Introducing the Open Knowledge Index

The following post is from Guo Xu, Coordinator of the Open Economics Working Group Despite the increasing efforts in opening data and making information and knowledge accessible to a greater audience, there has not been an explicit way to measure openess in knowledge creation and dissemination. This has made it very difficult to compare country […]

Read more

Greater Manchester – Open Data City

The following guest post is by Julian Tait, the key coordinator of the Open Data Cities project for FutureEverything in Greater Manchester and ongoing advocate for the DataGM datastore. ###Open Data in Manchester How would cities evolve if all data were made open? Would the same inequalities and asymmetries persist? What would need to happen […]

Read more

EU Travel Bursary for Open Government Data Camp 2011

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. The European Commission has very kindly offered to provide an EU travel bursary for Open Government Data Camp 2011. It will cover travel and accommodation for up to 30 participants from across Europe. You can find full details here: Here’s an […]

Read more

Open Kent

The following guest post is by Noel Hatch, Projects and Research Lead at Open Kent, and member of the OKF’s Working Group on Open Government Data. A couple of months ago, we launched openkent.org.uk, a project working with 14 public service agencies across our county to open up data that matters to local people – […]

Read more

Open Aid Data Conference and Hackday, Berlin, 28th-29th September

The following post is by Christian Kreutz, co-founder and board member of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany. Help us find innovative solutions for aid transparency and make development aid more effective. Germany is one of the largest donors in development aid worldwide. Every year over 6 billion euros are spent by the Federal Ministry for […]

Read more

Registration for Open Government Data Camp 2011 is now open!

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We’re delighted to announce that registration for Open Government Data Camp 2011 is now open! This will be the biggest international open data event to date. An quick overview in numbers: 2 days of talks, workshops and code sprints 10 days […]

Read more

Exploring open aid data with aidinfo labs

The following is a guest post from Tim Davies, open data action researcher, currently curating the aidinfolabs.org website for aidinfo, and a member of the OKFN Working Group on Open Development. The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) was set up in 2008 by 18 leading international development organisations. It aims to make information about aid […]

Read more

OutOfCopyright.eu makes Public Domain Calculators available for the entire European Union

The following guest post is by Maarten Zeinstra from KnowledgeLand. Maarten is a member of the OKF Working Group on the Public Domain. Works that have fallen into the public domain after their term of copyright protection has elapsed can be freely used by everybody. In theory that means that these works can be reused […]

Read more

Austria adopts CKAN and CC-BY as nation-wide defaults

The following post is by Theodora Middleton, the OKF blog editor. Fantastic news from our fledgling Austrian chapter, the Open Knowledge Forum Österreich! The cities of Vienna, Linz, Salzburg, and Graz, together with the Chancellor’s office, have established the “Cooperation OGD Austria” – a new alliance bringing together federal, state, and city governments, as well […]

Read more

Ex Libris, Alma and Open Data

This guest post is written by Carl Grant, chief librarian at Ex Libris and past president of Ex Libris North America, in answer to some questions that Adrian Pohl, coordinator of the OKFN Working Group on Open bibliographic Data, posed in the beginning of July in response to Ex Libris’ announcement of an “Expert Advisory […]

Read more

Data-Driven Journalism Workshop on EU Spending: Tools & Techniques. Utrecht, 8th-9th September.

The following post is by Liliana Bonegru, Project Coordinator at the European Journalism Centre (EJC), and Lucy Chambers, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. The post announces a joint workshop between the EJC and OKF, focusing on how to get started with data-driven reporting on spending data. This workshop will focus particularly on EU […]

Read more

Public Data Consultations: Making Open Data a Reality

This post is from Lucy Chambers, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. Earlier this month, the UK Government published the ‘Open Data Consultation Paper’. Its aim is to establish a “culture of openness and transparency in public services” and the Government is turning to the general public for their preferences on how this should […]

Read more

Montevideo: proud of our data

The following post is by Guillermo Moncecchi of Intendencia de Montevideo in Uruguay. Here, in Montevideo, we are proud of our data. The Intendencia de Montevideo drives the economic, social and cultural life of the city, producing data. Lots of data. The government has spent years developing its information services, almost all government processes produce […]

Read more

The Public Domain Review has a new website!

