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The Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter, September 2013
Sign up for monthly updates to your inbox here Howdy! And welcome to your monthly spotlight on the Open Knowledge Foundation. There’s a whole load of stuff coming up as always, with our community becoming ever more global and ever more active – find out some of it below. It’s just 2 weeks until we’ll […]
Read moreOpen Economics: the story so far…
A year and a half ago we embarked on the Open Economics project with the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and we would like a to share a short recap of what we have been up to. Our goal was to define what open data means for the economics profession and to become […]
Read moreOKCon 2013 Guest Post: Is Open Source Drug Discovery Practical?
The following guest post is by Matthew Todd, Senior Lecturer at the School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney and Sydney Ambassador of the Open Knowledge Foundation. As part of OKCon 2013 Matthew will host a satellite event entitled ‘Is Open Source Drug Discovery Practical?’, taking place on on Thursday 19 September from 09:00 – 12:00 […]
Read moreEven after earthquakes, we need Open
The following guest post is by Chistian Quintili from Open Ricostruzione. Open Ricostruzione is an Italian civic project focused on people engagement after the earthquake which damaged cities of Emilia-Romagna in 2012 Open Ricostruzione is pleased to have a little corner in the OKF network. Our project, in short, is a website to monitor public […]
Read moreNew Sources and Rights section on The Public Domain Review
Today sees the announcement of two exciting new developments on The Public Domain Review, changes which centre on better celebrating those institutions which have decided to open up their collections and helping users understand the different rights for reuse that apply to the content. New sources section The new sources page – http://publicdomainreview.org/sources/ – lists […]
Read moreOKCon 2013 Guest Post: Open Data Toolkits and Assessment Tools
The following guest post is by Iulian Pogor (World Bank), Meghan Cook (University at Albany) , Barbara Ubaldi (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development– OECD), and Ton Zijlstra (Open Knowledge Foundation) who are among the coordinators of the workshop Open Data Toolkits and Assessment Tools, which will take place at OKCon 2013, as part of the Open Development and Sustainability programme, on Tuesday […]
Read moreThe first Open Knowledge Foundation Glasgow Meetup
The following guest post is by Lorna Campbell, former assistant director of the Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards (CETIS). It is cross-posted from her blog. Last night Sheila and I went along to the first meeting of the Open Knowledge Foundation in Glasgow. The meeting was hosted by the Electron Club and the […]
Read moreOpen Data Privacy
“yes, the government should open other people’s data” Traditionally, the Open Knowledge Foundation has worked to open non-personal data – things like publicly-funded research papers, government spending data, and so on. Where individual data was a part of some shared dataset, such as a census, great amounts of thought and effort had gone in to […]
Read moreThe Data Journalism Handbook now available in French, Spanish and Russian
Last year the Open Knowledge Foundation worked with the European Journalism Centre to publish the Data Journalism Handbook, a free, openly licensed reference book showing journalists how to use data to improve the news. The fact that the book is openly licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike license has enabled various translation and localisation initiatives […]
Read moreVisualizing How the Brazilian Government Underspends on the Public Good
This post is authored by Vitor Batista, who works as developer for the Open Knowledge Foundation, and Neil Ashton, Data Roundup Editor for the School of Data blog. It is cross-posted from the PBS Ideas and OpenSpending blogs. Brazilian NGO INESC (Institute of Socio-Economic Studies) and Open Knowledge Foundation Brasil want Brazilians to participate in […]
Read moreBeneficial ownership registries should be published as open data
In the coming months many governments around the world will decide whether databases of who really owns and controls companies should be made public or not. As we’ve said before, we think registers of ‘beneficial ownership‘ (i.e. registers of who really stands to benefit from company ownership, not just whomever it is convenient or expedient […]
Read moreOpen Education Working Group and Panel at OKCon 2013
Cross-posted from the OKCon Blog. Discussions around open education tend to focus primarily on Open Educational Resources (OER) – freely accessible, openly licensed resources that are used for teaching, learning, educational, assessment and research purposes. However open education is a complex beast made up of many aspects, and the important elements of opening up […]
Read moreOn the trail of “Open Steps” – visiting open knowledge communities around the world
This is a guest blog post from Open Steps, an initiative by two young Berliners Alex (a software developer from Spain) and Margo (a graduate in European politics from France) who decided to leave their daily lives and travel around the world for one year to meet people and organizations working actively in open knowledge […]
Read moreGlobal Community Stories #5: Nepal, Czech Republic, Greece, Japan, Brazil and Texas US.
