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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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? […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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, […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more
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 […]

Read more

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. […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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, […]

Read more

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. […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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.

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

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 […]

Read more

Leveraging the fight for stronger openness in education

This blog has been jointly written by Muriel Poisson (IIEP-UNESCO) and Javiera Atenas (Open Education Working Group): their full bio’s can be found below this post. Education and corruption: these two themes tend to come out in every discussion about development, although, there is little discussion on corruption in the educational systems, or how to […]

Read more

Pavel Richter stands down as Chief Executive Officer

It is with a mixture of sadness and gratitude that the Board of Directors announces that Pavel Richter will be leaving his position as Chief Executive Officer of Open Knowledge International as of today. He will be available to support the Board and Leadership Team until the end of 2017, to ensure a smooth transition. […]

Read more

AbreLatam / Condatos: after the first 5 years

This is a somewhat belated entry about the Abrelatam and Condatos, the regional open data conference of Latin America. It comes more than a month after the conference took place in San José, Costa Rica, but the questions raised there are still relevant and super important for advancing open data in Latin America and working […]

Read more

Remix public domain artworks: join the GIF IT UP 2017 competition

This blogpost has been adapted from the press release by Europeana. Open Knowledge International has for many years advocated for the importance of open cultural data, which enables citizens from across the world to enjoy this material, understand their cultural heritage and re-use this material to produce new works of art. Some examples of this work […]

Read more

Bridging the gap between journalism and data analysis

This blogpost was written by Chikezie Omeje,  Kunle Adelowo and Vershima Tingir as part of the Open Data for Development (OD4D) embedded fellowship programme. This recently initiated programme is designed to build the organisational capacity of civil society organisations to use data effectively by raising the level of data literacy of the staff of the partner […]

Read more

OKFestival 2018  – It’s time for a competition!

Update 30 November 2017: Despite earlier announcements, Open Knowledge International have decided not to run OKFestival 2018. There have been some recent major changes in the organisation that have adversely affected our ability to produce a Festival which would match the expectations of our networks and partners. We are, obviously, disappointed by this decision but […]

Read more

Public money? Public code!

If taxpayers pay for something, they should have access to the results of the work they paid for. This seems a very logical basic premise that no-one would disagree with, but there are many cases of where this is not common practice. For example, in various countries Freedom of Information laws do not fully apply to cases where governments […]

Read more

An update from Open Burkina

Energy is fundamental to any development. The National Electricity Company of Burkina Faso (SONABEL) whose task is the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in the Burkinabè population, works hard to enable citizens to benefit from this as an important resource. However, it is clear that SONABEL hardly fulfills this mission: hardly a day goes by […]

Read more

This is what Europe can do to stimulate Text and Data Mining

This press release has been reposted from the FutureTDM website Text and data mining – using algorithms to analyse content in ways that would be impossible for humans – is shaping up to be a vital research tool of the 21st century. But Europe lags behind other parts of the world in adopting these new […]

Read more

Openbudgets.eu: the new platform for financial transparency in Europe

Today, OpenBudgets officially launches its fiscal transparency platform. Using OpenBudgets.eu journalists, civil servants, and data scientists can process, analyse, and explore the nature and relevance of fiscal data. The platform offers a toolbox to everyone who wants to upload, visualise and analyse fiscal data. From easy to use visualisations and high level analytics to fun games and accessible explanations of public budgeting and corruption […]

Read more

Research call: Mapping the impacts of the Global Open Data Index

Note: The deadline for proposal submission has been extended until Sunday, 17 September, 21:00 UTC. The Global Open Data Index (GODI) is a worldwide assessment of open data publication in more than 90 countries. It provides evidence how well governments perform in open data publication. This call invites interested researchers and organisations to systematically study the effects […]

Read more