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. As part of our work to open up the wealth of cultural works which have entered the public domain, earlier this year we launched the Public Domain Review. Adam Green, the Public Domain Review‘s wonderful Editor, has been hard at work […]

Read more

Update: Text Camp: 13th August 2011

The Open Knowledge Foundation’s first ever Text Camp will be taking place this Saturday 13th August, thanks to JISC offering us the use of their meeting rooms in London. Details Where? Brettenham House, 9 Savoy Street, WC2E 7EG, London. – Meet outside ‘The Savoy Tup’ Pub, Savoy Street, at 10am to be guided to the […]

Read more

DataPatterns.org: let’s collect some tricks for data wrangling!

Friedrich Lindenberg, data wrangler and member of OKF Germany, advocates for the creation of Data Patterns book to complement the existing Open Data Manual. How do you scrape a massive online archive? How do you fix a broken CSV file? How do you normalize entity names in a large collection of records? There is a […]

Read more

Introducing a new list just for open data on companies

The following is a guest post from Chris Taggart, co-founder of OpenCorporates.com and member of the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Working Group on Open Government Data One of the key types of data that affects all our lives in a multitude of ways is that on companies and corporate entities. As companies have changed from being single entities to multifaceted, […]

Read more

OpenSpending seeks Spending Cartographers: Register Now!

This post is by Lucy Chambers, Community Coordinator for OpenSpending at the Open Knowledge Foundation The OpenSpending team is currently looking for volunteers for a crack-team of ‘spending cartographers’ to guide people with datasets through the OpenSpending loading process and to help them make the most of their data once it is loaded. Interested in […]

Read more

OpenCorporates hits 20 million companies, an open data milestone

The following is a guest post from Chris Taggart, co-founder of OpenCorporates.com and member of the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Working Group on Open Government Data Less than eight months ago, OpenCorporates : The Open Database Of The Corporate World launched with the rather ambitious goal of creating a URL for every company in the world. Five months later, it had […]

Read more

FragDenStaat.de: OKF Deutschland launches new German FOI portal

The following post is from Friedrich Lindenberg and Stefan Wehrmeyer from OKF Deutschland. Today the Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland is launching a new Freedom of Information (FOI) portal called “Frag den Staat”. The new site enables citizens, journalists and researchers to request information from over 830 federal agencies and institutions across Germany. Requests can be […]

Read more

Visualising Italian Spending Data

The following guest post is by Daniele Galiffa, CEO at Visup. Some weeks ago we had the opportunity to develop a 24-hour quick prototype regarding the way the Italian Public Administration spends our money. Our goal was to highlight the value of using simple and effective information visualization solutions to gain greater insight into data, […]

Read more

And so corporations begin to open data…

The following post is by Francis Irving, CEO of ScraperWiki. Now it seems almost normal that red in tooth and claw competitors, like Microsoft and Google, are both major contributors to the latest version of a popular open source operating system kernel. Businesses are gradually realising they can share the costs of anything based on […]

Read more

Announcing… Text Camp 2011

The following post is from James Harriman-Smith, coordinator of the OKF’s Open Literature Working Group, and Lecteur at the ENS de Lyon. The OKF’s first ever ‘Text Camp’ hopes to bring together many different people, all interested in the relationship between digital technologies and literature, with a strong focus on the creation of open knowledge. […]

Read more

Estonian Spending Bubbles

The following guest post is by Tanel Kärp from the Estonian Academy of Arts. He’s a member of the OKF’s Working Group on Open Government Data. MeieRaha.eu (OurMoney) is the first interactive visualization of the Estonian budget which was initiated and built during 48 hours at a local hackathon called Garage48 for Public Services. The […]

