The Town of Chapel Hill joined the other Triangle area governments by launching a new information service called open data. This website includes data such as budget numbers and local traffic signals, provided by the local government and the Chapel Hill Public Library. Chapel Hill’s Public Library Systems Manager, David Green said it’s a great way to facilitate access to information.

“The town and its departments have lots of data. This open data service allows people to easily find what they are looking for and enables them to use it however they choose,” Green said.

Green said that the goal of this service is to increase transparency within the local government which can be a difficult task.

“For one thing, making it easy to use is hard to do and what data is there. Discovering what we have, so we can make it available. Is it in a good format, is it usable, is it useful,” Green said. “Then probably what is most important is a privacy issue. None of the information that is going to be shared on the open data platform contains information about specific individuals. So, being careful with the data, scrubbing it of personally identifiable information, and having it prepared in a way that is useful and usable.

“That’s a difficult thing to do but, it’s something that we are working on.”

This platform will give the public the opportunity to browse data and gather information. Green said he expects that it will create useful insight.

“In a community like ours, that has so many naturally curious people, we expect that open data will create useful insights, maybe proposals for creating solutions to some problems we have, and ways to be more efficient with the public resources we have,” Green said.

Chapelhillopendata.org is now open to the public to start creating graphs and maps with the data provided. In the fall, the town will hold public events to encourage Chapel Hill residents to contribute to the next steps with this service. Specific dates for these events will be posted later in the summer.

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