Earlier this week, the SEC voted on the final rules of Section 1504 of the Dodd Frank Act. Global Witness teamed up with the Open Knowledge Foundation to explain what these rules are about, and why they matter. View the infographic ‘Ending Secrecy – Why Global Transparency Rules Matter’ On August 22nd 2012, the U.S. […]
We’re big on promoting open information: be that sonnets, statistics, genes or geodata. We’re big on it because we think it has the potential to improve the welfare of peoples around the world in a variety of ways, from making governments more accountable to improving research on cancer. At the same time I think it […]
We’re taking the Data Wrangling Handbook on the road! We’ll be in Portland, Oregon this Wednesday, July 18th from 3-7 pm at Collective Agency, 322 NW Sixth Ave (between Everett and Flanders), Suite 200. (Buzz “200″ when you arrive.) View Map Then, to keep the ball rolling, we’re following up with a virtual sprint on […]
We are delighted to announce that Linked Open Vocabularies is now being hosted on Open Knowledge Foundation servers and is now officially an Open Knowledge Foundation project. ##LOV Project in 5 points LOV is about vocabularies (aka. metadata element sets or ontologies) in OWL / RDFS used to describe linked data. LOV provides a single-stop […]
Last month we ran the Open Knowledge Foundation’s largest celebration of open bibliographic data to date. The main focus of the two-day event was to get some hacking done and use the tools the Open Knowledge Foundation has helped to build, or is currently building, for working with bibliographic data, such as BibServer, TEXTUS and […]
It’s been another hectic few months here at the Open Knowledge Foundation! We’re getting really excited about this year’s inaugral OKFest in Helsinki (more later), but there’s so much going on across the world of openness that it’s hard to see when we’re going to find time to pack our suitcases! From the launch of […]
Last week I gave a quick introduction to OpenSpending and Where Does My Money Go at Activate 2012. Here are the video and slides. Slides
Textus is the OKFN’s open source platform for working with collections of texts. It harnesses the power of semantic web technologies and delivers them in a simple and intuitive interface so that students, researchers and teachers can share and collaborate around collections of texts. Sites such as the upcoming openphilosophy.org and the existing openshakespeare.org contain […]
Open Data is an idea that continues to gain momentum, and one of the signs of this is that the world has more and more data catalogs. This is great for many reasons but it also brings its own problem especially around interoperability and standardization — the lack of standard schema and interfaces is something […]
Last week I was at the European Data Forum and gave a Keynote entitled Open Data, Where We’ve Come From, Where We’re Going. Here are the slides.
For a while now our network has been working on applications, tools and platforms for crowd-sourcing and micro-tasking. At the end of last year, we posted about a cute little app developed at a hackday called the Data Digitizer that was being used to transcribe Brazillian budgetary data. In recent months we’ve been working closely […]
In early March, we embarked on a project to map out projects which use technology to further the aims of fiscal transparency, accountability and participation. Today, we are happy to announce the official release of the resulting report, Technology for Transparent and Accountable Public Finance. Preliminary findings were presented at last month’s GIFT meeting in […]
To take part in the Open Data Census 2012, please visit: http://opengovernmentdata.org/census/submit/. As government officials, civil society leaders and open data experts gather in Brazil this week for the Open Government Partnership, it is clear that Open Government Data has become a major topic on a global scale. In September last year, 8 governments founded […]
The Public Domain Review is very excited to reveal the brand new “Filter by Category” option for the Collections section of the website. Previously everything was simply piled into either the Films, Images, Texts or Audio section with no further options for sorting. No longer. Now users can filter within each section by category of […]
For some time, we at the Open Knowledge Foundation have been working on a project to allow you to annotate the web. All of it. We’re now happy to announce two major releases: of Annotator, the code that makes web annotation possible, and AnnotateIt, a web service providing storage for your annotations. What are you […]
Following on from our Open GLAM workshop in London, in a few weeks we’re hosting a half day workshop in Berlin looking at how to overcome barriers to opening up data in the cultural heritage sector entitled Rechtliche Fragen beim Öffnen von (Meta-) Daten Gedächtnisinstitutionen (Legal Questions Regarding (Meta)data in Cultural Heritage Institutions). We […]