The global community of Open Knowledge Foundation Local Groups around the world is once again brimming with great tales of how the community is working tirelessly to promote open data and open knowledge around the world. This time we hand the mic to our friends in Japan, Brazil, Nepal, Greece, Czech Republic and Texas, […]
Read moreGetty Releases 4,600 Images into the Public Domain
A depiction of a banquet by 17th Centruy Italian artist, Morazzone, one of the many scans now in the public domain Cross-posted from the OpenGLAM Blog. Yesterday the J. Paul Getty Trust launched its Open Content Program which saw the release of 4,600 high-resolution scans of works from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles into […]
Read moreNatural resource revenues should be published as open data
Who pays what for a given country’s natural resources? With billions of dollars changing hands for access to oil, gas and mineral reserves every year, there is huge potential for corruption, conflict, injustice and environmental destruction around the extraction of natural resources. We think that information about natural resource revenues should be published as open […]
Read moreIntroducing the Open Economics Principles
The Open Economics Working Group would like to introduce the Open Economics Principles, a Statement on Openness of Economic Data and Code. A year and a half ago the Open Economics project began with a mission of becoming central point of reference and support for those interested in open economic data. In the process of […]
Read moreOKCon 2013 Accommodation Subsidy Programme launching today!
Cross-posted from the OKCon Blog. Event. OKCon 2013 – 16th-18th September 2013, Geneva, Switzerland. How to apply. Find the instructions and the submission form on the OKCon 2013 Accommodation Subsidies webpage. Deadline. The deadline to submit your application is Monday 12th August, 23:59:59 GMT. Questions? Feel welcome to contact financialaid@okcon.org We are glad to invite our attendees who haven’t been awarded a […]
Read morePredicting city bankruptcies with open data: The case of Detroit
This is a guest post by Marc Joffe of Public Sector Credit Solutions. Many have noticed that the United States last week was struck by its biggest municipal bankruptcy ever, when the City of Detroit declared bankruptcy. Less well known is the fact that Moody’s, the major credit rating agency, downgraded the City of Chicago […]
Read moreOKCon 2013 Guest Post: Open Data Portal on Land Rights
Cross-posted from the OKCon Blog. Introducing a series of guest posts by OKCon 2013 speakers that we will publish over the coming weeks. This first post is by Laura Meggiolaro, Land Portal Coordinator, International Land Coalition, who will be speaking on the main stage during the Open Development and Sustainability session on Wednesday 18th September […]
Read moreWhat’s the deal with the UK government’s new spending tool?
We were pleasantly surprised to learn that this morning the UK government launched a new tool to explore UK public spending. The ‘Government Interrogating Spending Tool’ (fear not – you the user are supposed to be the giver, not the receiver, of interrogation) or ‘GIST’ is, according to the Cabinet Office, “one of the first […]
Read moreOpen tax data, or just VAT ‘open wash’
This post is by Chris Taggart, the co-founder and CEO of OpenCorporates, the largest open database of companies in the world, and a member of the Open Government working group. [Disclosure: I am on the UK Tax Transparency Board, which has not yet discussed these proposals, but will be doing so at the next meeting […]
Read moreCity Spending Party around the world
Last weekend more than a hundred budget nerds and engaged citizens gathered at 20 spending data parties to open up city spending and budgets. From Lagos to Kathmandu groups dived into budget data across the OpenSpending community as part of this first global City Spending Data Party from July 19 to July 21. The spending parties helped […]
Read moreNetwork Summit
Twice-yearly the whole community of the Open Knowledge Foundation gathers together to share with, learn from and support one another. The Summer Summit 2013 took place in Cambridge (UK) last week (10th-14th July), with staff updates on the Thursday and network representatives joining on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was so inspiring to hear […]
Read more9 models to scale open data – past, present and future
The possibilities of open data have been enthralling us for 10 years. I came to it through wanting to make Government really usable, to build sites like TheyWorkForYou. But that excitement isn’t what matters in the end. What matters is scale – which organisational structures will make this movement explode? Whether by creating self-growing volunteer […]
Read moreThe transformative potential of gardening with data
The following guest post is by Farida Vis from the Everyday Growing Cultures research project. The project looks at the potentially transformative effect of bringing together the food growing and open data communities. Those supporting the government’s open data agenda highlight the business case for open data, an economic argument about its moneysaving potential, along […]
Read moreWhat Does $3.2M Buy in Open Government?
