More than 2 million additional rows of data are available to the public in celebration of National Open Data Day, courtesy of the city of Chattanooga.
The city’s Office of Performance Management and Open Data will unveil a trove of new data sets on Saturday in an effort to be more transparent to citizens and businesses about city finances, diversity and process, officials said.
Director Tim Moreland said the new disclosures, which will be readily accessible through the city’s ChattaData.org and updated nearly daily, will provide a more informed public and competitive market.
“Imagine you’re a business and you want to do some business with the city, I think a lot of these financial transparency tools are really amazing,” Moreland said during a demonstration of the new data apps to the Times Free Press on Friday. “You’ll be able to see who we’re doing business with right now, what services we’re booking, what rates are and what we’re actually procuring, so you can know what you have to offer and what you’re up against.”
Among purchasing, accounts payable and other financial data sets being shared, the city has created an “open checkbook” app that itemizes most of the city’s expenditures, line by line.
“This is basically every check that city has written over the last 10 years, excluding things like payroll and transfers between departments,” Moreland said. “Then we built an app around this particular set, so people can explore. It’s something like a million rows of data on its own, so we wanted people to be able to use it, and it’s nearly impossible to get your head around that many entries without some help.”
The app provides user-friendly filtering tools to sort the data set by date, department and other categories, making it more manageable for any user, Moreland said.
“We didn’t want to just dump all of this great data, so we worked to make it usable and provide narrative alongside each tool so that it’s all understandable,” he said, adding that the city will also take a more active approach to making the data usable.
“Internally we have what we call jam sessions with each department to see what data they have, what data they need help with and how that makes sense to use, since data for data’s sake is a waste of time,” Moreland said. “We want to do, and we’ve done these trainings in the past, some education for the public on how to use what’s available and see what else it is that might be helpful as we look for ways to be more transparent.”
The data dump will include information on employees by demographic, rank and department; data on traffic at certain intersections with sensors; numbers detailing participation in parks and outdoors events in the city; and, later in the month, numbers detailing the expenses and progress of capital projects in the city.
“We think all of these data sets will be of value to the public,” Moreland said. “We share new data every Open Data Day, but this year we had an upgrade to our existing system that allows us to build around the data sets and create more user-friendly data tools like this, so that’s what you’re seeing in this big release.”
The city’s push for open data began in 2014 when Mayor Andy Berke made an executive order spawning the development of an open data policy and the formation of Moreland’s office, which led to the creation of ChattaData, which now contains hundreds of data sets that are automatically updated on a near-daily basis.
The new additions will add a new level of user tools and explanations of data, in addition to increasing the volume of available data.
“This is just fabulous. It brings a transparency I’ve always wished for,” Councilwoman Carol Berz, who serves as chairwoman of the finance committee, said during a strategic planning meeting Tuesday. ” … It will answer a lot of the questions we have internally and also provide good information to the public. This is important.”
Most of the data will be released to the public on Saturday in time for a public training session, while any remaining data will be added to the site throughout the month.
Members of the public interested in learning more can attend the training Saturday from 9 a.m. until noon at the Avondale Youth and Family Development meeting.
Contact Sarah Grace Taylor at 423-757-6416 or staylor@timesfreepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @_sarahgtaylor.