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Second Open Education Booksprint
The Open Education Working Group and LinkedUp Project will be hosting the second Open Education Handbook booksprint in collaboration with Wikimedia Deutschland on Friday 22nd November 2013. The booksprint will be held at the at the Wikimedia Deutschland office, Berlin and we’d really like you to participate! During the booksprint participants will be involved in […]
Read moreCampaigners challenge Cameron to keep promise to tackle company secrecy
The UK government must use the Open Government Partnership summit in London next week to end the secrecy surrounding who really owns millions of UK companies, campaigners said today. Discussions are underway right now at the highest levels of government and campaigners are expecting a decision to be made by the end of this week. […]
Read moreAnnouncing our new declaration on open data – and inviting your feedback
The Global Open Data Initiative partners, including the Open Knowledge Foundation, are excited today to share a draft Declaration on Open Data, and would welcome comments and feedback on its contents. Open Data has enormous unfulfilled promise to change how governments work and to empower citizenship. Even as more governments and issue experts discover new […]
Read moreThe revolution will NOT be in Open Data
The following guest post is by Duncan Edwards from the Institute of Development Studies. I’ve had a lingering feeling of unease that things were not quite right in the world of open development and ICT4D (Information and communication technology for development), so at September’s Open Knowledge Conference in Geneva I took advantage of the presence […]
Read moreOKFestival: what is it going to be?
We announced city and dates of our upcoming Open Knowledge Festival 2014 less than a month ago (Berlin, Germany! July 15th-18th!) and we’re pleased to start giving you more information about it. The Open Knowledge Festival in 2014 will be the biggest open data and open knowledge event the world has ever seen. We’ve taken […]
Read moreCivil Society Day and Unconference at the OGP
The Open Government Partnership Summit is the primary forum for the global community of openness reformers from all backgrounds – government, civil society and private sector – to come together and engage with each other. We’ve been helping organise the OGP Civil Society Day – the day before the Summit – which will provide an […]
Read moreBoots’ £1 billion pound tax dodge shows we need open data on who really owns companies
Yesterday a group of campaign organisations revealed that Alliance Boots – the British pharmaceutical giant which operates the high street chemists ‘Boots’, and one of the UK’s biggest private companies – avoided over £1.1 billion in tax payments over the past 6 years. Tax avoidance schemes are estimated to cost the UK up to £120 […]
Read moreThe Open Definition in context: putting open into practice
We’ve seen how the Open Definition can apply to data and content of many types published by many different kinds of organisation. Here we set out how the Definition relates to specific principles of openness, and to definitions and guidelines for different kinds of open data. Why we need more than a Definition The Open […]
Read moreOpen Legislation Working Group Relaunched at OKCon
Legal questions are at the heart of what openness is about, and there has always been interest at the Open Knowledge Foundation in open legislation – both in theory and in practice. Remarkable projects have been started around the world in open lobbying and open law data. This has proven ample inspiration to put open […]
Read moreThe European Journalism Centre Announces Free Online Data Journalism Course
The European Journalism Centre (EJC) is pleased to announce that registration is now open for its free online data journalism course Doing Journalism with Data: First Steps, Skills and Tools. This five-module introductory course gives participants the essential concepts, techniques and skills to effectively work with data and produce compelling stories under tight deadlines. It […]
Read moreGlobal events update: join the OKCon survey and get ready for OKFestival!
Picture by Libertic. Dear OKCon speakers, workshop organisers, participants, partners and supporters, OKCon was a fantastic event, spanning over a total of four days, spreading out all around Geneva, attended by more than 900 people from 55 countries on site and with many more joining us online (and we’re currently counting you too). And the […]
Read moreDear Prime Minister, Please increase the ambition of the UK’s open government commitments
The Open Knowledge Foundation is part of a group of civil society organisations behind an open letter to the UK Prime Minister urging him to increase the ambition of the UK’s open government commitments in the run up to the Open Government Partnership Summit in London later this month. This isn’t just about the UK. […]
Read moreNew Working Group: Open Product Data
The biggest open product database in world joins Open Knowledge Foundation and you can get involved! We vote with our wallet everyday, but are rarely aware of everything we endorse through our purchases. Product supply chains are complex, our ethical preferences are diverse and in practice we, as consumers, do not have the time or […]
Read moreExploring openness and the Open Definition
We’ve set out the basics of what open data means, so here we explore the Open Definition in more detail, including the importance of bulk access to open information, commercial use of open data, machine-readability, and what conditions can be imposed by a data provider. Commercial Use A key element of the definition is that […]
Read moreCKAN hackathon: Hello from Ireland!
