This toolkit is the result of several months of research and conversations with data practitioners from around the world during the Summer of Open Data. These discussions revealed significant barriers that prevented organisations from scaling open data and data collaboratives. Many of these barriers were organisational and contributed to a broader data ecosystem that replicated challenges writ large.

This toolkit aims to help organisations deal with these challenges so they can foster more data re-use within their organisations and encourage broader responsible access across the domains they work. It achieves this goal by offering a framework to think about data re-use, one that starts from central questions about how data is created before expanding outward. It also offers eight actions data stewards to foster re-use and specific ways they can change their day-to-day operations to make these actions possible.

This toolkit does not intend to provide specific recommendations as to data management practices. It does not stipulate specific ways that data can be collected, stored, or accessed. Recognising the disparate conditions under which data stewards provide, it also does not aim to respond to any organisation’s specific needs. Instead, it aims to provide general principles that data leaders can implement at the organisations they oversee.