Open data is structured information that is anonymized (not personally identifiable), free, and available to everyone.
Open data can help drive innovation, increase civic participation, support research or business, and improve how the city serves its residents. By making the City’s data more accessible to our residents through a new Open Data Portal, the City is increasing the transparency of its operations, allowing for additional accountability, and strengthening metrics-based management and governance. Enabling residents, researchers, the tech community and others to access and review City data will help create new opportunities for learning and enable the City to demonstrate progress on important goals in our community in a new way.
In January 2020, the Mayor issued an Executive Order enacting the City's Open Data Policy. The policy, developed using best practices established by Sunlight Foundation, provides the framework and guidelines for how the City will implement its open data program, managed by the Innovation & Technology Department. In order to share city data and other information relevant to Burlington, we've recently launched a new and improved Open Data Portal, hosted here. You can use the Open Data Portal to explore, search, filter, and visualize datasets with maps or charts right in your browser. On the new portal, you can also export data in popular formats or consume them using an application programming interface (API).
For questions about the open data program or suggestions about types of data you'd like to see published on the Open Data Portal, please contact btvstat@burlingtonvt.gov.
“The promise of open data has always been about more than simply access to datasets; it’s been about a new kind of relationship between city hall and the public, one that breeds positive community outcomes through collaboration” – Sunlight Foundation