The following guest post is by Travis Korte from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. The Knight Foundation received hundreds of submissions to its “Knight News Challenge on Open Gov.,” a competition designed to create new tools to improve how citizens interact with government. The applicants noted a number of problems with government data: confusing […]
Read moreEC Consultation on open research data
The European Commission held a public consultation on open access to research data on July 2 in Brussels inviting statements from researchers, industry, funders, IT and data centre professionals, publishers and libraries. The inputs of these stakeholders will play some role in revising the Commission’s policy and are particularly important for the ongoing negotiations on […]
Read moreUsing public data to flag tax avoidance schemes?
This post was jointly written by Jonathan Gray (@jwyg), Director of Policy and Ideas at the Open Knowledge Foundation and Tony Hirst (@psychemedia), Data Storyteller at the Open Knowledge Foundation’s School of Data project. It is cross-posted from the School of Data blog. Today OpenCorporates added a new visualisation tool that enables you to explore […]
Read moreIntroducing Open Knowledge Foundation Labs
Today we’re pleased to officially launch Open Knowledge Foundation Labs, a community home for civic hackers, data wranglers and anyone else intrigued and excited by the possibilities of combining technology and open information for good – making government more accountable, culture more accessible and science more efficient. Labs is about “making” – whether that’s apps, […]
Read moreSave the Date – OGP Pre-Conference, London Wednesday 30th October
This Autumn the Open Government Partnership Annual Conference is coming to London and will place on the 31st October and 1st November. As a lead into the main event, OGP is planning a 1-day civil society Pre-Conference event on Wednesday 30th October and we here at the Open Knowledge Foundation will be collaborating with them […]
Read morePublish from ScraperWiki to CKAN
The following post is by Aidan McGuire, co-founder of ScraperWiki. It is cross-posted on the ScraperWiki blog. ScraperWiki are looking for open data activists to try out our new “Open your data” tool. Since its first launch ScraperWiki has worked closely with the Open Data community. Today we’re building on this commitment by pre-announcing the […]
Read moreOKCon 2013 travel bursary programme launching today!
Cross-posted from the OKCon Blog. Event. OKCon 2013 – 16th-18th September 2013, Geneva, Switzerland. How to apply. Find the instructions and the submission form on the OKCon 2013 Travel Bursaries webpage. Deadline. The deadline to submit your application is Sunday 14th July, 23:59:59 GMT. Questions? Feel welcome to contact financialaid@okcon.org. OKCon 2013 is happy to announce that […]
Read moreGlobal Community Stories #4: Morocco, Bangladesh, Spain and South Korea
It’s once again time for a round-up of some of the major activities happening in our rapidly expanding Local Group Network across the world. This time we’ll among other be highlighting some of our newest groups and bring stories from Africa, Asia and Europe. Enjoy! In Morocco, which is home to one of our […]
Read moreAnnouncing a new series, “Curator’s Choice”
This week sees the launch of the “Curator’s Choice” series – a joint endeavour of The Public Domain Review and OpenGLAM – which aims to actively engage with and celebrate those cultural heritage institutions that have taken the exciting steps to open up their content. This new series shall consist of a monthly guest post […]
Read moreJapan’s Administration Urges Ministries to Promote Open Data
A few days ago the 4th e-Government Open Data Expert Committee was held in Tokyo. At the committee the specific measures to implement Japan’s new IT strategy, which was launched mid-June, were discussed – highlighting open data as a central means to achieve among other economic vitalization. During the discussions, Mr. Ichita Yamamoto, the Minister […]
Read moreGit (and Github) for Data
The ability to do “version control” for data is a big deal. There are various options but one of the most attractive is to reuse existing tools for doing this with code, like git and mercurial. This post describes a simple “data pattern” for storing and versioning data using those tools which we’ve been using […]
Read moreUK Open Government Licence is now compliant with the Open Definition
On Friday the UK National Archives launched a new version of the Open Government Licence, which is now the default licence used by the UK government to publish the lion’s share of its public sector information. While the announcement hardly made headlines, there is one small addition to the text of the licence that we […]
Read moreOpen company data on the rise: featuring G8, World Bank, EITI…