This post was written by Denis Parfenov, our Ireland Ambassador, and Flora Fleischer, a member of the new Local Group for Ireland. Last Saturday, the ‘Open Data Ireland’ community and the Open Knowledge Foundation Network held a ‘CKAN Hackathon’. This event was kindly sponsored by Fingal County Council, ESRI Ireland and The Irish Organisation for […]
Read moreThe Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter, October 2013
Sign up here for monthly updates to your inbox. Hello and welcome to this, your October newsletter. We hope you’ve been having an excellent month. Make sure you check out this post, Defining Open Data – and look out for more in a similar vein over the next week or two. As our movement grows […]
Read moreGlobal Open Data Initiative moving forward
(This is a cross-post from the Global Open Data Initiative blog.) The Global Open Data Initiative is a coalition of civil society organisations working together in the area of open government data and open government. Our basic goal is that citizens will have full and open access to the government data that is needed in […]
Read moreNext Steps on “Follow the Money” – from OKCon to the Open Government Partnership Summit
The following post is from Alan Hudson, Policy Director (Transparency & Accountability) at ONE and Jonathan Gray, Director of Policy and Ideas at the Open Knowledge Foundation. Last month we announced the Open Knowledge Foundation and ONE’s plans to support and strengthen the community of activists and advocacy organisations working to enable citizens to follow […]
Read moreInvestigate the Garment Factories: new Data Expedition
In May, the School of Data community got together in a Data Expedition to respond to the Rana Plaza catastrophe. They built a crowdsourced database on garment factories and used it to expose the bad safety standards and non-transparency that contributed to the disaster. Now we are taking the garment factory investigation to the next […]
Read moreDefining Open Data
Open data is data that can be freely used, shared and built-on by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose. This is the summary of the full Open Definition which the Open Knowledge Foundation created in 2005 to provide both a succinct explanation and a detailed definition of open data. As the open data movement grows, and […]
Read moreOpen Data developments in Asia
The following guest post is by Waltraut Ritter, a member of Opendata Hong Kong, the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Local Group. It is the first of two posts exploring the current state of open data in Asia. The Open Knowledge Conference in Geneva attracted delegates from 55 countries, indicating that open, public data is indeed becoming […]
Read moreIt’s about more than the link
The following guest post is by Leigh Dodds, and is cross-posted from his blog. To be successful the web sacrificed some of the features of hypertext systems. Things like backwards linking and link integrity, etc. One of the great things about the web is that its possible to rebuild some of those features, but in […]
Read moreWrapping up OKCon
900 people, 55 countries, 2 full conference days plus 2 satellite days. OKCon convened our network and community in Geneva, Switzerland – at the largest Open Knowledge event. We share a common goal of knowledge being open. Across the movement (Open Science, Open Data, Open Government, Open Culture and many more), there were workshops, keynotes […]
Read moreOpen Assets in Argentina
The following guest post is by Florencia Coelho, from Argentinian daily La Nacion. In Argentina, where a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has yet to be signed, LA NACION and three transparency NGOs – Poder Ciudadano, ACIJ (Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia) and Fundación Directorio Legislativo joined efforts to produce the first […]
Read moreCKAN Hackathon and Local Group launch, Dublin
The following is cross-posted from the Open Government Partnership blog A CKAN hackathon is taking place on Saturday, 28th September at TCube in Dublin, bringing together IT specialists, political representatives and members of the public with an interest in making data open. <img src=”http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2855/9963755924_63f78021c4_z.jpg” width=”350 alt=”dublin-TempleBar”> Developers, designers, journalists, academics, policy makers, creative thinkers, civil […]
Read moreOpen Data Training at the Open Knowledge Foundation
