Open Data Day in Kenya and in Madagascar

Co-authored by Prisca Rananjarison (Madagascar) and Chepkemoi Magdaline (Kenya) This blog is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2018. On Saturday 3 March, groups from around the world organised over 400 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. 45 events received additional support through the Open Knowledge International […]

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Open Data Day 2018: getting the local communities in Porto and Helsinki to talk about open mapping

This blog is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2018. On Saturday 3 March, groups from around the world organised over 400 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. 45 events received additional support through the Open Knowledge International mini-grants scheme, funded by Hivos, SPARC, Mapbox, […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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The Open Data Charter’s Measurement Guide is now open for consultation!

This blogpost is co-authored by  Ana Brandusescu  and Danny Lämmerhirt, co-chairs of the Measurement and Accountability Working Group of the Open Data Charter. The Measurement and Accountability Working Group (MAWG) is launching the public consultation phase for the draft Open Data Charter Measurement* Guide! Measurement tools are often described in technical language. The Guide explains how […]

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Open Council Data of more than 100 Dutch municipalities reused in app WhereGovernment

This blog has been reposted from the Open State Foundation blog. More than a hundred Dutch municipalities release Open Council Data, including all documents of the municipal council – decisions, agendas, motions, amendments and policy documents – easily and collectively accessible. The data is now available for reuse in applications. Recently, the first app that […]

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Beta Version of Open Data Nepal – A Portal to Make Nepal’s Data Accessible Online

The demand side of the data is increasing constantly. But finding and using data is difficult if there is no central data catalog. Often, structured and usable data is hard to find online. This is why Open Knowledge Nepal launches the beta version of Open Data Nepal on the occasion of the International Open Data […]

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Open Data Day 2018: what do we celebrate and why?

On Open Data Day (http://opendataday.org/), which is happening this year on Saturday 3 March 2018, we celebrate the benefits that open data can bring to our communities and the society at large. But what is open data exactly and why is it important? This blogpost seeks to give you some useful resources to answer this […]

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We crack the Schufa, the German credit scoring

Last week the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany (OKFDE) and AlgorithmWatch launched the project OpenSCHUFA. Inspired by OKF Finland and the „mydata“ project, OpenSCHUFA is the first„mydata“ project by OKFDE. Over the last 7 days, the campaign generated Germany-wide media attention, and already over 8.000 individual Schufa data request (30.000 personal data requests in total). Why […]

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What does the history of global trade look like? The collaborative database RICardo opens up trade data to shed light on this question

RICardo (Research on International Commerce) is a project dedicated to trade between nations over a period spanning the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to the eve of the Second World War. It combines a historical trade database covering all of the world’s countries and a website which invites to an exploration of the history of […]

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Announcing the 2018 International Open Data Day mini-grant winners!

Open Data Day is an important date for a broad community that works for a more open world, where information can benefit more people.  To support the efforts made by different groups and organizations on this day, we have developed the  Open Data Day mini-grants, where, along with other organizations interested in having a more […]

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Board members wanted!

Open Knowledge International (OKI), the international non-profit dedicated to realising open data’s value to society, is looking for people to join our Board of Directors. Background in brief below and full details here. We want you! We are seeking passionate people to join a committed and experienced team, to foster and promote our mission and […]

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Open Data Day 2018 is coming: what’s on the map?

Open Data Day is only a few weeks away: on Saturday 3 March 2018 groups from around the world are hosting talks, hackathons, conferences, workshops and other meetups celebrating the benefits open data can bring their communities. The focus this year is on four key themes: open science & open research data, tracking public money […]

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Open Belgium 2018: “Open Communities – Smart Society”

The next edition of Open Belgium, a community driven conference organised by Open Knowledge Belgium, is almost here! In less than 4 weeks, 300 industry, research, government and citizen stakeholders will gather and discuss current trends around Open Knowledge and Open Data in Belgium. Open Belgium is the ideal place to get an update on […]

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Open Budget Survey 2017: global comparison of budget transparency comes at a critical time

On 30 January 2018 the International Budget Partnership (IBP) has published the Open Budget Survey 2017 with an interactive Data Explorer developed for the IBP by Open Knowledge International and updated for the 2017 survey. Launched in 2006, the Open Budget Survey (OBS) is the world’s only independent, comparative assessment of the three pillars of […]

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U.S. City Open Data Census relaunched: here’s how you can get involved

Since 2014, the U.S. City Open Data Census has tracked what datasets are open and available online in cities across the United States. In doing this, the Census is one of the nation’s most prominent (though not perfect) benchmarking tools for city staff and residents to understand what data their city makes available, how their city […]

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A new track for Open Data Day mini-grants: Open Data for Equal Development

