An information management strategy for city data hubs : open data strategies for large organisations

Over the last decade, an increasing number of government agencies have developed urban data strategies and contributed to Open Data ecosystems. These initiatives, which look at supporting efficiencies and collaboration in city shaping, are crucial in realising the vision of sustainable, productive, and resilient cities. However, maintaining access to high quality, consistent, updated, and replicable urban data remains a challenge. The current urban data landscape is characterised by avoidable duplications, large data gaps, and spatial or temporal mismatches. Moreover, many data assets remain siloed within and between organisations so their value is far from being fully realised. A recent study undertaken with Landcom NSW-a state-owned agency in charge of managing large urban transformation programmes in New South Wales (NSW, Australia)-aimed at developing a roadmap towards an urban knowledge-sharing platform called the Connected City Data Hub. Interviews with key stakeholders confirmed the need for a robust information management strategy in order to support the creation of a purposeful and useful platform. Drawing from several sources, the authors propose an information management framework that is then used to review several international city data stores or hubs.