The Open Data Institute and Thomson Reuters have published a new white paper: Shareable by default: creating resilient data ecosystems

Drawing on their experiences building data services and ecosystems, the ODI and Thomson Reuters are exploring data techniques that can be used to benefit the wider open data community.

Our first paper, Enhancing open data with identifiers, looked at best practices in data identifiers – crucial for how data can be effectively published, retrieved, reused and linked.

This second paper, Shareable by default: creating resilient data ecosystems, seeks to go further, looking at the ways in which data must be managed to allow it to break out of the many silos that exist within and between organisations, and across open data repositories.

This will help more people and organisations to benefit from data's use and impacts across the whole Data Spectrum, from closed to shared to open.

How can I benefit from this paper?

If you are a chief data officer you can learn how making your data shareable by default will help you overcome challenges in building your organisation’s capacity to innovate with data.

If you are responsible for managing datasets you can learn a set of frameworks and approaches that help ensure effective data management and use.

The challenges of making data shareable by default are more likely to be around issues of perspective and culture than technology. This paper promotes the notion that if all data generators and managers embrace collaboration and reuse, no matter where their data sits in the Data Spectrum, everyone will benefit.

Key findings: the shareable data checklist

  • Communicate and document meaning to ensure that data can be understood by others
  • Describe data provenance to determine the context of its origin and fitness for use
  • Describe access and usage rights to ensure that the right people gain access to the data and that all aspects of privacy are respected
  • Publish a description of the data in a data catalogue to enable search and discovery
  • Provide efficient ways for users to access data on demand, using a variety of tools
  • Use common standards strategically to ensure interoperability and take advantage of network effects
  • Design data for everyone so that its potential use is not restricted to the current community and application
  • Cultivate an open, collaborative culture to encourage the creation of data that is shareable by default and the reuse of data

How to cite this paper

Open Data Institute and Thomson Reuters (2016). Shareable by default: creating resilient data ecosystems. Available at: http://thomsonreuters.com/shareable-data.