In the years ahead, it looks increasingly likely that the city of Sacramento and surrounding local governments will collaborate on a shared website that will bring together open data from a variety of sources.
For more than a year, CIOs and IT managers from member participants in the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) have been discussing, through its Innovation Task Force, the creation of a Regional Open Data Portal sometime in 2016. SACOG will further explore the concept at its meeting on Thursday.
Discussions occurred among the stakeholders last spring, at which point “attendees agreed that developing a portal that goes beyond SACOG’s data offerings is worth exploring,” according to meeting minutes from SACOG. “Attendees suggested a regional portal could include full hosting for some cities and automatic collection of open data posted from other cities, counties or special districts to enhance our regional coordination on open data.” The portal could be developed and maintained through a cooperative funding model.
According to an Oct. 22 memo, SACOG has developed a work plan that could dictate a beta test of an open data portal late this year or in early 2016, and adoption of an open data policy during the first quarter of 2016.
SACOG members include the six-county Sacramento region, and more than 20 cities. The group is primarily focused on regional transportation planning.
