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Avatar of Philippe Plagnol

by Philippe Plagnol

Opening Product Data for a more responsible world

March 8, 2013 in Featured Project, Open Data

Data on the products we buy is rarely viewed as something to be opened. But in fact, the international standards that make it possible for products to be traded across borders can be used by consumers for their own ends – to help improve information-sharing and choice across the planet. There is currently no public database of this information – but we’re working to change that at Product Open Data.

Eugène Delacroix, “la liberté guidant le peuple”, 1830 – redesigned by Jessica Dere

Opening Product Data

When a consumer buys a product he gives power to a manufacturer, enabling it to continue or to extend its activities. A public worldwide product database would allow consumers to get information in real time, by scanning the barcode with a mobile phone, or to publish their opinions about specific products in a way that others can easily access. The consumer would have the tools to make decisions based on their own concerns about health, nutrition, ecology, or human rights, and to make ethical, dietary or value-based purchases.

GS1 is a worldwide organization which assign to a product a unique code that people can see below the barcode (called the GTIN code). There are billions of product commercialized in the world, and the full GTIN code list is stored only in GS1 database. The objective of POD (Product Open Data) is to open product data by gathering these key codes, and collecting product information from the manufacturer by creating a new RSS standard around this data (called PSS – Product Simple Syndication).

The POD database contains currently 1.4 million products. The most difficult task is to assign to each product a classification GPC code, which carries information about the particular type of product that it is. GPC codes are an international standard – GS1 has already assigned 10 million of them – but many e-commerce sites have developed their own taxonomies, which makes it difficult to compare product-types across sellers and to find the correct GPC codes online. Other challenges are finding information like the brand, dimensions, and packaging, and lastly but crucially, to guarantee the quality of data. The database and pictures are free to access.

Why is this important?

There are a whole load of reasons why opening product data is a really important step:

  • WIth the GTIN Code as a unique identifier, consumers will be able to communicate about a specific product across the world.

  • Almost all manufacturers around the world are covered by GS1, which is focused on supply chain. By developing an open database, a new organization with the same power will be created as a counterpoint, but focusing on consumers’ right

  • Organizations dealing with health, ecology, and human rights will be able to provide their own criteria about products very easily using the GTIN Code.

  • Individuals will be able to raise a risk or an alert about a product. A set of rules will have to be defined to avoid buzz triggers with wrong information.

  • Marketing and commerce will change a lot because consumers will have new inputs to decide what to buy (e-reputation)

  • Smartphone apps and a community will build around product knowledge.

Whether you’re interested in open source and open data, the protection of consumers, or the protection of the environment, we’d love to hear from you. Together we can join forces in an innovative project which is good for our planet.

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Avatar of Theodora Middleton

by Theodora Middleton

Open Food Facts

March 4, 2013 in Access to Information, OKF France, Open Data

One of the cool projects that OKF France were hacking away on during Open Data Day last weekend was Open Food Facts. It’s a free, open collaborative database of food facts from around the world, which aims to help consumers make better choices about what they put in their body, as well as motivating industry to take more care over the production of food.

Food is becoming an increasingly political issue. Food security has risen up the international agenda to become one of the most talked-about aspects of strategic planning for the future. From questions of who owns the patents on the seeds people need to survive, to questions of the effects of additives in your body, to understanding the impact of our consumption habits on the environment, information about food is much-needed and often difficult to come by.

The G8 is organising an International Conference on Open Data in Agriculture, to take place on the 28th and 29th April. The idea is to openly share useful, publicly funded information about agriculture across international borders, so the everyone can move towards greater food security. In particular, the G8 group have made a commitment to share this data with African countries to enable “a sustainable increase in food security”.

There’s an open call for ideas to present at the conference, so if you have thoughts about how open data can improve global food security and food use then think about getting in touch. The folk from Open Food Facts are submitting their ideas, and they’ve invited input into their letter explaining why the project is important. The deadline for submissions has been extended to the 8th March, so now’s the moment!

