InfoCommons: An Open Platform for Public Data

Josh KnauerMAYA Design

A “where” problem

Where’s my house?

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The commercial data providers don’t know

Neither does the federal government…

I know where my house is…

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We need a better way for everyone to correct data

We need a better way for everyone to share data

We need a better way for everyone to reuse data

We need a better way for everyone to access data

We have a plan.

Technology research lab spun out of Carnegie Mellon

$50 million in federal research to pursue dream of “information liquidity”

Our goal: to build a scalable information space that can support trillions of devices

Who the heck are we?

Our recipe for data sharing

• Frame your data as abstract, linkable

objects. We call them u-forms.

Recipe for data sharing

• u-forms

• Make sure attribution is included in

every u-form (IP Status, Author, etc).

Recipe for data sharing

• u-forms

• attribution

• Pour that data into a shared,

distributed, and of course… open

information space. Stir. We call that

space the Information Commons.

Recipe for data sharing

• u-forms

• attribution

• distributed info space

• Build applications that reuse, mix and

mash data from the Commons into

whatever format you need.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Custom Apps

Web Apps

Mobile Apps

Recipe for data sharing

• u-forms

• attribution

• distributed info space

• build. reuse, mix and mash

• let end-users be contributorsQuickTime™ and a

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We’re helping individuals, non-profits and government agencies grow the Information Commons

Brookings Institution - community info systems

Find properties that match the following:

Buskarma - public transit info

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Transit data reused for human service referrals

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QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

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QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

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HS data reused & enhanced by A+ Schools

Environmental health risks in your community

Environmental health data: where users can act

Helping biologists track endangered wildlife

Coming later this summer… Workbench

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Coming later this summer… Workbench

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Coming soon…

• More apps

• Easy to use content creation/editing tools

• Technical docs and open APIs

• More and richer data

More info, white papers, etc: http://www.maya.com/infocommons