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Open Data

This guide lists open data resources from a variety of governments, agencies, and other sources that could be useful for students and faculty researching a wide variety of subjects.

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What is Open Data?

According to the Open Knowledge Foundation, key features of Open Data are:

  • Availability and access: the data must be available as a whole and at no more than a reasonable reproduction cost, preferably by downloading over the internet. The data must also be available in a convenient and modifiable form.
  • Reuse and redistribution: the data must be provided under terms that permit reuse and redistribution including the intermixing with other datasets. The data must be machine-readable.
  • Universal participation: everyone must be able to use, reuse and redistribute — there should be no discrimination against fields of endeavour or against persons or groups. For example, ‘non-commercial’ restrictions that would prevent ‘commercial’ use, or restrictions of use for certain purposes (e.g. only in education), are not allowed.

Open data can comes from a variety of sources, typically government, but can also include data generated from research.

Government Data

Data Repositories & Portals

Data Visualization