If you’d like to get involved in discussions about open data, food and sustainability more generally, sign up for our Open Sustainability Working Group.

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Avatar of Andrew Palmer

by Andrew Palmer

An open goal that can’t be missed: 2015 and open data

February 28, 2013 in Access to Information, Open Data, WG Development

STOP PRESS: UN holds consultation.

Okay, so this may not be the most groundbreaking of introductions. It’s up there with such bombshells as “man catches bus” and “comedian tells joke” with but stick with me … it’s important.

Today marks the first day of the UN’s post-2015 consultation on governance, jointly hosted by South Africa and Germany. For the uninitiated, “post-2015” is the lingo that the UN has given to the process of deciding what comes after the Millennium Development Goals which expire at the end of 2015.

africa computer

As you may recall, in amongst the commotion of the millennium bug the turn of the century was accompanied by two significant actions by the UN. The first was the publication of ‘The Millennium Declaration’ which outlines the principles of cooperation for the twenty-first century and, incidentally, is probably one of the finest documents to emerge from UN headquarters on First Avenue at 46th Street, New York. The second was, at the time, the slightly less fanfared Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which set targets for developing countries in areas such as halving absolute poverty, providing greater access to education and reducing child mortality.

What we’ve learnt over the decade since the millenium is that what get measured counts. Wonderful prose and narrative on the importance of governance and human rights are to be applauded (and we should drive for more commitments), but when it comes to investing money governments have tended to focus on more measurable gains. The upshot of all this means that the MDGs, and the targets and indicators that they represent, have become the currency of twenty-first century development.

This brings me back to the UN post-2015 consultation on governance. If the lessons are to be learnt this time round it is essential that the values and principles of accountability, transparency and participation are translated into measurable goals, targets and indicators that are included as part of the goal framework – not as the side note. Without an explicit push to improve the quality, timeliness and availability of information any efforts to establish a transformational post-2015 agenda will only ever be directed at an incomplete, and potentially inaccurate, picture.

At Development Initiatives we have been working on proposals for a goal on access to information as well as proposals on open development with others. But alone we don’t have the all the answers or the influence to make this happen. What is needed is for other members of the open data community to be alert to the post-2015 process and how we can collectively use this forum to advance the cause for open and better quality data. In short, we need your help to make sure the UN understand that this is an open goal that can’t be missed.

If you’d like to find out more about the post-2015 process then please contact andrew.palmer@devinit.org

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Avatar of Rufus Pollock

by Rufus Pollock

Open Data on the Web Workshop April 2013

February 27, 2013 in Events, Open Data

The World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) together with the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Open Data Institute, are pleased to invite you to join a jointly organized workshop to discuss how we can realize the promise of open data on the web.

  • What?: Open Data on the Web Workshop (for more, see topics below)
  • When?: 23-24 April 2013
  • Where?: Google Campus, 4-5 Bonhill Street, London EC2 4BX
  • Deadline for applications: Sunday 3rd March – see below for how to apply!
  • Hashtag: #odw2013

About the Workshop

An Open Data strategy is increasingly recognised as key for any business that uses the Web as a channel for delivering goods and services.In addition to government transparency and efficiency, open data has substantial economic potential, and if cultivated correctly can be a sustainable engine for the rapidly expanding digital economy.

At this workshop, participants will discuss their experiences of realizing this aim and identify what’s needed to make it easier. The main topics of the Workshop will be:

  • discoverability;
  • transformation (to other formats);
  • combinations of data from different models (e.g. linked data and CSV);
  • quality assessment and self-description;
  • extracting human-readable “stories” from data.

You can find out more about the topics for the workshop here.

Participants will also be helping prioritize W3C’s agenda in the area of data on the Web at a time when a number of working groups have either completed or are close to completing their charters.

Participate

The workshop will include a mixture of presentations, panel discussions and Q&A. It will be structured but informal with plenty of chance to chat. To ensure productive discussions, the workshop is limited to 80 attendees.

