Emerge Inc. Blog

On Friday, April 2, 2010, LorainCounty.com user power_surgin posted in the Lorain Forum:

This week sheriff’s sale of real estate list 46 properties in Lorain.
Commonly known as: 668 Broadway ave

To find this information, power_surgin read through the Lorain County Sheriff’s Sale of Real Estate information. On page 22 of 47, the information appears.

Four days later, on April 6, the local newspaper picked up on the story:

Morning Journal: Lorain County Commissioner Ted Kalo’s downtown Lorain building up for sheriff’s sale on May 5

Public access to valuable government data creates a necessary level of transparency and enables many eyes to view and review the actions of the government.

Open Government Data Principles (source)

Government data shall be considered open if it is made public in a way that complies with the principles below:

1. Complete – All public data is made available. Public data is data that is not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations.
2. Primary – Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.
3. Timely – Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.
4. Accessible – Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.
5. Machine processable – Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.
6. Non-discriminatory – Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.
7. Non-proprietary – Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.
8. License-free – Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed.