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The final Global Open Data Index is now live

The updated Global Open Data Index has been published today, along with our report on the state of Open Data this year. The report includes a broad overview of the problems we found around data publication and how we can improve government open data. You can download the full report here. Also, after the Public Dialogue […]

What data do we need? The story of the Cadasta GODI fellowship

This blogpost was written by Lindsay Ferris and Mor Rubinstein   There is a lot of data out there, but which data users needs to solve their issues? How can we, as an external body, know which data is vital so we can measure it?  Moreover, what to do when data is published in so […]

The state of open licensing in 2017

This blog post is part of our Global Open Data Index (GODI) blog series. Firstly, it discusses what open licensing is and why it is crucial for opening up data. Afterward, it outlines the most urgent issues around open licensing as identified in the latest edition of the Global Open Data Index and concludes with […]

Impact Series: Improving Data Collection Capacity in Non-Technical Organisations

Open Knowledge International is a member of Open Data for Development (OD4D), a global network of leaders in the open data community, working together to develop open data solutions around the world. In this blog, David Opoku of Open Knowledge International talks about how the OD4D programme’s Africa Open Data Collaboration Fund and  Embedded Fellowships are helping build […]

Social Platform for Open Data – enabling interactions at Accountability Hack 2017

Since 2015 Open Knowledge International has been part of the consortium of ROUTETOPA (Raising Open, User-friendly, Transparency-Enabling Technologies for Public Administrations, routetopa.eu), an EU-funded project that is working round the clock to provide platforms for open data enthusiasts to interact on the subject of open data with data publishers and with other open data users. The […]

Open data quality – the next shift in open data?

This blog post is part of our Global Open Data Index blog series. It is a call to recalibrate our attention to the many different elements contributing to the ‘good quality’ of open data, the trade-offs between them and how they support data usability (see here some vital work by the World Wide Web Consortium). […]

csv,conf,v3

The third manifestation of everyone’s favorite community conference about data—csv,conf,v3—happened earlier this May in Portland, Oregon. The conference brought together data makers/doers/hackers from various backgrounds to share knowledge and stories about data in a relaxed, convivial, alpaca-friendly (see below) environment. Several Open Knowledge International staff working across our Frictionless Data, OpenSpending, and Open Data for […]

Why MEPs should vote in favour of releasing public country-by-country reporting as open data

Tax avoidance and profit shifting by corporations across the world is an issue which has been gaining visibility over the past decade with many governments, campaigners, researchers and journalists calling for urgent political action. These calls have only gotten louder following recent reporting on scandals such as Luxleaks and the Panama Papers by the International […]

Measuring the Openness of Government Data in the Balkans

Open Data Kosovo is a civic-tech organization that uses technology to contribute towards social good. The organization has created an exciting network of partners both local and international while working on projects related to visualizing procurement data, mapping satellite imagery for human rights violations, data collection and entry of 112 emergency calls, countering violent extremism […]

What is the difference between budget, spending and procurement data?

Fiscal data is a complex topic. It comes in all different kind of formats and languages, its’ availability cannot be taken for granted and complexity around fiscal data needs special skills and knowledge to unlock and fully understand it. The Global Open Data Index (GODI) assesses three fiscal areas of national government: budgets, spending, and procurement. Repeatedly […]

Our country sample (and what it tells about our contributors)

The Global Open Data Index has changed a lot this year, from our methodology to our software. This has been a community effort. This year we also collaborated with an amazing group of community leaders who helped gather the submissions in different regions as well as an extraordinary group of reviewers who helped make sure […]

How to Read the Global Open Data Index Results

The Global Open Data Index (GODI) is a tool to educate civil society and governments about open government data publication. We do so through presenting different information, including places scores, ranking, and scores for each data category per place, and comments by our submitters and reviewers. Even though we try to make this assessment coherent […]