In order to participate, you have to submit a short position paper (1-5 pages). These are not academic papers but descriptions of the problem you’d like the workshop to discuss and the presentation you would like to offer. ‘Papers’ can be as simple as a short description of a tool or service to be demonstrated and the technologies used. The idea is to make sure that you have an active interest in the contents of the workshop.

Deadline: Sunday 3 March. Each organization or individual wishing to participate must submit a position paper explaining their interest in the workshop by Sunday 3 March.

Full Details on how to Participate and Application Process »

We hope to see you there!

Image: Antibubbles by TheAlphaWolf, CC-BY

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Avatar of Mark Wainwright

by Mark Wainwright

European Union launches CKAN data portal

February 25, 2013 in CKAN, Open Data, WG EU Open Data, WG Open Government Data

On Friday, to coincide with Saturday’s International Open Data Day, the European Commission (EC) unveiled a new data portal, which will be used to publish data from the EC and other bodies of the European Union.

This major project was announced last year, and it went live in December for testing before today’s announcement. The portal includes extensive CKAN customisation and development work by the Open Knowledge Foundation, including a multilingual extension enabling data descriptions (metadata) to be made available in different languages: at present the metadata is offered in English, French, German, Italian and Polish. The portal was originally planned for EC data, but it will now also hold data from the European Environment Agency, and hopefully in time a number of other EU bodies as well.

The EU has been a key mover in driving the Open Data agenda in member states, so it is fitting that it is now promoting transparency and re-use of its own data holdings by making them available in one place. It has for some years been encouraging member states to publish data via dedicated portals, and it also supports the OKF’s work on publicdata.eu, a prototype of a pan-European data portal harvesting data from catalogues across the Union, via the LOD2 research project.

The portal currently makes 5,885 datasets available, most of which come from Eurostat. In their blog post announcing the launch the European Commission say they are “confident that it will be a catalyst for change in the way data is handled inside the Commission as well as beyond”, and promise more to come:

More data will become available as the Commission’s services adapt their data management and licensing policies and make machine-readable formats the rule. Our ambition is to make an open licence applicable across the board for all datasets in the portal. Furthermore, in 2013, an overarching pan-European aggregator for open data should federate the content of more than 70 existing open data portal initiatives in the Member States at national, regional or local level.

We’re looking forward to helping make it happen.

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Avatar of Laura James

by Laura James

Open Data & My Data

February 22, 2013 in Featured, Ideas and musings, Open Data, Working Groups

The Open Knowledge Foundation believes in open knowledge: not just that some data is open and freely usable, but that it is useful – accessible, understandable, meaningful, and able to help someone solve a real problem.

A lot of the data which could help me improve my life is data about me – “MyData” if you like. Many of the most interesting questions and problems we have involve personal data of some kind. This data might be gathered directly by me (using my own equipment or commercial services), or it could be harvested by corporations from what I do online, or assembled by public sector services I use, or voluntarily contributed to scientific and other research studies.

Tape library, CERN, Geneva 2

Image: “Tape library, CERN, Geneva 2″ by Cory Doctorow, CC-BY-SA.

This data isn’t just interesting in the context of our daily lives: it bears on many global challenges in the 21st century, such as supporting an aging population, food consumption and energy use.

Today, we rarely have access to these types of data, let alone the ability to reuse and share it, even when it’s my data, about just me. Who owns data about me, who controls it, who has access to it? Can I see data about me, can I get a copy of it in a form I could reuse or share, can I get value out of it? Would I even be allowed to publish openly some of the data about me, if I wanted to?

But how does this relate to open data? After all, a key tenet of our work at the Open Knowledge Foundation is that personal data should not be made open (for obvious privacy reasons)!

However there are, in fact, obvious points where “Open Data” and “My Data” connect:

  • MyData becomes Open Data (via transformation): Important datasets that are (or could be) open come from “my data” via aggregation, anonymisation and so on. Much statistical information ultimately comes from surveys of individuals, but the end results are heavily aggregated (for example, census data). This means “my data” is an important source but also that it is essential that the open data community have a good appreciation of the pitfalls and dangers here – e.g. when anonymisation or aggregation may fail to provide appropriate privacy.

  • MyData becomes Open Data (by individual choice): There may be people who want to share their individual, personal, data openly to benefit others. A cancer patient could be happy to share their medical information if that could assist with research into treatments and help others like them. Alternatively, perhaps I’m happy to open my household energy data and share it with my local community to enable us collectively to make sustainable energy choices. (Today, I can probably only see this data on the energy company’s website, remote, unhelpful, out of my control. I may not even be able to find out what I’m permitted to do with my data!)

  • The Right to Choose: if it’s my data, just about me, I should be able to choose to access it, reuse it, share it and open it if I wish. There is an obvious translation here of key Open Data principles to MyData. Where the Open Definition states that material should be freely available for use, reuse and redistribution by anyone, we could think that my data should freely available for use, reuse and redistribution by me.

We think it is important to explore and develop these connections and issues. The Open Knowledge Foundation is therefore today launching an Open Data & MyData Working Group. Sign up here to participate:

This will be a place to discuss and explore how open data and personal data intersect. How can principles around openness inform approaches to personal data? What issues of privacy and anonymisation do we need to consider for datasets which may become openly published? Do we need “MyData Principles” that include the right of the individual to use, reuse and redistribute data about themselves if they so wish?

Appendix

There are plenty of challenging issues and questions around this topic. Here are a few:

Anonymization

Are big datasets actually anonymous? Anonymisation is incredibly hard. This isn’t a new problem (Ars Technica had a great overview in 2009) although it gets more challenging as more data is available, openly or otherwise, as more data which can be cross-correlated means anonymisation is more easily breached.

Releasing Value

There’s a lot of value in personal data – Boston Consulting Group claim €1tn. But even BCG point out that this value can only be realised if the processes around personal data are more transparent. Perhaps we can aspire to more than transparency, and have some degree of personal control, too.

Governments

Governments are starting to offer some proposals here such as “MiData” in the UK. This is a good start but do they really serve the citizen?

There’s also some proposed legislation to drive companies to give consumers the right to see their data.

But is access enough?

The consumer doesn’t own their data (even when they have “MiData”-style access to it), so can they publish it under an open licence if they wish?

Whose data is it anyway?

Computers, phones, energy monitors in my home, and so on, aren’t all personal to me. They are used by friends and family. It’s hard to know whose data is involved in many cases. I might want privacy from others in my household, not just from anonymous corporations.

This gets even more complicated when we consider the public sphere – surveillance cameras and internet of things sensors are gathering data in public places, about groups of independent people. Can the people whose images or information are being captured access or control or share this data, and how can they collaborate on this? How can consent be secured in these situations? Do we have to accept that some information simply cannot be private in a networked world?

(Some of these issues were raised at the Open Internet of Things Assembly in 2012, which lead to a draft declaration. The declaration doesn’t indicate the breadth of complex issues around data creation and processing which were hotly debated at the assembly.)

MyData Principles

We will need clear principles. Perhaps, just as the Open Definition has help clarify and shape the open data space, we need analogous “MyData” Principles which set out how personal data should be handled. These could include, for example:

  • That my data should be made available to me in machine-readable bulk form
  • That I should have right to use that data as I wish (including using, reusing and redistribution if I so wish).
  • That none of my data (where it contains personal information) should be made open without my full consent.

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Avatar of Rufus Pollock

by Rufus Pollock

The Open Data Census – Tracking the State of Open Data Around the World

February 20, 2013 in Events, Featured, Featured Project, Open Data, Open Government Data, Our Work, WG Open Government Data

Recent years have seen a huge expansion in open data activity around the world. This is very welcome, but at the same time it is now increasingly difficult to assess if, and where, progress is being made.

To address this, we started the Open Data Census in order to track the state of open data globally. The results so far, covering more than 35 countries and 200 datasets, are now available online at http://census.okfn.org/. We’ll be building this up even more during Open Data Day this weekend.

