Crowdsourcing Data Transparency: Flashlight Wielding

Concept: Provide a crowdsourcing environment to enable “flashlight wielders” to identify, request, and help prioritize government datasets. An ideal environment would be hosted by a neutral third party and would use lightweight, open source software tools to enable the collaboration. For example, an agency staffer might post “I have a great dataset on X that meets Data.gov criteria, but I can’t get it out…” Another participant might post “I am looking for data on Y…” Others could vote to help establish a collective sense of priorities or degrees of support and interest. This could be an excellent open government collaboration to help shine the light on data opportunities, in hopes that light is a critical first step in inventorying and mobilizing new high-value data. #IOGDC #opendata #opengov