This repo will contain information on City of Philadelphia publishing open geodata on GitHub.
GitHub is an ideal platform for releasing geodata to the public because it:
- gives GIS units control of when and how their data is updated to the general public
- allows other GitHub users to ask questions and raise issues about the data - creating a dialog around it
- displays a history of changes to the data that gives consumers notifications on updates
- allows for collaboration between staff and outside stakeholders
- Renders CSV files as tables and GeoJSON as embeddable web maps
Here's a somewhat crude diagram of how it will work:
City staff will export data from GeoDb2 using ArcOpen and then use GitHub for Windows to upload it to the GitHub.com remote repo for their department. The open data portals PASDA and OpenDataPhilly so that the public can download the data from either or GitHub itself and always have the most up-to-date data.
This repo contains various Markdown pages of information regarding the City of Philadelphia's plan and best practices for releasing geodata on GitHub. View these pages to get a sense of how everything works.
This repository will act as a living document that can be edited and added to as needed. If you would like to see something changed, make the changes and send a pull request!
Additionally, the issues tab is a good place for discussions regarding this plan.