This post explains why we started the census and why this matters now. This includes the importance of quality (not just quantity) of data, the state of the census so far, and some immediate next steps – such as expanding the census to the city level and developing an “open data index” to give a single measure of open data progress.

Why the Census?

In the last few years there has been an explosion of activity around open data and especially open government data. Following initiatives like data.gov and data.gov.uk, numerous local, regional and national bodies have started open government data initiatives and created open data portals (from a handful 3 years ago there are now more than 250 open data catalogs worldwide).

But simply putting a few spreadsheets online under an open license is obviously not enough. Doing open government data well depends on releasing key datasets in the right way. Moreover, with the proliferation of sites it has become increasingly hard to track what is happening.

Which countries, or municipalities, are actually releasing open data and which aren’t?1 Which countries are making progress on releasing data on stuff that matters in the right way?

Quality not (just) Quantity

Progress in open government data is not (just) about the number of datasets being released. The quality of the datasets being released matters at least as much – and often more – than the quantity of these datasets.

We want to know whether governments around the world are releasing key datasets, for example critical information about public finances, locations and public transport rather than less critical information such as the location of park benches or the number of streetlights per capita.2

Similarly, is the data being released in a form that is comparable and interoperable or is it being release as randomly structured spreadsheets (or, worse, non-machine-readable PDFs)?

Tables like this are easy for humans, but difficult for machines.

This example of a table from US Bureau of Labor Statistics are easy for humans to interpret but very difficult for machines. (But at least it’s in plain text not PDF).)

The essential point here is that it is about quality as much quantity. Datasets aren’t all the same, whether in size, importance or format.

Enter the Census

And so was born the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Open Data Census – a community-driven effort to map and evaluate the progress of open data and open data initiatives around the world.

We launched the first round of data collection last April at the meeting of the Open Government Partnership in Brazil. Since then members of the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Open Government Data Working Group have been continuing to collect the data and our Labs team have been developing a site to host the census and present its results.

ogd census table

The central part of the census is an assessment based on 10 key datasets.

These were selected through a process of discussion and consultation with the Open Government Data Working Group and will likely be expanded in future (see some great suggestions from David Eaves last year). We’ll also be considering additional criteria: for example whether data is being released in a standard format that facilitates integration and reuse.

We focused on a specific list of core datasets (rather than e.g. counting numbers of open datasets) for a few important reasons:

  • Comparability: by assessing against the same datasets we would be able to compare across countries
  • Importance: Some datasets are more important than others and by specifically selecting a small set of key datasets we could make that explicit
  • Ranking: we want, ultimately, to be able to rank countries in an “Open Data Index”. This is much easier if we have a good list of cross-country comparable data. 3

Today, thanks to submissions from more than thirty contributors the census includes information on more 190 datasets from more than 35 countries around the world and we hope to get close to full coverage for more than 50 countries in the next couple of months.

ogd census map

The Open Data Index: a Scoreboard for Open Government Data

Having the census allows us to evaluate general progress on open data. But having a lot of information alone is not enough. We need to ensure the information is presented in a simple and understandable way especially if we want it to help drive improvements in the state of open government data around the world.

Inspired by work such as Open Budget Index from the International Budget Partnership, the Aid Transparency Index from Publish What You Fund, the Corruption Perception Index from Transparency International and many more, we felt a key aspect is to distill the results into a single overall ranking and present this clearly. (We’ve also been talking here with the great folks at the Web Foundation, who are also thinking about an Open Data Index connected with their work on the Web Index).

obp screenshot

As part of our first work on the Census dashboard last September for OKFestival we did some work on an “open data index”, which provided an overall rankings for countries. However, during that work, it became clear that building a proper index requires some careful thought. In particular, we probably wanted to incorporate other factors than just the pure census results, for example:

  • Some measure of the number of open datasets (appropriately calibrated!)
  • Whether the country has an open government data initiative and open data portal
  • Whether the country has joined the OGP
  • Existence (and quality) of an FoI law

In addition, there is the challenging question of weightings – not only between these additional factors and census scores but also for scoring the census. Should, for example, Belarus be scoring 5 or 6 out of 7 on the census despite it not being clear whether any data is actually openly licensed? How should we weight total number of datasets against the census score?

