City lays out next steps in Open Data Plan; Chicago Tribune, 2/7/14

Amina Elahi, Chicago Tribune; City lays out next steps in Open Data Plan:

"Using public civic data, developers have created Web apps such as legislation-tracker Chicago Councilmatic and the interactive 2nd City Zoning map.

Others have used the data to build businesses. SpotHero won the 2011 Apps for Metro Chicago contest with a product built on data from the City of Chicago and other local agencies. Today, the parking app is available in seven cities.

The city posts select data sets to GitHub, an open source code-sharing platform. Developers are free to build upon or manipulate that data, since it is covered by an MIT License.

The City of Chicago's Data Dictionary, which anyone can search to find out whether the portal or GitHub hosts data sets on particular topics, is another such tool. In its current form, the technical results may turn off less experienced users, but Schenk says future plans include improving the interface and filtering."