1 Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to ensure the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) identifies, prepares and publishes relevant, accurate, high quality datasets to the Open Data Portal and OIC website in a timely manner.
2 Policy
This policy describes:
- the roles of staff responsible for collating and publishing data to the open data portal (www.data.qld.gov.au)
- publishing processes for maintaining content across the open data portal and OIC website
3 Scope of policy
This policy applies to all staff within the OIC and should be read in conjunction with:
- Publishing standards - Open Data Portal
- OIC’s Open Data Strategy
- OIC's Privacy and de-identified data guideline
4 Roles and responsibilities
Roles and responsibilities have been developed to manage and support content development through the publishing lifecycle.
4.1 Information Commissioner
The Information Commissioner is responsible for:
- approving OIC’s Open Data Strategy
- approving new open data datasets
- approving publication of endorsed open data datasets
- approving the archiving or deletion of approved open data datasets
4.2 Director, Engagement and Corporate Services
The Director, Engagement and Corporate Services is responsible for:
- establishing management and reporting structures for OIC’s open data
- endorsing Assistance and Monitoring open data datasets
4.3 Manager, Training and Stakeholder Relations
The Manager, Training and Stakeholder Relations is responsible for:
- overseeing the development and maintenance of OICs datasets
- seeking final approval to publish datasets tasking the Data Custodians as required
- tasking the Web Manager and Communications and Stakeholder Relations Officer as required. For example to:
- maintain an OIC open data maintenance log
- publish approved datasets to the Open Data Portal and OIC website
- monitor the accuracy and use of metadata, descriptions and tags
- review the OIC Open Data Strategy annually (August)
- promote open data to staff
- raise awareness of OIC’s open data datasets with stakeholders
4.4 Office Manager
The Office Manager is responsible for:
- extracting identified statistics from OIC’s databases i.e. Contact
- seeking approval of the collected statistics from the commissioner responsible for the associated service area
- upon request from a Training and Stakeholder Relations team member, returning the requested statistics, along with confirmation of the commissioner’s approval, to the requesting Training and Stakeholder Relations team member within 5 business days.
4.5 Data Custodians
Data Custodians are responsible for:
- collating and preparing data as required in accordance with this policy, appropriate standards and guidelines, including OIC’s Privacy and de-identified data guideline
- regularly reviewing published datasets for accuracy, quality and changes in re-identification risk, where applicable.
- ensuring all dataset content and relevant metadata is accurate and complete
- seeking endorsement of datasets from the RTI Commissioner, Privacy Commissioner or First Assistant Information Commissioner as appropriate
4.6 OIC staff
OIC staff are responsible for supporting the OIC Open Data Strategy by:
- understanding OIC’s open data principles and identifying appropriate opportunities to incorporate these into work practices
- identifying new datasets that may be suitable for release and conveying same to their supervisor
- ensuring data quality standards are maintained
5 Publishing
The following guidelines for publishing, maintaining and archiving content are provided for staff involved in publishing OIC datasets to the Open Data Portal and OIC website.
5.1 Content approval process
All datasets must go through a review and endorsement process before approval to publish is sought. This process is managed offline and is coordinated by the Manager, Training and Stakeholder Relations. The review process considers quality, relevance and re-identification risks where applicable.
Data Custodians must ensure only datasets endorsed by their relevant commissioner are provided to Training and Stakeholder Relations.
Once content is approved by the Information Commissioner it is to be uploaded to the OIC website and linked from the Queensland Government’s Open Data Portal.
5.2 Timing
Performance Dashboard datasets
The Communications and Stakeholder Relations Officer requests data for the performance dashboard at the start of each month. Data Custodians are required to compile relevant information and provide endorsed content within 7 business days.
Data is collated by the Training and Stakeholder Relations team and provided to the Information Commissioner via the First Assistant Information Commissioner for approval to publish.
Content is uploaded to the OIC website and open data portal within 20 business days.
The statistics displayed on the performance dashboard are for information purposes only. The statistics are subject to revision; therefore, statistics presented may differ from those displayed at an earlier time. This can occur as a result of corrections made to the data and/or additional information being added or edited for quality assurance purposes.
As part of the quality assurance process there is a one month lag in the publication of statistics. For example, January statistics are published in March.
Other Datasets
Provision of updates for all other open data datasets is the responsibility of the Data Custodians. Data Custodians are to submit endorsed open data datasets to the Manager, Training and Stakeholder Relations as prescribed in the Frequency of Update included in Appendix 1.
Archiving or deleting datasets All requests to archive or delete an open data dataset should be made to the Manager, Training and Stakeholder Relations and must include approval from the Information Commissioner as appropriate.
6 Feedback
Technical feedback
Feedback such as broken links or issues with datasets should be reported to the Manager, Training and Stakeholder Relations.
Content feedback
Feedback about the content of a particular dataset should be reported to the relevant Data Custodians.