ORGPedia: Open Organizational DataAs a result of the burgeoning movement to open up access to public data, government agencies are making unprecedented quantities of information about regulated businesses available online in reusable formats. From data about corporate compliance with health, environment and safety regulations to data about companies that receive assignments of patents to financial disclosures from publicly traded companies, the opportunity now exists to “mash up” and visualize disparate data about organizations.ORGPediaORGP_7b87059e-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2aORGPedia explores how to create an information system that effectively combines authenticated government data with user-contributed information – a hybrid wiki – to enhance public understanding about organizations and firms. [B]y amassing and visualizing formerly disparate data sets about the ownership, structure, performance and regulatory compliance of organizations, we can achieve reduced compliance and investment costs, improved corporate accountability, greater consumer protection, and create an important new research and reporting test bed that will foster critical, data-driven journalism and scholarship about the life of organizations._7b871c32-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2aTo design and create: * An open corporate identification system to enable datasets about companies to be compared. Currently, different agencies use different numbering schemes. An open ID will enable taxonomies to “talk” to one another. * An online platform to mash up and visualize authenticated government datasets already collected about firms and organizations pursuant to statute or regulation. * An Application Programming Interface (API) and supporting software libraries to make it easy for third parties to incorporate ORGPedia into their own systems. * A community to encourage public participation in reviewing, annotating and contributing to collected government data whether by companies and organizations or by third parties. _7b871d04-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2aRegulatory ComplianceReduce the Costs of Regulatory Compliance_7b871d9a-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2a1Regulated CompaniesWith a “wikipedia for firms,” companies will need to input information only once, bringing down the costs of regulatory compliance._7b871e08-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2aWealth and InvestmentIncrease Wealth and Investment_7b871e76-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2a2With better access to information, investors can make more effective decisions._7b871f0c-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2aConsumer InformationInform Consumer Behavior_7b871f8e-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2a3More robust knowledge of company environmental, workplace safety and other practices will help both regulators and consumers._7b872006-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2aCorporate AccountabilityPromote Corporate Accountability_7b87207e-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2a4With the ability to compare government contractor databases against lobbying records, for example, it will be possible to see when a parent company lobbies and its subsidiary gets a lucrative government contract._7b8720f6-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2aInnovationEnhance Innovation_7b872178-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2a5With the ability to mash up Patent Office and other data, economists can get a better picture of the state of innovation in our economy._7b8721f0-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2aResearchEnable Research on Corporate Governance_7b872272-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2a6ORGPedia will offer an unprecedented research testbed for the study of business evolution._7b8722fe-6085-11e0-85b3-9e737a64ea2a2011-04-06http://dotank.nyls.edu/orgpedia/OwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net