The new Open Data Division of the Information Services and Telecommunications Department is now available to share City of Laredo Data through our Open Data Portal.
The Open Data Division
of the
City of Laredo
Welcome to
www.OpenLaredo.com
OUR PURPOSE
Open Government and Transparency
This site was created with the Citizens of Laredo in mind. It features information on City Departments, projects, and other activities. It is an ongoing effort to provide the community with a more open government. Information will be provided in various formats.
DATA STANDARDS
Open Data Standards
In September of 2017, the City Council adopted an ordinance creating an Open Data Policy and a Chief Data Officer. The duty of this ordinance is to facilitate the flow of information from the City to its citizens. All data is to be presented in a machine readable format. On this site data will be presented in CSV (Comma Delimited Values), GIS shapefiles, spreadsheets, pdfs and others, dependent on the content. The Chief Data Officer is also responsible for working with the various department data coordinators to standardize data, data storage and information gathering to simplify workflows and improve efficiency.
HOW IT WORKS
Open Data Process
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Discussion Phase
The process begins with a discussion with a particular department director and data coordinator. They are asked to submit a data inventory of their department. The Open Data Committee and Chief Data Officer (CDO) will discuss what datasets will be useful for the Open Data Portal.
On average, this phase should take about a week. This also helps to locate duplication of data, and the need to upgrade data standards for certain records.
Analysis Phase
Once the inventory is reviewed, and datasets are selected, the CDO and the committee will review and analyze the selected datasets for efficiency, formatting, and quality. They will also review the feasibility of sharing a dataset, it may be too large or too time consuming to produce.
On average, this phase should take about a week or two. This process will provide suggestions to improve data quality, collection, and efficiency.
Preparation Phase
The data will now be formatted to easy sharing and converted to one of a few acceptable formats. It will then be uploaded to the Open Data Portal, and formatted for sharing. This may also include the creation of any related visualizations such as charts, maps or graphics.
On average, this phase should take about a week or two. During this process, data is also reviewed for any possible restrictions or sharing limits. At the end of the process, the data should be ready to be shared.
Maintenance Phase
Once the data is shared internally, or with the general public, it is essential that a schedule to be created to maintain the data. This is the task of the data coordinators and the CDO. Depending on the data, it may be updated daily, monthly or quaterly. All data descriptions will describe the update schedule.
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General Notes
The City of Laredo is dedicated to providing the best and most pertinent information to all of its citizens. In the near future we will also look to the public to assess what datasets you want to see. We are currently focused on datasets that have a wide usability and is highly requested. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.