Nevertheless, we’re continuing to work on putting together an “open data index” and we hope to have an “alpha” version ready for the open government data community to use and critique within the next few months. (If you’re interested in contributing check out the details at the end of this post).

The City Census

The first version of the census was country oriented. But much of the action around open data happens at the city and regional level, and information about the area around us tends to be the most meaningful and important.

We’re happy to say plans are afoot to make this happen!

Specifically, we’ll be kicking off the city census with an Open Data Census Challenge this Saturday as part of Open Data Day.

If the Open Data Census has caught your interest, you are invited to become an Open Data Detective for a day and help locate open (and closed) datasets in cities around the world. Find out more and sign up here: http://okfn.org/events/open-data-day-2013/census/

Get Involved

Interested in the Open Data Census? Want to contribute? There are a variety of ways:

Notes

  1. For example, we’ve seen several open data initiatives releasing data under non-open licenses that restrict, for example, derivative works, redistribution or commercial use. ↩

  2. This isn’t to say that less critical information isn’t important – one of the key reasons for releasing material openly is that you never know who may derive benefit from it, and the “long tail of data” may yield plenty of unexpected riches. ↩

  3. Other metrics, such as numbers of datasets are very difficult to compare – what is a single dataset in one country can easily become a 100 or more in another country, for example unemployment could be in a single dataset or split into many datasets one for each month and region). ↩

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Avatar of Velichka Dimitrova

by Velichka Dimitrova

Open Research Data Handbook Sprint

February 15, 2013 in Open Access, Open Content, Open Data, Open Economics, Open Science, Open Standards, Our Work, WG Economics

On February 15-16 we are updating the Open Research Data Handbook to include more detail on sharing research data from scientific work, and to remix the book for different disciplines and settings. We’re doing this through an open book sprint. The sprint will happen at the Open Data Institute, 65 Clifton Street, London EC2A 4JE.

The Friday lunch seminar will be streamed through the Open Economics Bambuser channel. If you would like to participate, please see the Online Participation Hub for links to documents and programme updates. You can follow this event at the IRC channel #okfn-rbook and follow on twitter with hashtags #openresearch and #okfnrbook.

The Open Research Data Handbook aims to provide an introduction to the processes, tools and other areas that researchers need to consider to make their research data openly available.

Join us for a book sprint to develop the current draft, and explore ways to remix it for different disciplines and contexts.

Who it is for:

  • Researchers interested in carrying out their work in more open ways
  • Experts on sharing research and research data
  • Writers and copy editors
  • Web developers and designers to help present the handbook online
  • Anyone else interested in taking part in an intense and collaborative weekend of action

What will happen:

The main sprint will take place on Friday and Saturday. After initial discussions we’ll divide into open space groups to focus on research, writing and editing for different chapters of the handbook, developing a range of content including How To guidance, stories of impact, collections of links and decision tools.

A group will also look at digital tools for presenting the handbook online, including ways to easily tag content for different audiences and remix the guide for different contexts.

Agenda:

Where: 65 Clifton Street, EC2A 4JE (3rd floor – the Open Data Institute)

Friday, February 15th

  • 13:00 – 13:30: Arrival and sushi lunch
  • 13:30 – 14:30: Open research data seminar with Steven Hill, Head of Open Data Dialogue at RCUK.
  • 14:30 – 17:30: Working in teams

Friday, February 16th

  • 10:00 – 10:30: Arrival and coffee
  • 10:30 – 11:30: Introducing open research lightning talks (your space to present your project on research data)
  • 11:30 – 13:30: Working in teams
  • 13:30 – 14:30: Lunch
  • 14:30 – 17:30: Working in teams
  • 17:30 – 18:30: Reporting back

