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We need open carbon emissions data now!
Last week the average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million, a level which is said to be unprecedented in human history. Leading scientists and policy makers say that we should be aiming for no more than 350 parts per million to avoid catastrophic runaway climate change. But what’s in […]
Read moreGlobal Community Stories #3
For your delectation, we bring you the third installment of Global Community Stories – a round up of the fantastic projects and activities of our Local Groups across the world, including a Wikipedia Editathon for girls in Nepal, a multitude of events in Belgium, Big Data Week across Spain, a Swiss Government pilot […]
Read moreAnnouncing CKAN 2.0
CKAN is a powerful, open source, open data management platform, used by governments and organizations around the world to make large collections of data accessible, including the UK and US government open data portals. Today we are very happy and excited to announce the final release of CKAN 2.0. This is the most significant piece […]
Read moreGovernment Data Open and Machine Readable by Default Announces President Obama
There was big news for open data yesterday with a new Executive Order announced by President Obama. The order lays out the general principles that open, machine readable, data are the “new default”. (We note the Open Definition already includes machine readability in the definition of open data). There will a new Open Data Policy […]
Read moreAnnouncing the Open Humanities Award Winners
Earlier this year, as part of the DM2E project, we put out a call to humanities academics and technologists to see if they could come up with innovative ideas for small technology projects that would further humanities research by using open content, open data and/or open source. We’re very pleased to announce that the winners […]
Read moreThe White House Seeks Champions of Open Science
Here at the Open Knowledge Foundation, we know Open Science is tough, but ultimately rewarding. It requires courage & leadership to take the open path in science. Nearly a week ago on the open-science mailing list we started putting together a list of established scientists who have in some way or another made significant contributions […]
Read moreThe Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter, May 2013
Heard of Big Data? How about #smalldata? There’s been loads of buzz this month around #smalldata, and the need to prevent the centralisation of data-power in the hands of the few. Redistributing knowledge power is what we’re all about at the Open Knowledge Foundation, and this month’s launch of data.okfn.org is doing just that – […]
Read moreOKCon 2013 Call for Proposals – out now!
Event. OKCon 2013 – 17th-18th September 2013, Geneva, Switzerland. Call for Proposals. Find the call, FAQs and the submission form on the OKCon 2013 Call for Proposal webpage. Deadline. The deadline to submit your proposals is May 24th, 23:59:59 GMT. Results will be published by 17th June, 23:59:59 GMT. Tickets. Early Bird tickets are on […]
Read moreFollow the Money, Follow the Data
The following guest post from Martin Tisné was first published on his personal blog. Some thoughts which I hope may be helpful in advance of the ‘follow the data‘ hack day this week-end: The open data sector has quite successfully focused on socially-relevant information: fixing potholes a la http://www.fixmystreet.com/, adopting fire hydrants a la http://adoptahydrant.org/. […]
Read moreThe Public Domain Review is Saved!
At 12:00pm BST today, as midnight struck over the Pacific island of American Samoa and the 1st of May truly ended all over the world, so did end the inaugural Public Domain Review Fundraiser. In 58 days, with the help of 676 wonderful supporters we managed to leapfrog our target of $20,000 and raise an […]
Read moreScience Europe denounces ‘hybrid’ Open Access
Recently Science Europe published a clear and concise position statement titled: Principles on the Transition to Open Access to Research Publications This is an extremely timely & important document that clarifies what governments and research funders should expect during the transition to open access. Unlike the recent US OSTP public access policy which allows publishers […]
Read moreOpen Knowledge: much more than open data
We’ve often used “open knowledge” simply as a broad term to cover any kind of open data or content from statistics to sonnets, and more. However, there is another deeper, and far more important, reason why we are the “Open Knowledge” Foundation and not, for example, the “Open Data” Foundation. It’s because knowledge is something […]
Read moreOpen Budget Oakland and OpenSpending
From small beginnings in a hackathon, here’s a great story from Oakland of how OpenSpending can be deployed to improve civic engagement on a local level. The beta version of Open Budget Oakland went public last week with the release of our mayor’s proposed budget for the next two years. Her announcement was made Wednesday […]
Read moreWelcoming Greece Local Group as Open Knowledge Foundation Chapter
It’s with great excitement that we can announce that OKFN Greece, after 1.5 years as a Local Group in our global network, have established themselves as an official Chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation. This means that our Greek friends are now through their own legal entity a more integral part of the organization. The last […]
Read moreWhat Do We Mean By Small Data
Earlier this week we published the first in a series of posts on small data: “Forget Big Data, Small Data is the Real Revolution”. In this second in the series, we discuss small data in more detail providing a rough definition and drawing parallels with the history of computers and software. What do we mean […]
Read moreJust 5 days to go for The Public Domain Review Fundraiser!