I’m pleased to announce that the video of my talk, Open Data: How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going, that I gave a few weeks ago at the LIFT 2012 conference has now been published: Over the past few years, there has an explosive growth in open data with significant uptake in government, research […]
The Panton Fellowships are a new initiative to support scientists who promote open access to data. Funded by Open Society Foundations, the Open Knowledge Foundation are proud to welcome Ross Mounce and Sophie Kershaw as the first ever Panton Fellows. ##What are the Panton Fellowships? Many scientists believe in the benefits of open data. […]
A major new feature in the DataHub is good news for data wranglers. The DataStore allows users to store and load structured data into a database, where it can be queried, filtered, or accessed from other programs via a rich data API. The API is also used by CKAN’s inbuilt Recline Data Explorer, giving in-page […]
Who is using technology to follow the money? The hunt is on… Over the last month, we have been working on a report entitled “Technology for Transparent and Accountable Public Finance” for the Global Initiative on Fiscal Transparency. We are hoping to identify the most promising projects around the world that are using technology (web, […]
We've hit the new year running here at the Open Knowledge Foundation! Our work is expanding in every dimension, with new groups and chapters popping up all over the world, new projects and initiatives constantly emerging, and existing projects growing. But the most crucial aspect of this growth is making sure more people are being […]
The Open Knowledge Foundation is delighted to announce that it will be leading the community work for a three-year EU funded project entitled Digitised Manuscripts to Europena (DM2E). The project consortium, which includes academic institutions, NGOs and commercial partners, will be led by Professor Stefan Gradmann at the Humboldt University. ##Europeana The project aims to […]
Last night was the first OKFN Meet-Up in Scotland* at the Ghillie Dhu, Edinburgh, run in collaboration with DevCSI. 19 people attended from around the city and nearby, including Glasgow, and those visiting for the Open Biblio Sprint represented Cambridge, London, Wolverhampton and the Netherlands. The Auditorium was a beautiful venue, and there was a […]
Earlier this month, our Energy and Climate Hackday brought together about 50 people in London and online, joining from Berlin, Washington D.C., Amsterdam, Graz and Bogota. With participants working in the private sector, for NGOs, universities and the public sector, we had a good mix of people with different expertise and skills. Some people had […]
Interested in Open Knowledge? Want to meet others who are? …Look no further! OKFN and DevCSI are arranging the first Meet-up here in Edinburgh, with the Open Biblio project team taking the helm. OKFN Meet-ups are friendly and informal evenings for people to get together and talk about open data. London and Cambridge have had […]
On Saturday 3rd March we’re getting together for the Energy and Climate Hackday to data-wrangle and build apps around energy and climate data. All skills and interest groups are welcome: developers, data journalists, economists, climate scientists, environmentalists and interested citizens. When? Saturday 3rd March, 11am GMT (12pm CET/6am EST) to ~7pm GMT (8pm CET/3pm EST) […]
We are delighted to announce that the Open Knowledge Foundation in partnership with the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge has received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the development of an Open Economics Working Group. The aim of the working group is to encourage more […]
The Open Knowledge Foundation are proud to announce the launch of version 1.0 of the Open Data Handbook (formerly the Open Data Manual): Read the Open Data Handbook now! » The Handbook discusses the ‘why, what and how’ of open data – why to go open, what open is, how to make data open and […]
We’re pleased to announce a simple new service from the Open Knowledge Foundation as part of the Open Definition Project: the (Open) Licenses Service. The service is ultra simple in purpose and function. It provides: Information on licenses for open data, open content, and open-source software in machine readable form (JSON) A simple web API […]
Last month, the glorious Public Domain Review celebrated its first birthday. The Public Domain Review aspires to become a bounteous gateway into the whopping plenitude that is the public domain, helping our readers to explore this rich terrain by surfacing unusual and obscure works, and offering fresh reflections and unfamiliar angles on material which is […]
The following post is by Laura Newman, a Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation and Coordinator of the Panton Fellowships. Funding for scientists who promote open data. £8,000 over one year, plus a small discretionary budget for travel and related expenses. How would you promote open data in science? See the Panton Principles’ website […]
