By James Feichtner
With advanced technology making file sharing more readily available, many government agencies are looking to enhance transparency through the use of open data.
Zionsville was one of three local municipalities that announced a partnership with the City of Indianapolis in late 2015 that would have led to the creation of a website where they all shared public information, but the partnership fizzled out soon after it began.
“(Indianapolis) wanted to move forward with something (by) themselves,” Zionsville IT Director Joe Rust said. “It was about the time of change of administration in Indianapolis, the communication with (the project) kind of fell off. We’re still interested in making something happen and it may be in bits and pieces, but we’ll keep moving forward.”
Open data is the idea that public records are be freely accessible through electronic media such as web programs or applications, enabling citizens to access these records without having to file a request for them.
While the deal with Indianapolis may have dissolved, it left Zionsville officials realizing how valuable open data could be to the community.
“I had it in the back of my head as something we could do eventually, but I don’t think, from a staff perspective, that there was the realization of how powerful this could be until we actually got our hands on it,” Rust said.
While open data in governmental records provides transparency and public participation, Rust said an open data project would also provide benefits internally.
“It wasn’t just going to be a portal for the public to use,” he said. “We were seeing an internal use for this just as important to save time and efforts that typically go for these types of reports.”
Currently the not-for-profit agency Open Indy Brigade is talking with the town on how an open data project could be utilized in Zionsville and other communities, but no formal agreements have been made.