We’re delighted to announce today the launch of a new portfolio of open data training programs. For many years the Open Knowledge Foundation has been working — both formally and informally — with governments, civil society organisations and others to provide this kind of advice and training. Today marks the first time we’ve brought it […]
Read moreRegister now for the OGP Summit and Civil Society Day
This October, the Open Government Partnership Annual Summit is coming to London. We’re helping to organise the Civil Society Day, which will take place on the 30th October at University of London Union, followed on the 31st October and the 1st November by the main conference. The draft agendas for both the main Summit and […]
Read moreThe Global Open Knowledge Foundation Network
Since 2004, the Open Knowledge Foundation has been connecting people and building communities in open data and open knowledge around the world. People in the global Open Knowledge Foundation network run meetups and workshops, campaign for open data, train, advise, and create open source tools and materials to help everyone work with data. The network […]
Read moreSee you at OKFestival 2014
OKFestival is back! As the banners are rolled up and the lights turned off in Geneva, we are already looking forward to the next time we’ll all come together. We are super-excited to announce that OKFestival 2014 will take place on the 15-18 July in Berlin, Germany. OKFestival is the biggest gathering of the open […]
Read moreNew partnership to bring open data to developing countries
We are really excited to announce a new partnership between us, the World Bank and the ODI, which was announced at OKCon in Geneva today. This important joint venture aims to bring open data projects and engagement to developing countries. Here’s the press release. Left to right: Laura James and Rufus Pollock, the Open Knowledge […]
Read moreLinkedUp Open Education Veni Competition: The winners!
The winners for the LinkedUp Veni Competition, organised by the LinkedUp Project were announced today at the Open Knowledge Conference in Geneva. The LinkedUp Project, a multi partner consortium funded by Framework Programme 7, want to push forward the exploitation of the vast amounts of public, open data available on the Web, in particular by […]
Read moreCrowdcrafting: Putting Citizens in Control of Citizen Science
Press Release: Geneva, 17 September 2013 Speaking at the Open Knowledge Conference, the world’s leading event on open data, Co-director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, Rufus Pollock, announced today that the open-source platform Crowdcrafting has grown to accommodate over 120 projects, making it the world’s most diverse open-source platform for online citizen science and crowdsourced […]
Read moreWhat’s the point of open data?
I’ve been puzzling for a while how the open data community can help the many great groups that have been fighting for transparency of key money flows for the past decade and more. I think one answer may be that open data helps us go beyond simply making information available. If done well, it can […]
Read moreOKCon 2013 kicks off
The Open Knowledge Conference 2013 is go! Instagram: @nicolassierro, @okconstickers, @oliviertripet We come to you from the lovely shiny Centre International de Conferences Geneve. The first talks and workshops are already underway, and the lobby is filling with the buzz of greetings, reunions and introductions. Already we’ve seen the launch of a brand new portal […]
Read moreNew Panton Fellows Announced!
We’ve just finished the second round of appointments for the Panton Fellowships, and this year we have three Fellows joining us: Rosie Graves (UK), Peter Kraker (Austria), and Sam Moore (UK). Peter will be joining us at OKCon this year, so please come and find him and introduce yourself! Left to right: Sam Moore, Peter […]
Read more“Follow the Money” with ONE and the Open Knowledge Foundation
The following post is from Alan Hudson, Policy Director (Transparency & Accountability) at ONE and Jonathan Gray, Director of Policy and Ideas at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We want to see a world in which citizens are able to hold decision-makers to account for the use of public money, using information about where it comes […]
Read moreWorking Group Stories: Open Design & Hardware, Open Economics
Last week we published updates from the Public Domain, Open Sustainability and Open Education Working Groups. Look out for more stories next month, to keep up-to-date with the buzzing brilliance of the Network. Open Design and Hardware Working Group The Open Design and Hardware working group celebrated its one year anniversary and is busy working […]
Read moreVeni Open Education Competition: Vote now!