Steady but Slow – Open Data’s Progress in the Caribbean

This blog post was co-authored with Denique Ferguson and Alesha Aris of the SlashRoots Foundation Over the last two years, the SlashRoots Foundation has supported the Caribbean’s participation in the Open Knowledge International’s Global Open Data Index, an annual survey which measures the state of  “open” government across the world. We recently completed the 2016 survey […]

Making European Subsidy Data Open

One month after releasing subsidystories.eu a joint project of Open Knowledge Germany and Open Knowledge International, we have some great news to share. Due to the extensive outreach of our platform and the data quality report we published, new datasets have been directly sent to us by several administrations. We have recently added new data […]

Collaborating For A Greater Good

Open Knowledge International is a member of Open Data for Development (OD4D), a global network of leaders in the open data community, working together to develop open data solutions around the world. In this blog, Nana Baah Gyan talks about his work carrying out an embedded data fellowship with Advocates for Community Alternatives (ACA) in Ghana as part of the OD4D programme.  Generally, […]

Frictionless Data Case Study: data.world

Open Knowledge International is working on the Frictionless Data project to remove the friction in working with data. We are doing this by developing a set of software, specifications, and best practices for publishing data. The heart of Frictionless Data is the Data Package specification, a containerization format for any kind of data based on existing […]

Frictionless Data Case Study: John Snow Labs

Open Knowledge International is working on the Frictionless Data project to remove the friction in working with data. We are doing this by developing a set of tools, standards, and best practices for publishing data. The heart of Frictionless Data is the Data Package standard, a containerization format for any kind of data based on existing […]

The Global Open Data Index – an update and the road ahead

The Global Open Data Index is a civil society collaborative effort to track the state of open government data around the world. The survey is designed to assess the openness of specific government datasets according to the Open Definition. Through this initiative, we want to provide a civil society audit of how governments actually publish […]

Three ways ROUTETOPA promotes Transparency

Data sharing has come a long way over the years. With open source tools, improvements and new features are always quickly on the rise. Serah Rono looks at how ROUTETOPA, a Horizon2020 project advocate for transparency. From as far back as the age of enlightenment, the human race has worked hard to keep authorities accountable. […]

New site SubsidyStories.eu shows where nearly 300bn of EU subsidies go across Europe

Open Knowledge Germany and Open Knowledge International launched SubsidyStories.eu: a database containing all recipients of EU Structural Funds, accounting for 292,9 Billion Euros of EU Subsidies. The European Union allocates 44 % of its total 7-year budget through the European Structural Funds. Who received these funds – accounting for 347 Billion Euro from 2007 – […]

FutureTDM: The Future of Text and Data Mining

Blog written by Freyja van den Boom (FutureTDM researcher) and Lieke Ploeger. Since September 2015 Open Knowledge International has been working on finding new ways to improve the uptake of text and data mining in the EU, as part of the FutureTDM project. Text and data mining (TDM) is the process of extracting relevant information […]

Museum collections and the stories we tell about data

This week Frictionless Data will be at Always Already Computational: Library Collections as Data. Sierra Williams looks at the containers for museum and library collections data and why storytelling is important for understanding these collections in the digital age. One of the great things about working at Open Knowledge International is being surrounded by fascinating […]

7 ways the ROUTE-TO-PA project has improved data sharing through CKAN

Data sharing has come a long way over the years. With open source tools, improvements and new features are always quickly on the horizon. Serah Rono looks at the improvements that have been made to open source data management system CKAN through the course of the ROUTE-TO-PA project.  In the present day, 5MB worth of […]

Excel is threatening the quality of research data — Data Packages are here to help

This week the Frictionless Data team at Open Knowledge International will be speaking at the International Digital Curation Conference #idcc17 on making research data quality visible. Dan Fowler looks at why the popular file format Excel is problematic for research and what steps can be taken to ensure data quality is maintained throughout the research […]

How could a global public database help to tackle corporate tax avoidance?

A new research report published today looks at the current state and future prospects of a global public database of corporate accounts. Shipyard of the Dutch East India Company in Amsterdam, 1750. Wikipedia. The multinational corporation has become one of the most powerful and influential forms of economic organisation in the modern world. Emerging at […]

Open Data by default: Lorca City Council is using OpenSpending to increase transparency and promote urban mobility.