Read more

OKF at the Open Government Partnership

The following post is by Theodora Middleton, blog editor at the OKF. The new Open Government Partnership, a “multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance,” was announced last week by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Brazilian […]

Read more

Rufus Pollock on Open Science

The following guest post is by Maria Neicu, who’s studying at the University of Amsterdam. She’s a member of the OKF’s Working Group on Open Data in Science. Rufus Pollock of the Open Knowledge Foundation recently gave a video interview on the topic of open science. Here are the videos, and summaries of what he […]

Read more

Measuring the success of your project on Open Data

The following guest post is by Armand Brahaj, who works on Open Data Albania. He’s also a member of the OKF’s Working Group on Open Government Data. I had the chance to visit the Transparency Camp in Washington DC this year. The event was organized by the Sunlight Foundation, who invited international activists that were […]

Read more

Doing Good With Data: Data Without Borders

The following guest post is by Jake Porway from Data Without Borders. We live in a time of unprecedented access to data and computational power. The open data movement is quickly digitizing and making available tomes of information about the way our governments work, the way our cities move, and the patterns of our daily […]

Read more

Call for action: Got Linked Data? Tell the world about it!

The following guest post is by Pablo Mendes and the rest of the team working on the new LOD cloud diagram. The LOD cloud diagram is a depiction of datasets that have been published in Linked Data format, by contributors to the Linking Open Data (LOD) community project and other individuals and organisations around the […]

Read more

New EU consultation on open access to scientific information

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. The European Commission has recently announced a consultation on access to scientific information. If you’re interested in open data in science (e.g. as per the Panton Principles for open data in science), then we’re sure the EC would love to hear […]

Read more

Why censoring Slovak spending app means bad news for open data

The following guest post is by Eva Vozarova from the Fair Play Alliance in Slovakia. Eva is also a member of the OKF’s Working Group on Open Government Data. When we first started working on ZNasichDani.sk in October last year, it looked like a promising, useful idea. Creating a tool that would enable journalists and […]

Read more

Open content film blocked by YouTube in Germany

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. Cartoonist, animator and activist Nina Paley recently got in touch with me after her talk at OKCon 2011, saying that her openly licensed film Sita Sings the Blues has been blocked by YouTube in Germany: GEMA has blocked Sita Sings the […]

Read more

Apps for Germany

The following is a post by Daniel Dietrich, coordinator of the working group Open Government Data and chairman of the German Chapter of the OKFN. We are delighted to announce the launch of “Apps für Deutschland” – the first open data competition in Germany. Apps für Deutschland (Apps4De) will officially be launched on November, 8th […]

Read more

Open Government (Data) Wien/Vienna – data.wien.gv.at

The following guest post in by Brigitte Lutz from the City of Vienna. The city of Vienna wants to open governmental data to be freely accessible for further use. The “Open Government Data (OGD) – initiative” is part of the coalition agreement. The open data catalog was presented to the city in a press conference […]

Read more

Release of Whole of Government Accounts

The following guest post is by Dan Herbert, who works on our Where Does My Money Go and Open Spending projects. He is the Programme Manager for MSc Accounting at Oxford Brookes University. This week sees the publication of the first Whole of Government Accounts for the UK. WGA represents the end of a decade […]

Read more

Free! Music! Contest – fewer choices, more freedom

The following guest post is by Christian Hufgard, chairman of Musikpiraten, and member of the OKF’s Working Group on the Public Domain. The Free! Music! Contest is a contest for bands and artists releasing their songs under a creative commons license. In its third year the focus is set on enabling remixes – and freeness. […]

Read more

Report from JISC Open Bibliography

The following post is the majority of the final report from our Open Bibliography Working Group‘s collaborative Open Bibliography project with JISC. Further information is available on the original report post Congratulations to all involved on the successful completion of the project! Bibliographic data has long been understood to contain important information about the large […]

