Open data offers open opportunities: A case study on improving aid management

Abstract

Recently, governments have provided citizens data as a resource for public use (i.e. open data). Conventionally, citizens data were only available to some agencies and used for statistical analysis purposes. However, with the growth of such data and ease of access through online sources, many opportunities are anticipated to emerge. In this paper, we illustrate how the knowledge discovery process (KDP) can be used to collect, process, link, and utilize open data for different decision making tasks. We also illustrate a case study on the application of KDP and open data to aid management. The data were obtained from the City of Toronto open data repository. The results have proven the advantages of open data to offer enhanced humanitarian services and support.