As we get closer to Open Data Day 2018, we keep working to make this year’s events really awesome. To achieve this we have some good news for you: We now will support one more track of Open Data Day events! The new track is Open Data for Equal Development and it’s sponsored by OKI […]

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OpenEdu Policies reports: JRC Research Centre

This blog has been reposted from the Open Education Working Group blog and has been written as a joint effort by Javiera Atenas and  Paul Bacsich, co-coordinators of the Open Education Working Group.  Hot off the press: OpenEdu Policies reports . These reports are the final outcome of one and a half intense years of research […]

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Announcing the Open Data Day 2018 mini-grants scheme

If data is freed into the open, but no one uses it, can we consider it open data? This is one of the questions we need to ask ourselves is we want to promote data use. And what better day to promote data use than Open Data Day (ODD)? So what is Open Data Day? […]

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Publication: A Field Guide to “Fake News” and Other Information Disorders

This blog has been reposted from http://jonathangray.org/2018/01/08/field-guide-to-fake-news/ Last week saw the launch of A Field Guide to “Fake News” and Other Information Disorders, a new free and open access resource to help students, journalists and researchers investigate misleading content, memes, trolling and other phenomena associated with recent debates around “fake news”. The field guide responds to an increasing […]

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Educators ask for a better copyright

This blog has been reposted from the Open Education Working Group page.   Today we, the Open Education Working Group, publish a joint letter initiated by Communia Association for the Public Domain that urgently requests to improve the education exception in the proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive). The letter […]

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A lookback on 2017 with OK Brazil

This blog has been written by Natalia Mazotte and Ariel Kogan, co-directors of Open Knowledge Brazil (OKBR). It has been translated from the original version at https://br.okfn.org/2017/12/29/como-foi-o-ano-de-2017-para-a-okbr by Juliana Watanabe, volunteer of OKBR. For us at Open Knowledge Brazil (OKBR), the year 2017 was filled with multiple partnerships, support and participation in events; projects and campaigns for mobilisation. In […]

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New edition of Data Journalism Handbook to explore journalistic interventions in the data society

This blog has been reposted from http://jonathangray.org/2017/12/20/new-edition-data-journalism-handbook/ The first edition of The Data Journalism Handbook has been widely used and widely cited by students, practitioners and researchers alike, serving as both textbook and sourcebook for an emerging field. It has been translated into over 12 languages – including Arabic, Chinese, Czech, French, Georgian, Greek, Italian, Macedonian, […]

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2017: A Year to Remember for OK Nepal

This blog has been cross-posted from the OK Nepal blog as part of our blog series of Open Knowledge Network updates. Best wishes for 2018 from OK Nepal to all of the Open Knowledge family and friends!! The year 2017 was one of the best years for Open Knowledge Nepal. We started our journey by […]

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Data aggregators: a solution to open data issues

This is a guest opinion piece written by Guiseppe Maio, and Jedrzej Czarnota PhD. Their biographies can be found below this post. Open Knowledge International’s report on the state of open data identifies the main problems affecting open government data initiatives. These are: the very low discoverability of open data sources, which were rightfully defined […]

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Season’s greetings from Open Knowledge International

Happy Holidays and Season’s Greetings to all of the Open Knowledge family and friends!! With the departure of the CEO at the end of October we have been busy aligning our roles to pick up the additional responsibility. As we start to reflect, it’s clear that 2017 has been a year of challenges and great […]

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How to innovate? Prototype everything!

We recognized a problem. There are so many individuals and small teams with good ideas out there, but there is little to no financial support. We wanted to change that. This is how the idea for the Prototype Fund came to life. Usually, in order to receive funding, teams need to have a clear-cut business […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Open Knowledge Foundation research report: Avoiding data use silos

New Report: Avoiding data use silos – How governments can simplify the open licensing landscape

We are pleased to announce our latest report  ‘Avoiding data use silos – How governments can simplify the open licensing landscape’. This report outlines the problems of an ever-growing complexity of open licences, the risk of data use silos, and explains why reusable standard licences, or putting the data in the public domain are the […]

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Requiem for an Internet Dream

The dream of the Internet is dying. Killed by its children. We have barely noticed its demise and done even less to save it. It was a dream of openness, of unprecedented technological and social freedom to connect and innovate. Whilst expressed in technology, it was a dream that was, in essence, political and social. […]

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Open Data Day – 3 March 2018: you are invited!