The Public Domain Review Fundraiser ends on Wednesday 1st May, just 5 days away! Since we launched the fundraising campaign 7 weeks ago we’ve seen a fantastic response which has got us so far to an amazing 98% of our target… very very nearly there. We are making a final push in these remaining days […]
Read moreWe’re Hiring! School of Data seeks Workshop and Project Coordinator
School of Data is hiring a Workshop and Project Coordinator! See below for details about the role and how to apply. ###About School of Data School of Data works to empower civil society organizations, journalists and citizens with the skills they need to use data effectively in their efforts to create fairer and more sustainable […]
Read moreOpen Data Fellowship with Metropolitan New York Library Council Announced
Exciting news: The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) in collaboration with the Open Knowledge Foundation’s OpenGLAM initiative and Wikimedia NYC have today unveiled the first ever Open Data Fellowship for cultural heritage institutions starting this summer. The paid 8-week placement will combine two roles: Facilitator for institutions interested in pursuing broader open data initiatives […]
Read moreBuilding the foundation for an Open Data Directory
Open (Government) Data as it is understood nowadays can still be considered a new concept. It started to gain traction worldwide since the Obama memo in early 2009 and the launch of data.gov a few months later. Following successful leading examples of the US and UK governments we have seen Open Data flourishing all over […]
Read moreFrictionless Data: making it radically easier to get stuff done with data
Frictionless Data is now in alpha at http://data.okfn.org/ – and we’d like you to get involved. Our mission is to make it radically easier to make data used and useful – our immediate goal is make it as simple as possible to get the data you want into the tool of your choice. This isn’t […]
Read moreOpening up the wisdom of crowds for science
We are excited to announce the official launch of Crowdcrafting.org, an open source software platform – powered by our Pybossa technology – for developing and sharing projects that rely on the help of thousands of online volunteers. At a workshop on Citizen Cyberscience held this week at University of Geneva, a novel open source software […]
Read moreForget Big Data, Small Data is the Real Revolution
This is the first in a series of posts. The next posts in the series is What Do We Mean by Small Data There is a lot of talk about “big data” at the moment. For example, this is Big Data Week, which will see events about big data in dozens of cities around the […]
Read moreReinhart-Rogoff Revisited: Why we need open data in economics
This blog post is cross-posted from the Open Economics Blog. Another economics scandal made the news last week. Harvard Kennedy School professor Carmen Reinhart and Harvard University professor Kenneth Rogoff argued in their 2010 NBER paper that economic growth slows down when the debt/GDP ratio exceeds the threshold of 90 percent of GDP. These […]
Read moreThe new PSI Directive – as good as it seems?
