Tracking the Trade of Octopus (and Packaging the Data)

This blog is the fourth in a series done by the Frictionless Data Fellows, discussing how they created Frictionless Data Packages with their research data. Learn more about the Fellows Programme at fellows.frictionlessdata.io. By Lily Zhao Introduction When I started graduate school, I was shocked to learn that seafood is actually the most internationally traded […]

Announcing the 2020 Frictionless Data Tool Fund

Apply for a mini-grant to build an open source tool for reproducible research using Frictionless Data tooling, specs, and code base. Today, Open Knowledge Foundation is launching the second round of the Frictionless Data Tool Fund, a mini-grant scheme offering grants of $5,000 to support individuals or organisations in developing an open tool for reproducible […]

Data package is valid!

This blog is the second in a series done by the Frictionless Data Fellows, discussing how they created Frictionless Data Packages with their research data. Learn more about the Fellows Programme here http://fellows.frictionlessdata.io/. By Ouso Daniel The last few months have been exciting, to say the least. I dug deep into seeking to understand how […]

Combating other people’s data

This blog is the first in a series done by the Frictionless Data Fellows, discussing how they created Frictionless Data Packages with their research data. Learn more about the Fellows Programme here http://fellows.frictionlessdata.io/. By Monica Granados Follow the #otherpeoplesdata on Twitter and in it you will find a trove of data users trying to make […]

Frictionless Data Pipelines for Ocean Science

This blog post describes a Frictionless Data Pilot with the Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). Pilot projects are part of the Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research project. Written by the BCO-DMO team members Adam Shepherd, Amber York, Danie Kinkade, and development by Conrad Schloer. Scientific research is implicitly reliant upon the creation, […]

Frictionless Data Tool Fund update: Shelby Switzer and Greg Bloom, Open Referral

This blogpost is part of a series showcasing projects developed during the 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund. The 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund provided four mini-grants of $5,000 to support individuals or organisations in developing an open tool for reproducible research built using the Frictionless Data specifications and software. This fund is part of the […]

Neuroscience Experiments System Frictionless Tool

This blog is part of a series showcasing projects developed during the 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund.  The 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund provided four mini-grants of $5,000 to support individuals or organisations in developing an open tool for reproducible research built using the Frictionless Data specifications and software. This fund is part of the […]

Announcing Frictionless Data Joint Stewardship

We are pleased to announce joint stewardship of Frictionless Data between the Open Knowledge Foundation and Datopian. While this collaboration already exists informally, we are solidifying how we are leading together on future Frictionless Data projects and goals.   What does this mean for users of Frictionless Data software and specifications?   First, you will […]

Frictionless DarwinCore Tool by André Heughebaert

This blog is part of a series showcasing projects developed during the 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund.  The 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund provided four mini-grants of $5,000 to support individuals or organisations in developing an open tool for reproducible research built using the Frictionless Data specifications and software. This fund is part of the […]

Meet Lily Zhao, one of our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows

The Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme is training early career researchers to become champions of the Frictionless Data tools and approaches in their field. Fellows will learn about Frictionless Data, including how to use Frictionless Data tools in their domains to improve reproducible research workflows, and how to advocate for open science. Working […]

Meet Monica Granados, one of our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows

The Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme is training early career researchers to become champions of the Frictionless Data tools and approaches in their field. Fellows will learn about Frictionless Data, including how to use Frictionless Data tools in their domains to improve reproducible research workflows, and how to advocate for open science. Working […]

Meet Daniel Ouso, one of our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows

The Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme is training early career researchers to become champions of the Frictionless Data tools and approaches in their field. Fellows will learn about Frictionless Data, including how to use Frictionless Data tools in their domains to improve reproducible research workflows, and how to advocate for open science. Working […]

Meet Sele Yang, one of our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows

The Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme is training early career researchers to become champions of the Frictionless Data tools and approaches in their field. Fellows will learn about Frictionless Data, including how to use Frictionless Data tools in their domains to improve reproducible research workflows, and how to advocate for open science. Working […]

csv,conf returns for version 5 in May

Save the date for csv,conf,v5! The fifth version of csv,conf will be held at the University of California, Washington Center in Washington DC, USA, on May 13 and 14, 2020.    If you are passionate about data and its application to society, this is the conference for you. Submissions for session proposals for 25-minute talk […]

Join #Hacktoberfest 2019 with Frictionless Data

The Frictionless Data team is excited to participate in #Hacktoberfest 2019! Hacktoberfest is a month-long event where people from around the world contribute to open source software (and – you can win a t-shirt!). How does it work? All October, the Frictionless Data repositories will have issues ready for contributions from the open source community. […]

A recap of the 2019 eLife Innovation Sprint

Over 36 hours, Jo Barratt and Lilly Winfree from Open Knowledge Foundation’s Frictionless Data team joined 60 people from around the world to develop innovative solutions to open science obstacles at the 2019 eLife Innovation Sprint. This quick, collaborative event in Cambridge, UK, on September 4th and 5th brought together designers, scientists, coders, project managers, […]

