Reported bike thefts, vacant land and college attendance records win OpenDataRace

Three data sets have been announced as winning the most support in the OpenDataRace, a month-long call for Philadelphians to vote for what nominated city information they most seek.
First place, with 596 votes, went to the Public School Notebook, which called for the National Student Clearinghouse Data for Philadelphia, which tracks college attendance from School District students. The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia’s ask for police data on reported bike thefts by address came in second, with 553 votes, and a vacant land data request from Conservation Pennsylvania came in second with just 295 votes.
The three nonprofits will be awarded $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 respectively and, more importantly, the organizers behind the event and OpenDataPhilly.org — Azavea, the William Penn Foundation, NPower and, full disclosure, Technically Philly — will seek out the regular release of these data sources by the city. To be sure, all of this data can be requested on a one-off basis on the grounds of freedom of information act requirements, but the initiative seeks more on-going efforts. See the city’s Open Records law details here [PDF].
Overall, people cast 2,445 votes, and the site’s registered users grew from 222 to 2,628, said Azavea project manager Deb Boyer.
The race had recently been covered by TechSoup, the Philadelphia Business Journal and Generocity.