Understanding open data

It's usually published by governments or public bodies. On data.gov.scot, this means datasets published by:

• the Scottish Government

• other Scottish public bodies

Using open data

Open data is used in many ways. You can use it to:

• verify facts for a news article

• research health trends across Scotland

• analyse local economic conditions

• complete a school or university project

• check how a local council is performing

You may have used open data before. Charts of crime figures in newspapers and websites showing live train times both rely on open data.

You do not need technical knowledge to browse, search, preview and download most data on data.gov.scot.

Find out more about the technical use of data in the technical support section.

Technical terms

Open data sites often use technical terms such as:

• CSV (Comma-Separated Values)

• API (Application Programming Interface)

• metadata

These are the formats and rules for structuring and sharing data using computers.

You do not need to understand these terms to use the data on this site.

Learn about the technical terms used on this site in the glossary.

Data published on this site

All datasets on this site come from an official source.

data.gov.scot has official statistics and data from the Scottish Government and other public bodies. This includes:

• population and demographic statistics

• health and social care data

• education and employment figures

• environmental and geographic data

• transport and infrastructure statistics

For example, you can use data on this site to find out how many people aged 65 and over live in each Scottish council area.

Searching for and downloading data from this site

Start by browsing themes or searching for a topic.

Find out how to:

• search for data

• download data

Using the data from this site

Most data on this site is available under the Open Government Licence.

This means you can use it freely for personal, business or commercial purposes. However, you must say where the data came from.

Each dataset page shows its licence so you know what you can and cannot do.

Find out more about the Open Government Licence on the National Archives website.

Open data and open source

Open data and open source are different. Both are free to use, but they are not the same.

Open source refers to software code that anyone can access and use.

Open data refers to facts and figures that anyone can use. This site is about open data.