A closer look at the new PSI Directive by Ton Zijlstra and Katleen Janssen image by European People’s Party CC-BY-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons On 10 April, the European Commission’s Vice-President Neelie Kroes, responsible for the Digital Agenda for Europe, announced that the European Union (EU) Member States have approved a text for the new PSI […]
Read moreWhat We Hope the Digital Public Library of America Will Become
Tomorrow is the official launch date for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). If you’ve been following it, you’ll know that it has the long term aim of realising “a large-scale digital public library that will make the cultural and scientific record available to all”. More specifically, Robert Darnton, Director of the Harvard University […]
Read moreOpen data highlights from European Data Forum 2013 in Dublin
Europe’s data league convened in Dublin last week – Open Data increasingly taking the stage Over 500 data professionals gathered last week at European Data Forum conference in Dublin. This is the annual meeting place for industry, research, policy makers, and community initiatives to discuss the challenges and opportunities of Big Data in Europe. One of […]
Read morePanton Fellowship wrap up: Ross Mounce
The Panton Fellowships have come to an end. The work that our two Panton Fellows, Ross Mounce and Sophie Kershaw have done over the past year to promote openness in the sciences has far surpassed what any of us expected. Here Ross details his wide-ranging experiences and achievements over the past year, and you […]
Read moreData Explorer Mission on Carbon Data
Sign up now for next week’s Data Explorer Mission on Carbon Emissions Data, a pilot initiative of our School of Data and P2PU, to help people explore a topic, while at the same time building their data skills through experimentation and doing. Image CC-By-SA J Brew on Flickr At the School of Data, we teach […]
Read moreOpening Public Data in South Africa
Cape Town City Hall, Felix Gottwald It seems somewhat absurd to me that publicly funded institutions in South Africa should be allowed to copyright data produced using public funds. Of course, it is reasonable to expect that physical assets such as buildings, vehicles or machinery should appear on their balance sheets and be reserved for […]
Read moreGlobal Community Stories #2: Brazil, Spain, Czech Republic, Nepal, Iceland and Belgium
We continue our new monthly digest showcasing initiatives from our local communities across the globe, this time proudly featuring Brazil, Spain, Czech Republic, Nepal, Iceland and Belgium. The Open Knowledge Foundation’s many (30+!) Local Group communities stand behind a myriad of different activities every month. As you may also have read in our first edition of […]
Read moreOpen Research Data Handbook – Call for case Studies
The OKF Open Research Data Handbook – a collaborative and volunteer-led guide to Open Research Data practices – is beginning to take shape and we need you! We’re looking for case studies showing benefits from open research data: either researchers who have personal stories to share or people with relevant expertise willing to write short […]
Read moreSustainable energy policy demands sustainable open data
What kinds of energy are we producing, and what kinds are we consuming? How much comes from renewable sources? What is our energy dependency on other countries? Energy policy is today at the heart of every country’s agenda, but can citizen discuss it fairly? Do even policymakers have enough reliable information to implement new energy […]
Read moreWill Obama’s new $100m brain mapping project be open access?
On Tuesday President Obama unveiled a new $100 million research initiative to map the human brain. The BRAIN (Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) initiative will “accelerate the development and application of new technologies that will enable researchers to produce dynamic pictures of the brain that show how individual brain cells and complex neural circuits […]
Read moreLandmark ruling will enable more lifesaving generic drugs in developing countries
Earlier this week the Guardian and the BBC reported on a landmark ruling in India which will hopefully pave the way for greater access to lifesaving generic drugs in developing countries. The Indian supreme court has rejected a new patent on a “slightly altered” version of Glivec, a cancer treatment drug developed by the pharmaceutical […]
Read moreUse Templates to Make News Apps Quickly
Coding is expensive and slow, journalism should be cheap and fast. This is the main problem I face as a data journalism producer. My responsibility is to produce news apps for Helsingin Sanomat, a main daily newspaper in Finland. When there is a breaking news event, we have about five hours to come up with […]
Read moreThe Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter, April 2013
Sign up on the right to receive our newsletter straight into your inbox every couple of months! It’s exciting times at the Open Knowledge Foundation! We’re determinedly ignoring the never-ending winter here in Europe – Spring has definitely sprung for us, with more activity than ever across the network, creating change by educating, empowering, evangelising […]
Read moreBringing The Data Journalism Handbook to Brazilian Journalists
This post was written by Liliana Bounegru from the European Journalism Centre. It is cross-posted on DataDrivenJournalism.net. As you may know, The Data Journalism Handbook is a free collaborative book that shows journalists how to use data to improve the news. When we first published it last year, we put out an open call to […]
Read moreLobbyPlag – Who is really writing the law?
