Open Access in Academia

What is Open Data?

Open Data is research data that is freely available on the internet permitting any user to download, copy, analyze, re-process, pass to software or use for any other purpose without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.

Open Data typically applies to a range of non-textual materials, including datasets, statistics, transcripts, survey results, and the metadata associated with these objects. The data is, in essence, the factual information that is necessary to replicate and verify research results.

Open Data policies usually encompass the notion that machine extraction, manipulation, and meta-analysis of data should be permissible.

Benefits of Open Data

• Open data accelerates the pace of discovery. When datasets are openly available, they can be easily accessed and used to create a fuller picture of a given area of inquiry, or analyzed by data mining software that can uncover connections not apparent to those who produced the original data.

• Open data grows the economy. Researchers estimate that $3.2 trillion in economic output could be added to global GDP through Open Data across all sectors, with scientific and scholarly data playing an important role.

• Open data helps ensure we don’t miss breakthroughs. There are a huge number of ways to use or analyze any given dataset. What seems like noise to one person could be an important discovery to someone else with a different perspective or analytical technique.

• Open data improves the integrity of the scientific and scholarly record. When the data that underlies findings is accessible, researchers can check each other’s work and ensure that conclusions are built upon a firm foundation.

• Open data is becoming recognized by many in the research community as an important part of the research enterprise of the 21st century. From research funders like the US government to publishers, institutions involved in the research process are beginning to require that, at the very least, the data that underlies publications be made openly accessible.

Introductions to Open Data and Data Movements

• Data for Black Lives: a movement of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people.
• Implementing an Open Data Policy: A SPARC Primer for Research Funders
• Open Data Handbook: Guides, case studies and resources for government & civil society on the "what, why & how" of open data from the Open Knowledge Foundation
• Open Data Barometer: A global measure of how governments are publishing and using open data for accountability, innovation and social impact from the World Wide Web Foundation
• SPARC Open-Data Fact Sheet

Open Data Repositories

• California Open Data Repository
• County of Los Angeles Open Data
• Data.gov: the home of the U.S. Government’s open data
• Los Angeles City Open Data: Information, Insights, and Analysis from the City of Los Angeles
• NYC Open Data: Open Data Repository of free public data published by New York City agencies and other partners

Recommended Books on Data, Ethics, and Technology