2020: 20 Opendatasoft Highlights

It's time for a recap of this past year... and to highlight 20 reasons for Opendatasoft to celebrate. 👏

2020... What a year! We've lived through a year full of unexpected twists, most of which were not exactly cheery. Even so, as in most dark clouds, it's always possible to find the silver lining.

That is why we wrote this article. Yes, we found 20 reasons for our company to celebrate 2020, and we wanted to share these accomplishments with you. 

Let's go!

1/ A lot of open data portals were launched in 2020. Congratulations to Bologne, Bureau Veritas, Twisto, Morrisville, SRD, La Réunion, la Nouvelle-Calédonie, l'ACOSS (URSSAF), l’OFGL, and Fibre 64 👏

2/ We launched a new version of our ODS Academy this Summer. It is now easier to access and use. We also overhauled the course catalog and created new categories. Since launching v2, our courses have received over 1,000 registrations!

Discover 4 reasons to register for our e-learning platform right away by reading this article. 

3/ Our colleague Pauline undertook the monumental task of compiling the white page document "Choosing and Describing your Metadata". This complete guide:

• Helps readers better understand the purpose of metadata.

• Provides a list of 20 generic metadata that can be used in accordance with international standards.

• Lists 7 different commandments of editorial best practices when managing your metadata.

• Provides a matrix that sums up the different types of metadata, their use, and whether or not they are mandatory, as well as specific requirements, best practices, and value types associated with each of them.

Happy reading 😉

4/ This year, Opendatasoft's team members organized a total of 7,000 online meetings. We've all dealt with our share of awkward moments that come with working from home... (do your family members also walk by your webcam in pyjamas, or is that just us?)

5/ In September, we inaugurated a new Australian collaboration... As part of the Western Parkland City national parks network, eight municipal councils joined the collaboration between Opendatasoft and Peclet Technology to launch their data sharing portals.

6/ The Opendatasoft product's evolution. This year, our team has been busy improving the Opendatasoft platform! Three major features and improvements were launched:

1. The possibility to translate a same dataset in several languages without duplicating it. This is very useful to organizations managing a multilingual data portal (because of their cultural environment or cross-border localization for example). Use cases of this feature include the city of ville d’Umeå in Sweden, and Infrabel, the company that handles train traffic in Belgium.
2. Geographic navigation and filtering within a dataset catalog. This is good news for municipalities and local governments sharing datasets covering several regional levels on their portal. In their catalog, it is possible to move back and forth between one region and another. Try it out on the Nantes Metropolis' portal.
3. Compatibility with OpenID Connect, one of the most commonly used protocols for implementing Single Sign-On in an information system. Your organization is probably equipped with an identity and access management tool based on that protocol. If so, you will be able to log in to its Opendatasoft portal with the same ID and password you already use for other internal apps. Watch an example described in our colleague Olivier Pérès' demo.👇.

7/ Thanks to our amazing PR agency, our CEO Jean-Mark Lazard now publishes a monthly column for the French Forbes website 🙌 Click here to read it (if you speak French, or if you can use a good digital translator 😉)

8/ On November the 5th this year, we organized a 100% online edition of our annual Data on Board summit.670 of you joined us. The average attendee connection time was 4 hours and 30 minutes for an 8 hour event: a real success. You can view the replays of the day's events here.

9/ Despite the circumstances, we were delighted to welcome 18 new team members this year! Most of them joined our staff remotely. A challenge that was gracefully overcome thanks to all our teams. Interested in joining us in 2021? Browse our job offers on Welcome to the Jungle. 

10/ This April, we offered our clients and any organization the ability to create dashboards relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects for free. Our "Sharing is Caring" and "Re-bound" offers gave rise to a total of 42 dashboards. After working on this project, our CSM Mayara compiled this fascinating article.

 

11/ Although it was very difficult to meet you in person this year, we organized several online events!  Overall, we offered 11 webinars and 3 Users Clubs in 2020. Here is the link to view the replays of our most popular webinars: 

12/ Opendatasoft celebrated its 9th anniversary this year! To celebrate, our HR team, with the help of several of other staff members, organized an amazing online event. What was on the agenda? Guacamole, caipirinhas, and blind tests! We were able to stay connected, even while working remotely.

13/ We performed a wide-ranging survey in partnership with YouGov. 

Here is the information that stood out the most to us:

• The French are interested in shared data, especially with regards to data concerning their region (72% of them would like access to this data, and 50% think they could use this data).

• Public stakeholders have an interest in making their data freely accessible. In fact, 73% of the French believe that it is important to do so (50% with regards to private stakeholders).

• 73% of citizens believe that the crisis reinforced the need for transparency in local governments.

• Although the French are interested in free access to data, only 29% know where to find this.

• 55% of survey responses say it is important that private stakeholders share their data.

To view the full results of this study, click here.

14/ Our data hunter team published a total of 84 new reference geo datasets on our Data Network. Their geographic reach is also impressive: these datasets not only relate to France, they also extend to Germany, Canada, and Mexico (a nice way to travel during quarantine, wouldn't you agree?). To find these reference datasets, use the keyword georef-countryname - georef-canada for example - in the Data Network's search engine. In 2021, our data hunter team will continue unifying and maintaining the reference geo data, with more countries joining the list.

15/ This year, our Nantes team grew.After outgrowing its beloved Cantine office, it relocated to the Palace. It seems this new office space is a hit! The question is, how many team members will transfer next year? 

 

16/ A beautiful love story developed between ODS and hackathons. This year, we partnered with 5 of these events. These fun adventures took place in different kinds of formats: in-person and remotely, using different tools and producing plenty of innovations.

17/ The Opendatasoft blog was very active this year! We published a record number of 140 articles (70 in English and 70 in French). Thank you, dear readers. Here is a short list of our most-read articles of 2020: 

• Looking for Some Fun Data?
• 3 Public Services That Would Not Be Here Without Open Data
• What You Need to Know About the Latest Open Data Regulation Trends
• All you need to know about Metadata
• How Open Data is Changing Public Procurement

Happy reading!

18/ IQVIA, a global leader in the health data market, selected Opendatasoft to create its open data portal! IQVIA and Opendatasoft publish data relating to the sales of COVID antigen tests in French pharmacies, by region, with daily updates.

19/No need to present the importance of APIs in 2020... a few months ago, we updated our "9  best practices to make your data more reusable with APIs" Guide. You will find tips, details about different services provided by APIs, the best practices for describing an API, and advanced recommendations for ensuring they become viral.

 

20/ New methods to improve the Opendatasoft platform. In 2020, the Product team has grown and started implementing new procedures - such as starting every project with an exploration phase, or making user tests systematic - in order to achieve a specific goal: increase ease of use. Two important projects that will come to fruition in 2021 rely on these methods:

• The conception of a new dataset publishing interface, along with the development of new connection points to external apps such as Sharepoint and Google Drive.
• The complete revamping of the data visualization and data stories' creation process within the ODS platform.

That's all for this year. See in you in 2021 for new dataventures!