As many already registered for online participation we will broadcast the lunch seminar through the Open Economics Bambuser channel. Please drop by in the IRC channel #okfn-rbook

Partners:

OKF Open Science Working Group – creators of the current Open Research Data Handbook
OKF Open Economic Working Group – exploring economics aspects of open research
Open Data Research Network - exploring a remix of the handbook to support open social science
research in a new global research network, focussed on research in the Global South.
Open Data Institute – hosting the event

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Avatar of Charalampos Bratsas

by Charalampos Bratsas

New Open data hub from OKFN Greece

February 14, 2013 in CKAN, OKF Greece, Open Data, Open Government Data

Opening up public sector data is becoming a top priority for governments throughout Europe and North America. We are pleased to announce the launch of the new Greek open data hub, developed and hosted by OKFN Greece. The data hub integrates the Open Knowledge Foundation’s open source data cataloging software CKAN, which is also the basis of the UK, the European and the US portals.

1BwTJWO4kyf66rdIzFVGfIUk90yszxF34CatgEg

Open data can be used in smart city services, financial monitoring, decision support systems and numerous other applications. The problem is finding them. Supposing you wanted to make a shiny new smartphone app, requiring a combination of geospatial data, some cultural facts and a photo collection. You know this data does exist, but you are also aware that you are going to have a hard time finding their providers, discovering their outgoing links and their license. All of this involves a significant investment of time.

Ordinary citizens, too, are made to invest precious time hunting down and combining data, such as the location of the nearest Job Centre, plus information on how to get there by public transport.

This is why we need data hubs where publishers can use, promote, and advertise all their datasets together. Citizens will also catalog a dataset if it is useful to them and maybe to others. Once the datasets reach a critical level, links between them are discovered and developed, multiplying the value of the datasets and dynamically increasing their significance. Combine this with live data previews, a smart search system and a powerful API and you have taken open data to the next level.

The Greek open data hub includes:

  1. The Open Data repository (http://ckan.okfn.gr). This section of the site is built using the CKAN platform (like the EU & UK sites).
  2. Examples of applications using Greek linked open data, like Greek DBpedia (DayLikeToday, DBpedia game) and visualizations with data from the Clarity Program, the municipalities etc.
  3. A live demo where anybody will be able to submit a SPARQL query and chart its results with Google Chart Editor.
  4. Information about the Greek Linked Open Data cloud – a visual network representation of the Greek Linked Open Data Cloud. OKFN Greece is constantly working on making this one huge!

Find out how you can use the hub, contribute to it, and get involved on our blog!

1 Comment »

Avatar of Jonathan Gray

by Jonathan Gray

We Need an Open Database of Clinical Trials

February 5, 2013 in Access to Information, Campaigning, Featured, Open Data, Open Science, Open/Closed, Policy

The award winning science writer and physician Ben Goldacre recently launched a major campaign to open up the results of clinical trials.

The AllTrials initiative calls for all clinical trials to be reported and for the “full methods and the results” of each trial to be published.

Currently negative results are poorly recorded and positive results are overhyped, leading to what Goldacre calls ‘research fraud’, misleading doctors about the drugs they are prescribing and misleading patients about the drugs they are taking.

The Open Knowledge Foundation is an organisational supporter of AllTrials, and we encourage you to sign and share the petition if you have not already done so:

There have been some big wins in the past 48 hours. The lead legislator for a new EU Clinical Trials Regulation recently came out in favour of transparency for clinical trials. Today GlaxoSmithKline announced their support for the campaign, which, as Goldacre says, is “huge, and internationally huge”.

As well as continuing to push for stronger policies and practises that support the release of information about clinical trials, we would like to see a public repository of reports and results that doctors, patients and researchers can access and add to. We need an open database of clinical trials.

Over the past few days we’ve been corresponding with Ben and others on the AllTrials about how we might be able to work together to create such a database – building on the prototyping work that was presented at last year’s Strata event.

In the mean time, you can watch the TED talk if you haven’t seen it already – and help us to make some noise about the petition!


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