Open Data DC

Open Data DC, originally Data Code for DC, was a community-run data portal for and by the people of Washington, DC. It collected data for research, visualization, learning, and civic projects while remaining separate from the District government’s official open-data service.

The portal is no longer active. Its archived repository documents the project, but the original data.codefordc.org domain no longer resolves.

A community catalog alongside official data

The DC government maintained the authoritative municipal catalog. Civic projects also used federal, nonprofit, research, and community-contributed datasets. Open Data DC created a place where volunteers could collect and share those sources.

The portal ran on the open-source CKAN platform and reportedly held more than 500 datasets. It served people conducting research, making visualizations, learning data-analysis skills, or building civic projects.

The project clearly distinguished community-contributed data from official District data. That distinction remains important: a broader catalog can help people find useful sources, but users still need to know who published each dataset, when it was updated, and which source can correct it.

Building a community around the data

Civic Tech DC volunteers worked in three connected areas:

• improving the CKAN portal and its interface;
• analyzing and visualizing datasets;
• finding community stakeholders and project teams that could use the data.

That final work reflected a core Code for DC principle: build with stakeholders, not merely for them. The portal aimed to seed public-interest projects, not only accumulate datasets.

Archive and current sources

The Open Data DC repository is archived and last received substantive work in 2020. The available record does not preserve a verified user count, complete dataset inventory, downstream adoption measure, or public outcome.

Historical datasets may now be unavailable, outdated, or governed by source-specific terms. For current authoritative District data, use the maintained DC Open Data portal and verify the responsible agency, update date, and license.

Open Data DC’s history shows that community catalogs need continuing stewardship: maintained metadata, working links, clear provenance, stable hosting, and a retirement plan.

Bring a current community-data problem

If a nonprofit, research group, newsroom, or community has a current data-access or catalog problem, bring the need to Civic Tech DC.

To help with active public-data work, explore Data and Democracy or join a Project Night.