Noticia
The Plenary Session of the Council of the Valencian Community has approved a collaboration agreement between the Ministry of Participation, Transparency, Cooperation and Democratic Quality and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) with the aim of promoting the development of activities in the field of transparency and open data during 2023.
Thus, the Transparency Ministry will allocate 65,000 euros to promote the activities of the agreement focused on the opening and reuse of data present at different levels of public administrations.
Among the planned actions, the third edition of the Open Data Datathon stands out, an event that seeks to encourage the use of open data to develop applications and services that provide benefits to citizens. This collaboration will also promote the reuse of data related to the business sector, promoting innovation, dissemination, and awareness in various fields.
In parallel, it is planned to work jointly with different entities from civil society to establish a series of intelligent sensors for collecting data, while also promoting workshops and seminars on data journalism.
In turn, a series of informative sessions are included aimed at disseminating knowledge on the use and sharing of open data, the presentation of the Datos y Mujeres project, or the dissemination of open data repositories for research or transparency in algorithms.
Likewise, the collaboration includes the programming of talks and workshops to promote the use of open data in high schools, the integration of open data in different subjects of the PhD, bachelor's, and master's degrees on Public Management and Administration, the Master's degree in Cultural Management, and some transversal doctoral subjects.
Finally, this collaboration between the university and the administration also seeks to promote and mentor a large part of the work on transparency and open data, including the development of a guide to the reuse of open data aimed at reuse organizations, as well as activities to disseminate the Open Government Alliance (OGP) and action plans of the Valencian Community.
Previous projects related to open data
Apart from the plan of activities designed for this 2023 and detailed in the previous lines, this is not the first time that the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the Department of Participation and Transparency have worked together in the dissemination and promotion of open data. In fact, to be exact, they have been actively working through the Open Data and Transparency Observatory, belonging to the same university, to promote the value and sharing of data both in the academic and social spheres.
For instance, in line with this dissemination work, last year 2022, they promoted the 'Women and Data' initiative from the same entity, a project that brought together several women from the data field to talk about their professional experience, the challenges and opportunities addressed in the sector.
Among the interviewees, prominent names included Sonia Castro, coordinator of datos.gob.es, Ana Tudela, co-founder of Datadista, or Laura Castro, data visualization designer at Affective Advisory, among many other professionals.
Likewise, last spring and coinciding with the International Open Data Day, the second edition of Datathon took place, whose purpose was to promote the development of new tools from open data linked to responsible consumption, the environment or culture.
Thus, this particular alliance between the Department of Participation and Transparency and the Polytechnic University of Valencia demonstrates that not only is it possible to showcase the potential of open data, but also that dissemination opportunities are multiplied when institutions and the academic sphere work together in a coordinated and planned manner towards the same objectives.
Noticia
The open data catalog of the Generalitat Valenciana was born in 2016, as part of the GVA Oberta transparency portal within the framework of execution and development of the transparency regulations. After a first stage of institutionalization of the public policy of transparency in the Autonomous Administration. The promotion of open data has become one of the main challenges for open government, given the importance that data management gains in the economy and in society.
New version of the portal
The year 2020 was a turning point in the Generalitat's open data project. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of having open and reliable data, and this has posed the challenge of guaranteeing up-to-date data on the evolution of the pandemic. In fact, the number of queries to the open data catalog has multiplied since last year.
As a result of the conviction about the growing importance of data, in July 2020 a new open data portal, with a change in conception: it has gone from a data repository to a space open to the community of reusers. To this end, they have developed new functionalities, contents and forms of interaction with reusers, as shown in the following section.
The Generalitat Valenciana focuses on four lines of action
Within the GVA open data project, there are different parallel lines of work:
1) Expand the data catalog by adding new data sets from the open data portal. This involves identifying the available datasets that are of interest and progressively opening them through different actions with reusers, as we will see later. Currently the portal hasnwith more than 1,000 data sets. During 2020, the most consulted data were those related to the evolution of the COVID-19, but in recent months other datasets have also been opened such as employment regulation files, Data of air pollution, business parks, educational centers and students, itineraries and schedules public transport trunk or dataset catalog, among others.
The Generalitat Valenciana federates its data sets with datos.gob.es, in such a way that, from the national catalog, users can access the data published by this entity. With this action, they are also automatically federated with the European Data Portal, thus gaining visibility at a national and international level.
2) Improve and expand the functionalities of the portal, with the aim of getting the data to the public and providing new tools for consultation and reuse. In this sense, the catalog has been improved to include information on data quality and include the possibility of making graphs and displaying geolocated information. In addition, a new section of open data visualizations, with graphs and interactive viewers to offer the data in a more understandable way to the public.
3) Promote the reuse of data and the generation of an ecosystem of reusers and reusers, both in the orientation of the same open data portal and through awareness-raising actions. Mechanisms have been incorporated into the open data portal, such as the creation of a contact channel for reusers and of a newsletter, in addition to creating new sections of open data news, reuse examples or dissemination of open data initiatives of the Valencian Community.
In addition, actions have been organized to promote the use of data and the creation of a community of users and reusers. In this sense, they organize workshops and conferences on open data with different universities, such as Datathon 2021: aopen data datathon, lasting 3 months, with workshops and mentoring for the teams and prizes for the winners of each challenge. A report has also been drawn up with the Polytechnic University of Valencia survey aimed at researchers on the use of open data and specific activities have been planned for journalists and specific sectors throughout the year.
4) Finally, there is a transversal line of work that seeks to articulate alliances at different levels to advance in the opening and reuse of data in the Valencian Community. Thus, the Valencian Alliance for Open Government as a permanent space for collaboration with the provincial councils and the Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, a framework in which it collaborates in the formation and opening of data throughout the Valencian territory.
Likewise, agreements have been adopted with all the public universities of the Valencian Community (Jaume I University, València University, València Polytechnic University, Alicante University and Miguel Hernández University) to collaborate in training and research activities on transparency and open data.
Next steps
In the coming months, the Generalitat Valenciana will continue to promote its commitment to open data and its reuse. Recently, a further step has been taken in this regard with the agreement of the Consell to request adherence to the International Charter of Open Data and promote the development of the open data strategy of the Generalitat, which will coordinate the General Directorate of Transparency, Attention to Citizenship and Good Governance.
The bases of this strategy, which will mark the data opening policy in the coming years, are the following:
- The identification and extension of datasets
- Data governance
- Opening from design and by default
- The promotion of the use and reuse of data by citizens and companies
- Collaboration with the rest of the Valencian public administrations and institutions
This initiative also seeks to articulate greater collaboration with other public entities in the opening of data and connect the open data project with other initiatives for data management of the Generalitat in the framework of digital transformation.