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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 […]
Read moreHow 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 moreROUTETOPA 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 moreValidation 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 moreNew 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 moreRequiem 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 moreOpen 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 moreCzech 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 moreFrictionless 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 moreOKFestival 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 moreNew 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 moreParadise 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 morePin 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 moreHow 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 moreWhy 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 moreThe 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 moreHow 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 moreVisual 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 moreFacilitating 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 moreThe 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 moreOKI 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 moreSensitizing 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 moreHow 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 moreeLife: 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 moreUnderstanding 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 moreLeveraging 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 morePavel 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 moreAbreLatam / 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 moreRemix 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 moreBridging 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 moreOKFestival 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 morePublic 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 moreAn 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 moreThis 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 moreOpenbudgets.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 moreResearch 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 moreFrictionless Data v1.0
Data Containerisation hits v1.0! Announcing a major milestone in the Frictionless Data initiative. Today, we’re announcing a major milestone in the Frictionless Data initiative with the official v1.0 release of the Frictionless Data specifications, including Table Schema and Data Package, along with a robust set of pre-built tooling in Python, R, Javascript, Java, PHP […]
Read morePodcast: Pavel Richter on the value of open data
This month Pavel Richter, CEO of Open Knowledge International, was interviewed by Stephen Ladek of Aidpreneur for the 161st episode of his Terms of Reference podcast. Aidpreneur is an online community focused on social enterprise, humanitarian aid and international development that runs this podcast to cover important topics in the social impact sector. Under the […]
Read moreThe Open Education Working Group: What do we do and what is coming up next
The Open Education Working Group (https://education.okfn.org) is a very active community of educators, researchers, PhD students, policy makers and advocates that promote, support and collaborate with projects related with the advancement of Open Education in different fields at international level. This group aims at supporting the development of Open Educational projects at international level but […]
Read moreFostering open, inclusive, and respectful participation
At Open Knowledge International we have been involved with various projects with other civil society organisations aiming for the release of public interest data, so that anyone can use it for any purpose. More importantly, we focus on putting this data to use, to help it fulfil its potential of working towards fairer and more […]
Read moreOpen Data Conference in Switzerland
This year’s Opendata.ch/2017, the Open Data Conference in Switzerland, was all about Open Smart Cities, Open Tourism & Transport Data, Open Science & Open Food Data. We learnt how Open Data can be a catalyst of digital transformation and a crucial factor for advancing data quality. We got insights into the role of open data in […]
Read moreOpen Data Handbook now available in the Nepali Language
On 7 August 2017 Open Knowledge Nepal launched the first version of Nepali Open Data Handbook – An introductory guidebook used by governments and civil society organizations around the world as an introduction and blueprint for open data projects. The book was launched by Mr. Krishna Hari Baskota, Chief Information Commissioner of National Information Commission, Dr. […]
Read moreOpenSpending platform update
Introduction OpenSpending is a free, open and global platform to search, visualise, and analyse fiscal data in the public sphere. This week, we soft launched an updated technical platform, with a newly designed landing page. Until now dubbed “OpenSpending Next”, this is a completely new iteration on the previous version of OpenSpending, which has been […]
Read moreUsing the Global Open Data Index to strengthen open data policies: Best practices from Mexico
This is a blog post coauthored with Enrique Zapata, of the Mexican National Digital Strategy. As part of the last Global Open Data Index (GODI), Open Knowledge International (OKI) decided to have a dialogue phase, where we invited individuals, CSOs, and national governments to exchange different points of view, knowledge about the data and understand […]
Read moreData-cards – a design pattern
Cross-posted on smth.uk It can be useful to recognise patterns in the challenges we face, and in our responses to those challenges. In doing this, we can build a library of solutions, a useful resource when similar challenges arise in the future. When working on innovative projects, as is often the case at Open Knowledge […]
Read moreAn approach to building open databases
This post has been co-authored by Adam Kariv, Vitor Baptista, and Paul Walsh. Open Knowledge International (OKI) recently coordinated a two-day work sprint as a way to touch base with partners in the Open Data for Tax Justice project. Our initial writeup of the sprint can be found here. Phase I of the project ended […]
Read moreNew research: Understanding the drivers of license proliferation
Open licensing is still a major challenge for open data publication. In a recent blog post on the state of open licensing in 2017 Open Knowledge International identified that governments often decide to create custom licenses instead of using standard open licenses such as Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. This so-called license proliferation is problematic for […]
Read moreOKI Agile: Kanban – the dashboard of doing
This is the fourth in a series of blogs on how we are using the Agile methodology at Open Knowledge International. Originating from software development, the Agile manifesto describes a set of principles that prioritise agility in work processes: for example through continuous development, self-organised teams with frequent interactions and quick responses to change (http://agilemanifesto.org). […]
Read moreWhy MyData 2017?
This is a guest post explaining the focus of the MyData conference in Tallinn and Helsinki later this month. By a famous writing tip, you should always start texts with ‘why?’. Here we are taking that tip, and we actually find many ways to answer the big Why. So, Why MyData 2017? Did you get […]
Read moreOpen Data for Tax Justice design sprint: building a pilot database of public country-by-country reporting
Tax justice advocates, global campaigners and open data specialists came together this week from across the world to work with Open Knowledge International on the first stages of creating a pilot country-by-country reporting database. Such a database may enable anyone to understand the activities of multinational corporations and uncover potential tax avoidance schemes. This design […]
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.