Castillo de Lorca. Torre Alfonsina (Public Domain) Lorca, a city located in the South of Spain with currently 92,000 inhabitants, launched its open data initiative on January 9th 2014. Initially it offered 23 datasets containing transport, mobility, statistical and economic information. From the very beginning, OpenSpending was the tool selected by Lorca City Council because of its […]

Brazil’s Public Spending project is looking for leaders in various regions of Brazil to increase participation in the budgeting process.

On the 11th of January, OK Brazil launched its new Public Spending website. The website is part of a wider campaign to search, recruit and support new leaders that wish to work with transparency, mainly public spending, in Brazilian municipalities and is using OKI’s OpenSpending technical architecture. The support will be provided to mentors specializing in […]

Danish Energinet.dk will use CKAN to launch Energy DataStore – a free and open portal for sharing energy data

For immediate release Open data service provider Viderum is working with Energinet.dk, the gas and electricity transmission system operator in Denmark, to provide near real-time access to Danish energy data. Using CKAN, an open-source platform for sharing data originally developed by Open Knowledge International, Energinet.dk’s Energy DataStore will provide easy and open access to large […]

Structuring a Global Online Survey – A Question Engine for Open Data Surveys!

The Global Open Data Index (GODI) is one of our core projects at Open Knowledge International. The index measures and benchmarks the openness of government data around the world. Brook Elgie shares a behind-the-scenes look at the technical design of how we gather the data for the Index through our extensive Open Data Survey and […]

Openbudgets.eu launches collection of fiscal transparency tools for journalists and civil society organisations.

Berlin, November 21, 2016 – Today, the beta version of OpenBudgets is officially released to the public. The Horizon 2020-funded project seeks to advance transparency and accountability in the fiscal domain by providing journalists, CSOs, NGOs, citizens and public administrations with state-of-the-art tools needed to effectively process and analyze financial data. For the beta version, […]

Municipal Money: Making municipal budgets more accessible

Code for South Africa just launched https://municipalmoney.gov.za/, a New Municipal Money project for South Africa, in partnership with the National Treasury. This is a step forward in collaboration with government. Code for South Africa’s goal is to empower citizens to hold their municipal officials to account. The focus of the portal is on municipal financial […]

ROUTETOPA – An Introduction

Transparency, at best, makes for unity and positive development in democracies around the world. There are elaborate commentaries on what transparency entails, but for me, transparency translates to open. Think open doors. In any given building in a public space, an open door often turns to an invitation to come in and look around, while […]

What is the Open Fiscal Data Package?

This post looks at the Open Fiscal Data Package – an open standard for publishing fiscal data developed by Open Knowledge International, GIFT and the World Bank. In September of 2016, Mexico became the first country to officially endorse the OFDP, by publishing Federal Budget data  in open formats using OpenSpending tools. OpenSpending is one of […]

Gearing up for the launch of the Global Open Data Index survey

The Global Open Data Index (GODI) is one of our core projects at Open Knowledge International. The index measures and benchmarks the openness of government data around the world, and presents this information in a way that is easy to understand and easy to use. It’s been a couple months since we updated the community […]

International Data Week: From Big Data to Open Data

Report from International Data Week: Research needs to be reproducible, data needs to be reusable and Data Packages are here to help. International Data Week has come and gone. The theme this year was ‘From Big Data to Open Data: Mobilising the Data Revolution’. Weeks later, I am still digesting all the conversations and presentations […]

Turning data into action: what we learned from conducting social audits on public housing communities in Malaysia

The Sinar Project in Malaysia is exploring ways of making critical information public and accessible to Malaysian citizens. The project is supported by the Open Data for Development (OD4D) programme and has been run in collaboration with OpenSpending at Open Knowledge International. In our previous blog post, we provided an overview of the Sinar Project’s work opening budget data […]

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