BibSoup is here! And it’s going to revolutionise how you work with bibliographic metadata. The team has been coding and blogging and bugfixing for a while now on the BibServer software, and we’ve mentioned in passing that our own instance has been up and running under the name of BibSoup… Now we are officially launching […]
Do you speak another language apart from English? Have you got a little bit of spare time over the next week? CKAN 1.6 is set to release in one week’s time and all the new features need translating. Can you help us complete it in time? If you can spend 15 minutes filling in the […]
The following post is by the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Jonathan Gray and is cross-posted from his personal blog. A little while ago I posted some ideas for a project called OpenPhilosophy.org, which would enable users to transcribe, translate, annotate and create collections of philosophical texts which have entered the public domain. As was announced last […]
This post is by Liliana Bounegru, Project Coordinator at the European Journalism Centre, and Lucy Chambers, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. It is cross posted on DataDrivenJournalism.net Where can I find data and how can I request access to it? What tools are available to me? How can I find useful stories within […]
The following post is by Sam Leon, Community Co-ordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We’re delighted to announce that JISC will be funding the initial development of the TEXTUS platform as part of its Digital Infrastructure Programme. TEXTUS will be a lightweight, easy-to-use platform that will enable users to read, share and collaborate around public […]
The following post is from Federica Cocco, a freelance journalist and the former editor of Owni.eu, a data-driven investigative journalism site based in Paris. She has also worked with Wired, Channel 4 and the Guardian. It is cross posted on DataDrivenJournalism.net and on the Data Journalism Blog. Ravensbourne College is an ultramodern cubist design school […]
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. Following on from our Open GLAM workshop in Warsaw last month, in a few weeks we’re hosting a half day workshop looking at how to overcome barriers to opening up data in the cultural heritage sector. So far we have confirmed […]
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. With the Mozilla Festival approaching fast, we’re getting really excited about getting stuck into drafting the Data Journalism Handbook, in a series of sessions run by the Open Knowledge Foundation and the European Journalism Centre. As we blogged about last month, […]
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. The world’s biggest open data event to date, Open Government Data Camp 2011, is taking place in Warsaw next week. Our dedicated team of organisers has been busy working around the clock to prepare a veritable feast of all things open […]
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. The European Commission has very kindly offered to provide an EU travel bursary for Open Government Data Camp 2011. It will cover travel and accommodation for up to 30 participants from across Europe. You can find full details here: Here’s an […]
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We’re delighted to announce that registration for Open Government Data Camp 2011 is now open! This will be the biggest international open data event to date. An quick overview in numbers: 2 days of talks, workshops and code sprints 10 days […]
The following post is by Theodora Middleton, blog editor at the OKF. The new Open Government Partnership, a “multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance,” was announced last week by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Brazilian […]
The following guest post is from Andrew Stott, who sits on the UK Government’s Public Sector Transparency Board. In his former role as Director of Digital Engagement at the Cabinet Office, Andrew helped to set up the UK’s open data initiative. Today’s announcement about the next year of the UK Government’s Transparency and Open Data programme […]
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. I’ve recently been thinking about the role the Open Knowledge Foundation can play in helping to open up the public domain. Ultimately I think we should help to rally existing stakeholders from around the world behind a simple vision, and encourage […]
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We’re very pleased to announce an alpha version of datacatalogs.org, a website to help keep track of open data catalogues from around the world. The project is being launched to coincide with our annual conference, OKCon 2011. You can see the […]
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