The following guest post is by Chris Taggart of OpenCorporates. Here he rounds-up recent developments within the field of Open Company Data. This article is cross-posted from http://blog.opencorporates.com/, published by Chrinon Ltd, a company dedicated to improving and publishing public data under an open licence that allows and encourages reuse, including commercially (direct link to […]
Read moreMeeting the Latin American open knowledge community
Over the past couple of weeks, our resident Data Diva Michael Bauer, and International Community Manager Zara Rahman have been in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. Their mission was twofold; raise awareness of the impending launch of the Escuela de Datos, our School of Data project in Spanish, and try to find and meet with as […]
Read moreThe Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter, July 2013
Sign up for monthly updates to your inbox here It’s been a month for big announcements on openness, and we’ve been at the forefront as ever. The G8 summit in Northern Ireland catalysed a whole load of activity around open government data, and we want to make sure that words are translated into effective action. […]
Read moreHola Escuela de Datos!
Today, we’re pleased to announce the launch of School of Data in Spanish! The Website was launched at the AbreLatam, on the 24th June, with a workshop focusing on building the Latin American network. This follows a series of warm up events thanks to the wonderful generosity of our hosts, in particular – the Hacks […]
Read moreUnderstanding Barriers to Open Government Data
The following guest post is by Chris Martin, researcher at the University of Leeds. Here he presents the results of his recent research into perceptions of the barriers to open government data. He looks at the similarities and differences between public and non-profit sector perceptions, pointing to the utility of greater cross-sectoral collaboration. Earlier in […]
Read moreHow is Obama’s new climate action plan going to use open data to tackle climate change?
Last night US President Barack Obama announced a major new action plan to fight climate change. The plan includes measures to regulate coal, cut emissions in many areas, boost green energy, increase climate resilience as well as to take stronger international leadership in achieving carbon emissions cuts. We were delighted to see that the plan […]
Read moreWhat data needs to be opened up to tackle tax havens?
How to tackle tax havens and how to open up official data were two of the headline topics at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland last week. But unfortunately the bold plans and commitments that many were hoping for did not materialise. It seemed that the G8 countries might lead a new global initiative to […]
Read moreRigour and Openness in 21st Century Science
Here’s a few great videos from a recent conference attended by members of our Open Science Working Group, about Rigour and Openness in 21st Century Science. A team of researchers at the University of Oxford and University of Koblenz recently joined forces to organise an event on ‘Rigour and Openness in 21st Century Science‘ examining […]
Read morePrinciples for Open Contracting
The following guest post is by the Open Contracting Partnership, announcing the release of their Principles for Open Contracting. It is cross-posted from their website. Over the past year, the Open Contracting Partnership has facilitated a global consultation process to create a set of global principles that can serve as a guide for all of […]
Read moreCarbon emissions transparency should be at the heart of the global open data agenda
This week eight of the world’s most powerful nations made unprecedented multilateral commitments to open up their data: the Open Data Charter says that that public information should be published in accordance with open data principles by default; the Lough Erne Declaration emphasises the importance of increased transparency in cracking down on tax evasion, corruption […]
Read moreOpening the weather, part 2
See also “Opening the weather, part 1” I began paragliding a few years ago. It’s maybe the most weather-dependent sport in the world. We often fly in mountainous areas, very close to the ground. We need to know about local effects like thermal updrafts, clouds growth, mountain-breeze, foehn wind and all sorts of other micro […]
Read moreMaking Transparency Visible: an update on OGP in Ireland
This is cross-posted from the Open Government Partnership blog. In my previous post on the Open Government Partnership website, I posed the question ‘Is Ireland closing the door on Open Government?’. At that time I expressed the view that Ireland’s government was uninterested in the benefits of open government. Now, eight months later, I am […]
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