Would a data.gov.uk help people use / mash up government data

Following the rewired state event yesterday (7 Mar 09), I have been reflecting on the key problems that people identified.  These seemed to be:

1. Availability and different formats of government data.

2. Lack of APIs and services that shut down high volume requests.

I thought a solution may be to set up a web service specifically to host data for developers to use – data.gov.uk.

This could be a service where stats and other information is published in a consistent and always on way.  A key decision would be whether the site would host APIs or just the data.  The benefit of hosting just the data is that most data could be held in html/xml or similar.  This would allow the service to push serving of the data into the cloud to give scalability for people who ran services that constantly called back to the source data. 

I also thought that the service could have a small team of developers who could get the data onto the service in a coherent form and also provide advice and code samples for processing it.

I am concerned that many mashups are not coded in a way that makes them accessible.  The team of developers could again help by showing and possibly training people in the techniques that sites like  businesslink.gov.uk and Directgov use to make them comply with accessibility standards (in the .gov’s case this is W3C AA).

Rewired state – build it and they will come

Went along to the Rewired State event yesterday.  It was a lot of fun.  Very interesting to see how others are using government data and the issues people have collecting it.

It is interesting being on the inside within government as it were.  One of the key reasons my area do not provide the raw data is more about not being asked than any particular reason.  In the absence of demand, we have assumed that no one is that interested.  I will need to re-vist that.  The input of those at rewired state is much more a build it and they will come philosiphy.