Research Guides: Open access resources: Open data

What is open data?

Open data is data that is available to anyone, and can be accessed, analysed and reused with minimal restrictions, in an open format that is easy to modify. Many government departments, government agencies, and research institutions world-wide publish open data online, with the aim of creating transparency, government accountability, and allowing for the sharing and reuse of data in ways that benefit the community. Open data can be used to verify the results of studies, or to broaden the available data for research. Exploration of open data can also lead to serendipitous discovery of ideas not initially intended by the data collector.

The Australian Government policy on public data is that “all government agencies should make non-sensitive data open by default, and it should be free, easy to use, and reliable”.

Note that open data is de-identified and does not contain any personal or sensitive information.

State Library Victoria has also released several sets of open data, which are available both on our website and on the Victorian and Australian data depositories. See our webpage on open data for more information.

Open data resources

There are many open data resources available online to explore. Some of the more prominent Australian and international resources are listed below:

Data.gov.au
The central source of Australian Government open data, including federal, state and local government departments and agencies. Includes the National Map, an exploration tool for geospatial data.
DataVic
Victoria's platform for Victorian Government open data. Includes datasets from the State Library Victoria
Research Data Australia
The data discovery service of the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), which is supported by the Australian Government. Contains data from 98 research organisations across Australia, including government agencies and universities. Includes a large collection of open data.
City of Melbourne Open Data Portal
Access to a wide variety of publicly accessible council data in an easily browsable format
World Bank Open Data
Free and open access to global development data. Includes DataBank: an easy-to-use analysis and visualisation tool containing collections of time series data on a variety of topics.
Global Open Data Index
A snapshot of the extent of open government data publication throughout the world. Rankings on 94 countries and how their governments are making data open and accessible.

Fun with open data

Explore Melbourne's Urban Forest
The City of Melbourne maintains more than 70,000 trees. This website lets you explore an interactive map of all of the trees in the city of Melbourne, made with data from the City of Melbourne Open Data Portal. Find out the genus and life expectancy of your favourite tree, and even send it an email to ask it about some of the challenges it faces!