Open Kent

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TERMS & CONDITIONS

Open Kent aims to enable residents of Kent to be able to access, visualise, map and compare open data from a single access point.

We want to make this as easy as possible for local public sector agencies across the country to publish/link their open data to Open Kent so staff, members and your residents can realise these benefits with your data.

As such, we have developed Terms and Conditions for organisations linking/upload their data to Open Kent to make this process as effective as possible. Before you link/upload data to Open Kent, you will need to ensure:

* The data conforms to the Open Government Licence. As the organisation providing the information under the license, your organisation will be defined as the “Information Provider” when referencing the Licence.

* You provide the data in an open data format (such as CSV or XML or through SQL query/API). This will enable the data to be used for re-use and analysis.

* You fill in the Open Kent Metadata Form to describe the metadata of your data . This will make it easier for people to search and compare data between different datasets and provide context to the data itself.

* You provide the contact details of the person in your organisation responsible for providing Open Kent with links to your data. That person will be able to take part in the Open Kent Working Group to shape the project and be accountable for the links between your organisation’s data and Open Kent.

Open Kent will be responsible for the effective operations and maintenance of the Open Kent system, while each organisation providing data to Open Kent will be responsible exclusively for their data and any issues regarding it.

To prepare for launching Open Kent, you can provide us with links to the data you want to publish. Here are the ways to do that depending on where your data is:

Origin of data:

Information to provide Open Kent

RSS Feed:

RSS Feed web link

Spreadsheet:

Spreadsheet document

Database:

IP Address of Database

Port Number

SQL Query you want to run

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WE WANT YOUR VIEWS ON OPEN KENT (UPDATED)

UPDATED: Please note the deadline has passed to enter the survey. We have used the results to inform the design and development of the Open Kent website which will be launched soon.

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Read below and fill in this survey. This will help us understand how we can provide open data in a way which meets the needs of the people of Kent in this area. This section asks about your views on open data. For the purposes of this survey, 'open data' is non-personal data which can be freely accessed and re-used. The deadline for completing this survey is 16th January.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

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OPEN KENT NEWSLETTER #1

Hello and welcome to Open Kent's first newsletter. It has been created to keep you up to speed with what we are doing for the project and update you on progress.

Open Kent is a Kent Connects project, designed to enable partners across Kent to manage, share and visualize their public data.

Take a Look

We want as many councils and Kent partners involved as possible and we understand that making the process simple and easy to use will generate more appeal.

Therefore we have produced a step by step guide found here, which show you how your organisation and your users can use Open Kent.

You can also find on the website the newly added 'terms and conditions' on what to prepare before you plan to link your data to Open Kent. Once you have, contact us at innovation@kent.gov.uk so we can set you up in time for the launch in the Spring.

If you want to see how Open Kent works in action, watch our demonstrations here. Please feel free to use these and our presentation if you want to discuss with your colleagues how your organisation could use Open Kent. We welcome feedback.

Getting Started

Since we kicked off the project, we've taken active steps to ensure that Open Kent will be a success. We have ensured good project management by setting up a Project Board, which is chaired by Dave Lindsay (Maidstone BC).

One of the key aims of this project is to ensure that we make Kent's publically available information re-usable and show it in new and exciting ways. To do this we have been contacting both Kent Connects Strategic Board members and other data sharing groups, to find out who is planning or already working on opening their public data. This has also enabled us to find other projects which we can link in with Open Kent. We have also been in contact with the lead individuals from each Kent Connects partner to start linking data into Open Kent.

Doing our Homework

To strengthen the projects we have carried out analysis and research on the emerging open data standards and requirements set by the government as well as speaking to the Kent Information Sharing Governance Board to raise awareness with data owners using Open Kent about locally agreed data protocols.

Getting Technical

We have also made good headway with the technical developments. So far we have secured the licences for Open Kent from IBM and have performed demonstrations to the 16 partners from Kent Connects. We are also exploring other types of visualization techniques that could be integrated into the system. If you know of any that you think would be of benefit, please let us know.

Well that's all for this month. Stay tuned for further updates soon.

For more information on the project, please contact Sarah Crampton at sarah.crampton@kent.gov.uk.