A halfway point update from the 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund

In June 2019, we launched the Frictionless Data Tool Fund to facilitate reproducible data workflows in research contexts. Our four Tool Fund grantees are now at the halfway point of their projects, and have made great progress. Read on to learn more about these projects, their next steps, and how you can also contribute. Stephan […]

Introducing Datashades.info, a CKAN Community Service

Do you use CKAN to power an open data portal? In this guest post Link Digital explains how you can take advantage of their latest open data initiative Datashades.info. Datashades.info is a tool designed to deliver insights for researchers, portal managers, and the wider tech community to inform and support open data efforts relating to […]

Frictionless Data at the EPFL Open Science in Practice Summer School

In early September our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research product manager, Lilly Winfree, presented a workshop at the Open Science in Practice Summer School at EPFL University in Lausanne, Switzerland.  Lilly’s workshop focused on teaching early career researchers about using Frictionless software and specs to make their research data more interoperable, shareable, and open. The […]

A warm welcome to our Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows

As part of our commitment to opening up scientific knowledge, we recently launched the Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research Fellows Programme, which will run from mid-September until June 2020.  We received over 200 impressive applications for the Programme, and are very excited to introduce the four selected Fellows: Monica Granados, a Mitacs Canadian Science Policy […]

Why greater tax transparency is needed to help fix the broken global tax system

Public CBCR by Financial Transparency Coalition is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 The international tax system is broken and in need of urgent updating to address issues which allow globalised businesses to move their profits and intellectual property around the world, often to locations where they pay the least tax. Indeed some economists estimate that “close to […]

Meet our 2019 Frictionless Data Tool Fund grantees

In order to facilitate reproducible data workflows in research contexts, we recently launched the Frictionless Data Tool Fund. This one-time $5,000 grant attracted over 90 applications from researchers, developers, and data managers from all over the world. We are very excited to announce the four grantees for this round of funding, and have included a […]

Two years on, little action from the EU on public country-by-country reporting

Two years ago, members of the European Parliament voted to force large multinational corporations registered in Europe to reveal how much tax they pay, how many people they employ and what profits they make in every country where they work. The transparency measure – known as public country-by-country reporting (or public CBCR) – was first […]

Open call: become a Frictionless Data Reproducible Research Fellow

The Frictionless Data Reproducible Research Fellows Programme, supported by the Sloan Foundation, aims to train graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and early career researchers how to become champions for open, reproducible research using Frictionless Data tools and approaches in their field. Fellows will learn about Frictionless Data, including how to use Frictionless tools in their domains […]

Publishing Budget and Spending Open Data

This blog was written by Lorena Rivero del Paso (GIFT) and Oscar Montiel (Open Knowledge Foundation) and was originally posted on the GIFT blog. Increasingly, we see examples where lack of transparency and accountability from governments affects trust. Being able to follow public money flows is an important step to recover trust and aim towards […]

New report: Data journalism in Tanzania

Open Knowledge International and the School of Data are excited to announce the publication of a new research report into the state of data journalism in Tanzania. Data-driven journalism is an important and disruptive change in contemporary journalism practice. It is not a panacea solution to the fake news era, but it is a piece […]

Data Curator – share usable open data

Data Curator is a simple desktop editor to help describe, validate, and share usable open data. Open data producers are increasingly focusing on improving open data so it can be easily used to create insight and drive positive change. Open data is more likely to be used if data consumers can: understand the structure and […]

Announcing the Fiscal Data Helpdesk

Having data for budgets and spending can allow us to track public money flows in our communities. It can give us insights into how governments plan and focus on programmes, public works, and services. So the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT), along with Open Knowledge International (OKI), have been working on new tools to […]

How open is government data in Africa?

Findings from the Africa Open Data Index and Africa Data Revolution Report Today, we are pleased to announce the results of Open Knowledge International’s Africa Open Data Index. This regional version of our Global Open Data Index collected baseline data on open data publication in 30 African countries to provide input for the second Africa […]

Announcing the Frictionless Data Tool Fund

Apply for a mini-grant to build an open source tool for reproducible research using Frictionless Data tooling, specs, and code base Today, Open Knowledge International is launching the Frictionless Data Tool Fund, a mini-grant scheme offering grants of $5,000 to support individuals or organisations in developing an open source tool for reproducible science or research […]

Warming up to csv,conf.v4

On May 8 and 9 2019, the fourth version of csv,conf is set to take place at Eliot Center in Portland, Oregon, United States. csv,conf is a community conference bringing together diverse groups to discuss data topics, and features stories about data sharing and data analysis from science, journalism, government, and open source. Over two days, […]

Introducing our new Product Manager for Frictionless Data

Earlier this year OKI announced new funding from  The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to explore “Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research”. Over the next three years we will be working closely with researchers to support the way they are using data with the Frictionless Data software and tools. The project is delighted to announce that Lilly […]