Sometimes, the band continues to play because the audience is enjoying the music so much. This is pretty much what happened to Lobbyplag. Our plan was to drive home a single point that outraged us: Some Members of the European Parliament were taking law proposals verbatim from lobbyists and trying to slip them into the […]
Read more“We are entering an era of open science” says EU Vice President Neelie Kroes at launch of new global Research Data Alliance
Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, gave a talk earlier this week renewing the EU’s strong, principled support for open science. Speaking at the launch of a new global Research Data Alliance, she said that we are entering a new “era of open science”, which will be “good for […]
Read moreAnnouncing the Open Knowledge Conference 2013: Open Data – Broad, Deep, Connected
The Open Knowledge Foundation is pleased to announce that the 2013 Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) will take place in Geneva, Switzerland on 17th -18th September. The theme of this year’s edition will be Open Data – Broad, Deep, Connected. When: 17th – 18th September 2013 Where: Geneva, Switzerland at the CICG – Centre International de […]
Read moreOpen and the “Next Great Copyright Act”
Director of the U.S. Copyright Office Maria Pallante is expected to call today for updates to U.S. copyright law. Her brief written testimony is already available and a longer speech given two weeks ago (titled “The Next Great Copyright Act”) provides additional flavor. Substantial changes to copyright will take years to play out in the […]
Read moreChallenge launched to promote open data for education
The LinkedUp project is very pleased to announce the launch of the LinkedUp challenge. This is a series of three competitions (Veni, Vidi, and Vici) promoting the innovative use of linked and open data in an educational context. The LinkedUp team invites anyone, from researchers and students, to developers and businesses, to join the first […]
Read moreAnnouncing the School of Data Journalism 2013 in Perugia
Update 21 March: To register for the School of Data Journalism workshops please fill in your name and email address in this form. <em> Cross-posted on<a href=”http://www.journalismfestival.com/”> journalismfestival.com</a> and the <a href=”http://www.okfn.org”>OKFN</a> blog.</em></p> The European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation are pleased to invite you to Europe’s biggest data journalism event, the School […]
Read moreAfricanSpending – Monitoring the Money in Africa
The Open Knowledge Foundation, in partnership with the Open Institute in Kenya and the African Media Initiative have submitted a proposal to the Knight News Challenge on Open Government: AfricanSpending – Monitoring the Money. We want to build a platform (leveraging OpenSpending) for journalists and civil society to track public money and mineral wealth across […]
Read moreExploring ‘Openness’ Together: The Open Book to be Launched Friday at FutureEverything
From makerspaces to data wrangling schools to archives, the digital is being remixed by the open – and it is changing society as we know it. New concepts about public information, transparency and the Commons are combining in unprecedented ways, resulting in a breadth of transformative collaborations. Nations across the globe seek formal understandings of […]
Read moreOpenGLAM at GLAM-Wiki 2013 conference
Just one month to go before cultural experts from all over the world will come to London for an international celebration of open access and culture. GLAM-Wiki 2013 is a global conference, organised by the Wikimedia UK chapter in association with Wikimedia Sweden and Europeana, and hosted by the British Library. It examines the possibilities, […]
Read moreThe Biggest Failure of Open Data in Government
Many open data initiatives forget to include the basic facts about the government itself In the past few years we’ve seen a huge shift in the way governments publish information. More and more governments are proactively releasing information as raw open data rather than simply putting out reports or responding to requests for information. This […]
Read moreAnnouncing v3.0 of Froide – the Open-Source Python-Based Freedom of Information Platform
I’m happy to announce version 3 release of Froide, the Open Source, Python-based platform for running Freedom of Information portals. Froide has been in development for nearly two years. It has powered the FOI portal in Germany for over a year and a half and has recently been used to launch an Austrian FoI site. […]
Read moreJoin #FreeBassel Day to call for the immediate release of open web advocate Bassel Khartibil.
On March 15, 2012, Bassel Khartabil was detained in a wave of arrests in the Mazzeh district of Damascus. Since then, his family has received no official explanation for his detention or information regarding his whereabouts. However, his family has recently learned from previous detainees at the security branch of Kafer Sousa, Damascus, that Bassel […]
Read moreAn Open Knowledge Platform on Building Energy Performance to Mitigate Climate Change
Buildings account for more than 30% of final energy use and energy-related carbon emissions in the world today. This sector has the potential to play a crucial role in mitigating the global challenge of climate change. However, the building industry is a local industry and the sector is fragmented at all levels, from planning to […]
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