TycheHowTo:AcquireUnderstandPublicData
What is public data?
When you are a Tyche Insights community member and you are interested in data storytelling, we ask that you use public data as your primary source. What is public data? Public data is any data that originates from a government organization.
It may be data regarding the facts associated with your government and your city. This could include data on property, taxes, infrastructure and more.
It may be data that describes the operations of your city. This could include data on crime, payments, budgets, outcomes and more.
Acquiring public data
Public data is typically acquired from 1) open data sites (where your local government is proactively publishing data), 2) informal requests to a government stakeholder, 3) formal requests through a public information request system, or 4) through a legal challenge.
We have a page with guidance on acquiring public data. In addition, we have created a Talk page for anyone to ask questions and get advice about acquiring public data. Acquiring public data can be one of the biggest (and most frustrating) challenges to data storytelling - ready, set, ... wait... for the data. We will be creating additional resources and guidance for acquiring data based on community feedback.
Categories of public data
Are you interested in a particular topic or do you want to examine a particular type of public data? We provide a guide to common datasets that data storytellers use:
- Audited financial statements
- Budget data
- Building permit data
- Business data
- Crime data
- Healthcare data (to be written!)
- Tax abatement data
- Tax roll or Assessment data
- Vendor and procurement data