For Immediate Release: 8/1/2024 1:42 pm
WORCESTER, Mass. – The Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) announced Thursday it has revamped the municipality’s open data portal, Informing Worcester.
The department, at the direction of City Manager Eric D. Batista, relaunched the website to improve the way people can find and use data produced by the municipality.
“Relaunching our open data portal reaffirms my Administration’s commitment to transparency, to making decisions and creating policies based on what the data is telling us, and to embracing and preparing for the technology of the future,” said Batista.
There are over 300 data sets available on the website, including data that is displayed in new ways such as StoryMaps, which work to give data context, integrating maps, legends, text, photos, and video.
The Informing Worcester homepage has tickers with data that are updated daily including the number of work orders the Department of Public Works & Parks has received, the number of building permits the Department of Inspectional Services has issued, the number of incidents the Worcester Fire Department has responded to, and the number of dog licenses issued by the Clerk’s Office so far in 2024.
The website is hosted on the ArcGIS Hub platform, which allows users to interact with the data in a variety of ways. This will allow users to really engage with StoryMaps, documents, tables, geographic data, maps, and applications using a method of their choice, including geographic information system (GIS) tools and software.
The data on the website includes an open checkbook to see where the municipality spends its money; several sets from the Worcester Police Department, including Use of Force Incidents, a Daily Incident Log, and Police Precinct, Sectors, and Street Routes Maps; and Department of Inspectional Services information, including building permits and business certificates. The site is also home to an archive of historical documents, including Executive Orders and annual operating budgets.
Informing Worcester has new features to help people learn how to use it, including training videos. It also has sections where the public can provide feedback and find answers to frequently asked questions.
“These enhancements to Informing Worcester are part of our ongoing commitment to providing insights and transparency to our residents and represent an important step on our journey to becoming a more data-driven municipality,” said Chief Information Officer Michael Hamel.
The City of Worcester first created an Open Data Portal, initially called DIG (Data Informing Government) Worcester, in 2019.
In a report to City Council in July 2020, Batista, then Director of the Office of Urban Innovation, wrote that a goal of the site was functional transparency, but that it was also intended to become a platform upon which to showcase the municipality’s data-driven approach to meet its challenges and strategic goals.
The municipality has followed through on that intention by increasing the amount of data sets on the site by over seven-fold from the 39 sets available in July 2020. That data is also more current, with many sets automatically updating rather than having to be updated manually as was the case previously.
To learn more about Informing Worcester, the public can explore the site at https://opendata.worcesterma.gov, read the City Manager's latest Substack post, or watch these videos.
