The Citadel Open Data Commons

Citadel… on the Move was an EC funded project under the CIP (ICT-PSP) programme 2012-2014, with a simple objective: to make Open Data an achievable reality for every city in Europe. By working with the four pilot cities of Ghent (BE), Issy-les-Moulineaux (FR), Athens (EL), and Manchester (UK), Citadel developed an easy to use platform that brings together a data converter and an app generator. This makes it possible for all governments, especially the small ones that often get left behind, to Open Data and use their data to unlock smart city innovation, experiencing the Open Data paradigm end-to-end in one session. Following this approach, Citadel has helped over 120 local government organisations around the world open their data. These tools and the datasets and apps generated (over 500 apps in the project’s lifetime) are all part of a central concept – the Open Data Commons – that extends the scope of Open Data from specific city portals to all actors in a Smart City. As the Open Data Commons is a shared and collective space, it allows for cities to promote the active engagement of citizens and local businesses, as well as other city departments and agencies, to contribute their own data to build a common data resource for the whole city. The Open Data Commons is a concept that was developed by Alfamicro, one of the key partners of the Citadel consortium, and reported in a fragmented way across a range of project documents. To make the Open Data Commons concept less obscure and popularize it to a broader international audience, we have assembled in this book some of the key contents describing it, which have been developed all along the project. This book therefore briefly presents the Citadel project and the stakeholder based approach applied to the development and governance of the Open Data Commons in the four pilot cities. It then describes the Open Data Commons and how it was implemented in the course of the Citadel project, with a special focus on the semantic dimension and a specific chapter on the issue of privacy. Finally, the policy implications of the Open Data Commons and the future of Open Data are briefly explored.