Ubernomics: Platform Monopolies & How to Fix Them

First version: Dec 2016, updated Feb 2018. This blog is a summary of the full article at http://rufuspollock.com/ubernomics Around the world countries have struggled to work out how to deal with Uber, AirBnB and their like. Are these new apps something to be welcomed or something to be stopped? But how we treat Uber-like companies […]

How to publish budget and spending data openly

At the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) and Open Knowledge International (OKI) we believe that governments’ budget and spending data should be made available to all, so that anyone can see how their tax money is spent,what priorities their governments make, and governments can be held accountable. Increasingly governments make their budget data already […]

Frictionless Data and FAIR Research Principles

In August 2018, Serah Rono will be running a Frictionless Data workshop in CopenHagen, congregated by the Danish National Research Data Management Forum as part of the FAIR Across project. In October 2018, she will also run a Frictionless Data workshop at FORCE11 in Montreal, Canada. Ahead of the two workshops, and other events before […]

Sloan Foundation Funds Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research

We are excited to announce that Open Knowledge International has received a grant of $750,000 from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for our project “Frictionless Data for Reproducible Research”. The new funding from Sloan enables us to continue work over the next 3 years via enhanced dissemination and training activities, as well as further iteration […]

Introducing the 2018 Class of School of Data Fellows!

This blog has been reposted from the School of Data blog. School of Data is delighted to announce its sixth class of fellows. From June until January 2019, the programme will allow fellows to deepen their data literacy skills and work alongside local partner organisations to enhance the data literacy network local to them. We were […]

CKANconUS and Code for America Summit: some thoughts about the important questions

It’s been a few weeks after CKANConUS and the seventh Code for America Summit took place in Oakland. As always, it was a great place to meet old friends and new faces of technologists, policy experts, government innovators in the U.S. In this blogpost I share some of the experience of attending these two conferences […]

Introducing Version 1 of the Fiscal Data Package specification

The Fiscal Data Package is a lightweight and user-oriented format for publishing and consuming fiscal data. Fiscal Data Packages are made of simple and universal components, are extremely flexible, can be produced from ordinary spreadsheet software and used in any environment. This specification started about five years ago with a first version (then known as […]

Open Data for the Campania Cultural Heritage – an update from the Route-To-PA Hetor pilot

This blog has been reposted from the Hetor blog. Since 2015 Open Knowledge International has been part of the consortium of Route-To-PA, a European innovation project aimed at improving citizen engagement by enabling meaningful interaction between open data users, open data publishers and open data. In the Route-To-PA case study series, we shine a light on public administrations, […]

Solving the Internet Monopolies Problem – Facebook, Google et al

The good news is that an increasing number of people seem to agree that: Facebook, Google etc are monopolies That is a problem Agreeing we have a problem is always a crucial first step. But to go further we need to: Correctly diagnose the disease — in particular, avoid confusing the symptoms with the root […]

Apply Now! School of Data’s 2018 Fellowship Programme

This blog has been reposted from the School of Data blog School of Data is inviting journalists, data scientists, civil society advocates and anyone interested in advancing data literacy to apply for its 2018 Fellowship Programme, which will run from May 2018 to January 2019. 8 positions are open, 1 in each of the following countries: Bolivia, Guatemala, […]

Open Budgets Index: A survey by OK Greece on open budgets of public sector bodies in Greece

Within the scope of openbudgets.eu, a project funded by the European Union’s H2020 research and innovation programme, Open Knowledge Greece (OK Greece) conducted a survey on the availability of open public budgeting data in Greece. Then, our team created an interactive map that allows users to check the scores of their municipality or regional administrative […]

Improving your data publishing workflow with the Frictionless Data Field Guide

The Frictionless Data Field Guide provides step-by-step instructions for improving data publishing workflows. The field guide introduces new ways of working informed by the Frictionless Data suite of software that data publishers can use independently, or adapt into existing personal and organisational workflows. Data quality and automation of data processing are essential in creating useful […]

ROUTETOPA Case Study: Hetor Pilot

Since 2015 Open Knowledge International has been part of the consortium of RouteToPA, a European innovation project aimed at improving citizen engagement by enabling meaningful interaction between open data users, open data publishers and open data. In the ROUTETOPA case study series, we shine a light on public administrations, organizations and communities that have adopted and are […]

Validation for Open Data Portals: a Frictionless Data Case Study

The Frictionless Data project is about making it effortless to transport high quality data among different tools and platforms for further analysis. 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 […]

Frictionless Data Case Study: OpenML

The Frictionless Data project is about making it effortless to transport high quality data among different tools and platforms for further analysis. 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 […]

Paradise Lost: a data-driven report into who should be on the EU’s tax haven blacklist

Open Knowledge International coordinates the Open Data for Tax Justice project with the Tax Justice Network, working to create a global network of people and organisations using open data to improve advocacy, journalism and public policy around tax justice. Today, in partnership with the Tax Justice Network, we are publishing Paradise lost, a data-driven investigation […]