Chapter 1: Overview

Open data is data that anyone can use, access, and share. The concept of open data is predicated on the belief that openness fosters desirable outcomes. Too often, information is locked behind passwords, hidden within antiquated systems, or trapped in PDFs. Opening up these data would empower community stakeholders to advocate for transparency, public engagement, and accountability from those who hold power.

At the national level, Title II of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 mandated the creation of Data.gov. Since then, federal agencies have been required to publish certain information as open data, utilizing standard machine-readable data formats with metadata stored in Data.gov. The government has also established principles for open data, which outline that data should be public, accessible, documented, reusable, complete, timely, and managed post-release. These guidelines form the backdrop for the ideas and recommendations throughout this guide.

Like many government entities, universities are vital social institutions and stewards of public funds. Universities are also committed to the open sharing of ideas and to educating the next generation of innovators, researchers, and public leaders. These roles of the university motivate the principles of transparency, public engagement, and accountability.

Currently, data about universities — such as information on finances, student life, and academics — is often unavailable to the public, locked within opaque university websites, or stored in unstructured formats. Our interviews with student journalists, campus organizations, and university faculty revealed that easy data access shapes the types of stories that are told and analyses that are conducted, and every additional hurdle to data access increases the cost of discovering information. While some universities have begun addressing these hurdles, we have noticed a lack of resources that exist to support open data standards and initiatives at universities.

Our insights and recommendations are informed by our experiences leading open data efforts at Stanford University and Northwestern University, as well as extensive input from the leaders of numerous campus organizations, open data initiatives, and civic tech initiatives across the country. However, because this guide is grounded in our personal experiences at our respective institutions, we hope you will use these insights as a starting point to adapt within your own community. Additionally, we include a section on data governance, an institutional framework that promotes accountable and ethical “planning, oversight, and control of [data management, data usage, and data-related sources]”, that is contextualized for universities (DAMA).

The sections are roughly ordered in the sequence we feel you should think about each topic. As you build your data portal, we hope that this guide can serve as a reference and a guide as you navigate the many obstacles incurred as you start your own open data portal.