the landscape and identify gaps.
• Inspiration for Municipalities: It serves as a source of inspiration by showcasing what other municipalities are publishing as Open Data.
• Increased Comparability: The catalogue allows for easy comparison between municipalities, encouraging more data publication and allowing for comparative analysis

In his presentation, Mario Wiedemann explained the reasons for starting the sample data catalogue. One driver was a that found that a majority of municipalities are comparing with others when deciding which open data to publish. 

The talk provided a deep insight into the catalogue, including the development process, that started with a first pilot version, containing 1,000 data sets from selected cities, in 2019. By 2021, the current sample data catalogue for all of Germany was launched. The current version is updated twice a year in three steps: metadata is downloaded from GovData, filtered by municipalities (1), cleaned (2) and sorted (3) automatically in the catalogue categories by an algorithm. 

Mr. Wiedemann gave a hands-on introduction to the sample data catalogue with its categories, filtering options, labels and more. He also showed several examples of how the catalogue can be used:

• Comparing the amount of published data in different municipalities.
• Identifying the most important data sets for cities.
• Thematic classification by the number of data sets.
• Identifying data sets that are yet to be published.