HomeMy WebLinkAboutMemo - Mail Packet - 11/3/2020 - Memorandum From Kevin Wilkins And Tim Campbell Re: Opendata Annual Update
City Manager’s Office
City Hall
300 LaPorte Ave.
PO Box 580
Fort Collins, CO 80522
970.221.6505
970.224.6107 - fax
fcgov.com
DATE: October 29, 2020
TO: Mayor Troxell and Councilmembers
FROM: Kevin Wilkins, Chief Information Officer
Tim Campbell, OpenData Administrator
THROUGH: Darin Atteberry, City Manager
Kelly DiMartino, Deputy City Manager
Tyler Marr, Deputy IES Director
RE: OpenData Annual Update
Bottom Line: In 2017, The City of Fort Collins initiated an effort to develop an open data
platform and process. By Resolution, staff provides Council an annual update on the OpenData
program.
Due to the data publication improvements and community engagement efforts of 2019, the
OpenData program was able to respond rapidly to support the community during the COVID-19
pandemic in 2020. The publishing improvements allowed fast releases and updates to a
storyboard to support local businesses. The prior community focus introduced OpenData to
residents, which led to record-high site visits even without in-person engagement. With the
learned lessons from virtual engagement and the needs of residents, the program will continue
to improve the types of data and supporting information to better benefit the Fort Collins
community.
Annual Open Data Update – November 2020
COVID-19 Business Support: To provide support for local businesses during the COVID-19
pandemic, the OpenData Administrator worked with staff in the Economic Health office to
release a storyboard with local business information and service availability (available at
https://opendata.fcgov.com/d/9kwb-8b8c). This currently consists of 531 businesses and
contributed to a 143% increase in visits to the OpenData Portal during the early days of the
pandemic. Businesses are encouraged to reach out to the Economic Health office to provide
information, which is then combined into a map along with data from a community-run database,
the Chamber of Commerce, and the Downtown Business Association.
Data Publishing and Inventories: The Data Inventory effort, which aims to capture data
sources within the City, was paused due to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic, with plans
to continue once time allows. Meanwhile, the OpenData Administrator and staff are using the
current Data Inventory to identify data sources for publication to the OpenData Portal and
prioritizing based on internal and community needs. There are currently 208 public data sources
on the Portal (an 18% increase from this time last year); the publishing cadence is slower than
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previous years because ‘effort to publish’ was temporarily removed from consideration in order
to release pertinent data during the pandemic. Of these data sources, 70 are visualizations
intended to make the data and insights more accessible to our entire community. Most of these
visualizations were created by the ten OpenData volunteers. An up-to-date list of published data
sources can be found on the Portal (https://opendata.fcgov.com/d/hjfc-8qj5).
OpenData Usage: Usage on the OpenData Portal and OpenBook, our publicly-available
expense reporting module, is tracked to assess the usefulness of the data being released. Since
this time last year, the maximum weekly public visits to the Portal site have increased 35% (see
addendum), and the number of data source views increased 58% in the same period.
OpenBook continues to show sharp increases in site visits relative to key financial periods (e.g.
beginning of a fiscal year), with the latest spikes showing 21% increase over previous years’.
The increase in Portal usage, OpenBook usage, and data source activity suggests that the data
being released are actively being used by the public.
Community Engagement: The OpenData Administrator and City staff continued the successful
‘FCx’ event series centered around discussions about data. The February event, entitled
“Census 2020 and its Impact on Fort Collins,” focused on the importance of the Census data
and how it would be used to help solve local issues. Speakers included City staff, County staff,
and a video presentation from the State Demographer. Subsequent events for 2020 were
cancelled due to the risks of in-person meetings, but the quarterly cadence will continue when it
is safe to do so. This series is in collaboration with a local volunteer group with input from a
growing number of community organizations; more details are available at
https://ourcity.fcgov.com/open-data.
Extended Projects: Aside from the OpenData Portal publishing and Data Inventories, there are
several projects aimed at specific areas of improvement.
COVID support will continue as needed. There have been a number of data requests
related to COVID-19 support and recovery; these datasets will be released where
possible and in conjunction with the City’s COVID-19 informational website.
The OpenData Administrator is working with Social Sustainability staff to create an
interactive dashboard from the results of the Equity Indicators project. This dashboard
will be available to the public and will serve to encourage conversations around equity
within our broader community.
The platform for OpenBook enables releasing City expenditures data as far back as the
initiation of the original OpenBook in 2010, which will increase transparency and
encourage in-depth analysis of City expenditures.
Next Steps Include:
Identifying and publishing data sources
Maintaining and improving OpenData automation processes
Assisting with internal data sharing to facilitate OpenData publication
Providing support to OpenData volunteers and community groups
Planning community engagement opportunities and projects
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Addendum:
Figure 1: OpenData Portal public usage since release
Figure 2: Example plot by an OpenData volunteer
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