ODUG Overview

The Open Data User Group (ODUG) exists to help government understand the requirements of people who are using, or could use, the datasets it collects.

What Are Datasets?

A dataset is a collection of information of the same type. Examples of datasets are collections of information about pupil attainment in every school in the UK or spending in a particular government department. Examples of data that is not a dataset are the Ofsted rating for an individual school or the total spending of a particular department.

Often pieces of data can be derived from information within a dataset, but it is more efficient for government to release entire datasets rather than to perform the analysis needed to get a single piece of data. ODUG is focused on the release of datasets rather than individual pieces of data.

How You Can Help?

We need to know which datasets, held by government, you need. We are proactively collecting these requirements through outreach activities within our communities, but are also open to suggestions from anyone through our dataset request form.

We are interested in your requests both for new datasets and for refinements to existing datasets that would make them easier to work with. You can use the dataset request form to make a new request, but you can also look at existing requests and create requests based on those. Having several requests for the same dataset helps us to prioritise and put together a strong case for opening up that dataset.

We encourage you to work together to make requests, and by default we will make most of the information with which you provide us available for everyone to see. However, we understand that some requirements for datasets are commercially sensitive. The detailed information about the commercial benefits of the dataset to your organisation will not be shown on the website, and only be shared amongst the ODUG members and Cabinet Office civil servants. You can also choose to have your requests hidden from the data.gov.uk website entirely, if you prefer.

What Happens to Data Requests?

Alongside the Cabinet Office and members of the community, we will, on a routine basis, categorise the requests you send us as follows:

• Requests for information other than datasets held by the public sector will be redirected to appropriate external sites for requesting that data, where possible.
• Requests for datasets that are already available will be pointed at the dataset on data.gov.uk.
• Requests for improvements to datasets that are already available, or for datasets that can easily be made available will be forwarded to the organisations who hold the datasets; we will make their response available and follow up as appropriate.
• Requests for complex dataset releases will first be prioritised and then be championed by us within government through the Data Strategy Board.

To prioritise both our work and government work in releasing these datasets, we need to evidence:

• the extent of the economic, social and environmental benefits you describe
• the number and types of requests for a given dataset
• the effort of opening up or improving the provision of the dataset

The more evidence that you can provide to us about the benefits of opening up a given dataset, the easier it will be for us to build a full business case for the Data Strategy Board. In some cases we may contact you to ask for more information to help us build that case.

See requests made under the old 'unlocking service'.