Ottawa ranks in the Top 3 Most Open Cities in Canada

Public Sector Digest has released its annual ranking of most open cities in Canada, placing the City of Ottawa third place amongst the 55 cities evaluated.

“We are very proud of this recognition today from Public Sector Digest,” said Marc René de Cotret, Service Transformation Director at the City of Ottawa. “Our Open Data team has been working very hard with our public stakeholders as well as all City departments to bring forward as much of the City’s data as possible in an open and transparent manner.”

Public Sector Digest, first published in 2003, has become North America’s leading publication for public policy. Featuring in-depth articles and case studies, it provides insight into industry trends and best practices.

The Open Cities Index (OCI) was developed by Public Sector Digest in partnership with Canada’s Open Data Exchange (ODX) as an appraisal framework to gauge the level of openness in cities across Canada. The OCI serves to audit existing open data initiatives at municipalities and allows participating organizations to compare themselves against their peer groups and track their openness over time based on specific dataset classifications.

“OCI provides us with a good overview of what other cities across the continent are doing in this space to help us understand where we can devote our time and investments for maximum impact on our Open Data program,” said Marc. “While we are very proud of our accomplishments to date, we know that much work remains to be done to continue to our drive to further enhance our open data catalogue and embody open government principles.