2018 is almost here, and that means that on Saturday 3 March, we’ll be celebrating Open Data Day (ODD). As always, this is a bottom-up initiative, where we expect to gain momentum and highlight the different uses that Open Data can have in different contexts. We know that some people in the community are already […]

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Czech Open Data Challenge: a showcase of amazing transparency apps

This blog post was written by the Czech Republic Open Knowledge team as part of our blog series of Open Knowledge Network updates.  In the fifth edition of Czech open data challenge, interested parties from the ranks of the public, non-profit organizations and companies were invited to submit applications that use or generate open data. Applications developed between November […]

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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 […]

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OKFestival 2018 becomes Open Knowledge Summit May 2018 in Thessaloniki

It is with regret that due to recent circumstances within Open Knowledge International, we have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to cancel the planned Open Knowledge Festival 2018. This announcement has been a very difficult decision for the team at OKI, however with such a short time frame ahead and a lack […]

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New report: Governing by rankings – How the Global Open Data Index helps advance the open data agenda

This blogpost was jointly written by Danny Lämmerhirt and Mária Žuffová (University of Strathclyde). We are pleased to announce our latest report Governing by rankings – How the Global Open Data Index helps advance the open data agenda. The Global Open Data Index (GODI) is one of the largest worldwide assessments of how well governments publish […]

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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 […]

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Pin it in the Parks: Crowdsourcing park facilities information in Dublin

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. This month, the project is running the Pin it in the Parks competition together with Smart Dublin to encourage, […]

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How do open data measurements help water advocates to advance their mission?

This blogpost was jointly written by Danny Lämmerhirt and Nisha Thompson (DataMeet). Since its creation, the open data community has been at the heart of the Global Open Data Index (GODI). By teaming up with expert civil society organisations we define key datasets that should be opened by government to align with civil society’s priorities. […]

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Why public country-by-country reporting should be introduced in the UK and across Europe

The release of the Paradise Papers has drawn attention to international calls for greater tax transparency to tackle the issues raised by the leak of millions of documents detailing the offshore behaviour of some of the world’s richest people and corporations. Along with a renewed push for the creation of public beneficial ownership registers to […]

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The Open Data Survey: Measuring what matters to you

I once heard a brilliant government official say that in government you only measure what matters to you. This resonated with me back when I was a public servant and it makes even more sense now that I have participated over the last few years in the Global Open Data Index (GODI), one of Open […]

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How mundane admin records helped open Finnish politics: An example of “impolite” transparency advocacy

This blogpost was jointly written by Aleksi Knuutila and Georgia Panagiotidou. Their bio’s can be found at the bottom of the page. In a recent blog post Tom Steinberg, long-term advocate of transparency and open data, looked back on what advocacy groups working on open government had achieved in the past decade. Overall, progress is […]

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Visual gateways into science: Why it’s time to change the way we discover research

Have you ever noticed that it is really hard to get an overview of a research field that you know nothing about? Let’s assume for a minute that a family member or a loved one of yours has fallen ill and unfortunately, the standard treatment isn’t working. Like many other people, you now want to […]

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Facilitating data validation and reuse for a scientific community

We worked with eLife to set up measures to assess the data quality, so that the value of this shared data is better understood by the research community.

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The future of the Global Open Data Index: assessing the possibilities

In the last couple of months we have received questions regarding the status of the new Global Open Data Index (GODI) from a few members of our Network. This blogpost is to update everyone on the status of GODI and what comes next. But first, some context: GODI is one of the biggest assessments of […]

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OKI wins funds from ODI to create Open Data publication toolkit

Open Knowledge International (OKI) has been awarded funds by the Open Data Institute (ODI) as part of a project to enhance and increase adoption of tools and services for open data publishers in the private and public sectors, reducing barriers to publication. OKI’s focus in this programme will be to create better open data publication […]

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Sensitizing Nepal’s digital natives: Open Data Awareness Program announced

To support Nepal’s growing open data movement and increase its network of data-savvy practitioners, Open Knowledge Nepal has announced the Open Data Awareness Program, which aims to sensitize more than 300+ students and youth from seven districts. The Open Data Awareness Program aims to raise awareness about the concept and usage of open data to […]

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How Wikimedia helped authors make over 3000 articles green open access via Dissemin

In light of this year’s Open Access week, Michele Marchetto of Wikimedia Italia shares the story of how they helped authors to make their open access articles more widely available. This post has been cross-posted from Wikimedia Italia. Wikipedia is probably the most effective initiative in the world to increase the readership of academic literature: for instance, wikipedia.org […]

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eLife: Facilitating data validation & reuse with goodtables

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. Through a series of pilots, we are working directly with organizations to solve real problems managing data.  eLife is a […]

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Understanding the costs of scholarly publishing – Why we need a public data infrastructure of publishing costs

Scholarly communication has undergone a seismic shift away from closed publishing towards an ever-growing support for open access. With closed publishing models, academic libraries faced a so-called  “serials crisis” and were not able to afford the materials they needed for their researchers and students. Partly in response to this problem, open access advocates have argued […]

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