There is just one week left to chose a winner in the ‘People’s Choice’ strand of the LinkedUp Veni Competition. The Veni Competition is the first in the LinkedUp Challenge, a series of three consecutive competitions looking for interesting and innovative tools and applications that analyse and/or integrate open web data for educational purposes. Twenty-two […]
Read moreOKCon 2013 Guest Post: Which bar to raise?
The following post is by Paul Maassen, who together with Daniel Dietrich and Anders Pedersen will be coordinating the workshop ‘Raising the bar for ambition and quality in OGP: workshop to develop a ‘Civil Society National OGP Review’, to be held on Tuesday 17 September, 14:45 – 16:00 @ Room 5, Floor 3, as part of […]
Read moreOKCon 2013 Guest Post: Open governance groups around the world compare local authority finances
This article, by Marc Joffe and Ian MakGill, originally appeared on the Guardian website on 01 August 2013. Marc Joffe will be speaking in the Open Finance and OpenSpending – Workshop on Wednesday 18 September, 14:45 – 16:00 @ Room 7, Floor 2. Open governance groups around the world compare local authority finances Council finances […]
Read moreAn Open Letter on the UK’s Proposed Lobbying Bill
The following is an open letter to the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister about the UK’s proposed Lobbying Bill, initiated by the Open Knowledge Foundation and signed by organisations working for greater government transparency and openness in the UK and around the world. A version of the letter was printed in today’s edition of […]
Read moreWorking Group Stories: Public Domain, Open Sustainability, Open Education
Working Groups Stories, a blog series we started back in May, is our way of showcasing the incredible work being done in all different domains across the Open Knowledge Foundation Network. Working groups are domain-specific groups, promoting, defining and producing open knowledge in everything from Archaeology to Shakespeare. Public Domain Working Group The Public Domain […]
Read moreOpen Education Handbook Booksprint
Yesterday seventeen open education experts came together to begin writing the Open Education Handbook. The handbook is part of the LinkedUp project, and the project team have chosen to also make it one of the first activities of the soon-to-be-launched Open Education Working Group. The handbook takes the form of an open, living document and […]
Read moreGet ready for the OKCon workshops!
Lovely attendees of OKCon, it’s time to make plans for the workshops you want to attend! Each workshop session now has detailed information about moderators and speakers, topics that will be covered, and practical information about capacity limits and where and when they will be taking place. There are three very easy steps to follow: […]
Read moreOpen Data Census: Help assess the state of open government data
Would you like to help track the state of government data? Then now is the time to join the Open Data Census community as one of the Country Editors for your country and help our community-driven push to show governments of the world the state of open data! The Open Data Census is a tool […]
Read moreThe world needs better lobbyist registers – but the UK’s proposed lobbying bill won’t help
Lobbyist registers are supposed to enable citizens to find out who is lobbying whom for what, and how much they are spending in the process. They are supposed to help to safeguard against big money having an unfair influence in politics – ultimately to ensure that political decisions are based on argument, evidence and democratic […]
Read moreIt is time for Open Services
The following guest post is by Guillermo Moncecchi. In a previous post, we advocated for the generation of a Public Digital Infrastructure (PDI), suggesting that governments should advance in the provision of open digital capabilities, free of restrictions, to do, within the law, whatever we want with them. These capabilities would be built on top […]
Read moreIntroducing “A free, libre and open Glossary”
The following guest post is by Chris Sakkas. A few months ago, we ran into a problem at work. ‘Let’s open source this,’ my boss said, and then ran a conventional brainstorming session. I am constantly frustrated by people misusing terms like free, libre and open that have well-established definitions. I decided to spend an […]
Read moreHow can open data lead to better data quality?
Open data can be freely used by anyone – which means that data users can help to fix, enrich or flag problems with the data, leading to improvements in its quality. The Open Knowledge Foundation is currently looking to collect the best examples and stories we can find about how open data can lead to […]
Read morePublishing research without data is simply advertising, not science
The following post is by Graham Steel. It is an adaptation of a five minute lightning talk given at Glasgow’s 1st Open Knowledge Foundation meet-up. Commencing in 2001, I became involved in the Charitable Sector as Vice-Chair of a support group for families affected by a rare and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease. This led to […]
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