Pew asked Americans what they think about open data

TL;DR: Pew’s numbers are probably way off, they’re presented in a completely misleading context, and I don’t know why anyone would want to survey the American public for familiarity with technical jargon.

Yesterday Pew published a survey of how Americans feel about open government data. Don’t believe their lies. (This is a Memento reference…)

Pew says “relatively few” when they mean “OMG actually a lot!”

Pew’s report on their survey suffered from the same flaw usually lobbied at open data itself — lack of context. Their numbers are grossly (and negligently) misleading without context. So if anyone thinks Pew is in some high up position to come and judge open data, I’d rethink that. For instance, Pew said

Relatively few Americans reported using government data sources . . . 20% have used government sources to find information about student or teacher performance.

They think 20% is a little. But only about half of adult-aged Americans (to match their sample) are students or parents of students. So of people that actually might care about student/teacher performance, about half used government data. To me that’s huge! If Pew is going to slip in a judgment about whether this is a lot or a little, they ought to substantiate it and not pass it off as if it were a finding.

Pew asked questions we know Americans don’t know the answer to

Pew asked their panelists how often they made use of government data. We know Americans don’t always know when the services they are using are government services, so there’s no reason to think Pew’s panelists had any idea how often they made use of government data.

I think there were a few surveys about this a few years ago, but in one covered here, almost half of those who took Pell grants, unemployment insurance, and other forms of government assistance believed they had not ever used a government social program.

Why should Americans know our jargon?

The survey is like asking Americans how they think TCP/IP will affect government services. (What do you think the results of that survey would be?) TCP/IP is the protocol that underlies the whole Internet — it’s super important. But there’s no reason to think the American public would be, or should be, familiar with our technical jargon.

TCP/IP, like government data, is technical jargon that refers to a means, and not an end. The open data community has the unfortunate habit of talking about open data as if it were an end in itself. It’s not. It’s in the service of other goals (better government service delivery, for instance).  Do Americans like free weather reports? Then they probably like government data even if they don’t know that that’s what we call it.

The survey tells us about American’s familiarity with our technical jargon. If I’m doing my job right in informing and empowering Americans, then they won’t know my technical jargon and just get to be informed and empowered. And, so, Pew’s survey doesn’t tell us anything about whether Americans use government data or what they think about its importance.