Read more

JISC calls for all metadata to be publicly accessible

The following post is from Mark MacGillivray, who works with the OKF on our Open Bibliography project and other related projects. Today the JISC called for all metadata to be openly accessible, inviting all publicly funded organisations including universities, colleges, libraries, museums and archives to make the same commitment. The OKF is proud to have […]

Read more

Ireland’s 18 hour Open Data Challenge

The following guest post is from Dominic Byrne from Fingal Open Data. This post is cross-posted from the Fingal Open Data blog. We were at Ireland’s first Open Data 18 hour Challenge. Here’s what happened … Ireland’s first Open Data 18 hour Challenge took place in Dublin on 4th and 5th July, 2011.  Fingal County […]

Read more

Switzerland is no longer a white spot on the OGD map.

The following guest post is by Cécile Aschwanden and André Golliez, from itopia. They are members of the OKF’s Working Group on Open Government Data. Most people in Switzerland (including politicians) still do not know what Open Government Data is all about – but now the OGD virus has reached Switzerland and the discussion has […]

Read more

The long road to open aid data!

The following guest post is by Claudia Schwegmann from OpenAid, a member of the OKF’s Working Group on Open Knowledge in Development. The road to open data in development cooperation has been a long one! 10 years ago, transparency, let alone open data, in development cooperation wasn’t an issue. In 2001 the Millennium Development Goals […]

Read more

Open data research at Aalto University Business School

The following guest post is by Yulia Tammisto, from the Open Service Innovation Observatory at the Aalto University School of Economics, Finland. A few months ago, myself and my colleague Dr. Juho Lindman at the Aalto University School of Economics started to explore open data academically. We are particularly interested in the business applications and […]

Read more

We need international open government data principles

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We need a set of international open government data principles. Why? Because as the ‘open data‘ meme travels around the world – unlocking information from local, regional and national public bodies as it goes – we want to make sure that […]

Read more

UK Open Data Programme for 2011-12

The following guest post is from Andrew Stott, who sits on the UK Government’s Public Sector Transparency Board. In his former role as Director of Digital Engagement at the Cabinet Office, Andrew helped to set up the UK’s open data initiative. Today’s announcement about the next year of the UK Government’s Transparency and Open Data programme […]

Read more

Draft Bill on PSI access and reuse introduces openness of public information in Poland

The following post is from Theodora Middleton, Editor of the Open Knowledge Foundation blog. We’ve just heard from our friends at Centrum Cyfrowe in Poland, that the Polish Council of Ministers has adopted a draft bill amending the Bill on Access to Public Information and certain other laws. The amendments mean that all Public Sector […]

Read more

Let’s open up the public domain!

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. I’ve recently been thinking about the role the Open Knowledge Foundation can play in helping to open up the public domain. Ultimately I think we should help to rally existing stakeholders from around the world behind a simple vision, and encourage […]

Read more

New OKF T-shirt designs

Thanks to our smashing new designer Kat Braybrooke and the wit and design skills of the community, the OKF now have a new range of T-shirts (including women’s fit and re-adaptations of the old classics!) available via the OKF spreadshirt shop. Congratulations again go to Hans Overbeek for his winning “Yes, we’re Open” design. Thanks […]

Read more

OKCon 2011: Introduction and a Look to the Future

This is a blog post by Rufus Pollock, co-Founder and Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation. OKCon, the annual Open Knowledge Conference kicked off today and it’s been great so far. For those not here in Berlin with us you can follow main track talks via video streaming: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/open-knowlegde Below are my slides from my […]

Read more

Release of DataCatalogs.org to map open data around the world

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We’re very pleased to announce an alpha version of datacatalogs.org, a website to help keep track of open data catalogues from around the world. The project is being launched to coincide with our annual conference, OKCon 2011. You can see the […]

Read more

Polit.ru Open Data project

The following guest post is from Ivan Begtin, founder of OpenGovData.ru and member of the OKF’s Working Group on Open Government Data. On 27 June 2011, news and analysis channel Polit.ru launched a special project called “Open Data”, regarding the issues of publishing the data of governmental structures in a format that allows further processing […]

Read more