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

New Visualisations for OpenSpending

This post is by Gregor Aisch, graphic designer and visualisation architect on the OpenSpending project. Today, at the OpenSpending worksop at OKCon2011 he gave a sneak preview of some of the work he has been doing to create new visualisations for OpenSpending, including a re-adaptation of David McCandless’ famous bubble visualisation from ‘Where Does My […]

Read more

metaStudio.org

The following guest post is from Nagarjuna G. from the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education in Mumbai. Nagarjuna will be joining us at OKCon 2011 for his workshop on metaStudio.org. ###About metaStudio.org is a collaborative workspace for shaping up education and research inspired by free software philosophy and open science. Here we design and […]

Read more

FTA: Teaching Free Technologies

The following guest post is by David Jacovkis and Wouter Tebbens from the Free Knowledge Institute. David and Wouter will be joining us at OKCon 2011 for their workshop on Building a master Curriculum on Free Technologies, and presentation on the Free Technology Academy and Shared QA for producing Free Educational Materials. The Free Technology […]

Read more

Open Government Data Conference 2011, Austria

The following guest post is from Martin Kaltenböck and Thomas Thurner from the Semantic Web Company, members of our brand new Austrian chapter, Open Knowledge Forum Österreich! The OGD2011 – the first Open Government Data Conference in Austria -took place on 16 of June 2011 in Vienna and was great success! The fully booked conference […]

Read more

Apps4Russia and Open Government Data in Russia

The following guest post is from Ivan Begtin, founder of OpenGovData.ru, and member of the OKF’s Working Group on Open Government Data. I know that not too many people know about Russian open government projects. To be honest we don’t have many of them. But, at the same time, they do exist, and we have […]

Read more

OpenSpending goes live

After several months of hard work, we are glad to announce the official launch of OpenSpending and turn to everyone interested in government accountability and financial transparency to help shape the future of the project. The OpenSpending project will make it easier for the global public to explore and understand government spending. Our developers have […]

Read more

Open data and Kasabi

The following guest post is by Leigh Dodds, programme manager for the Talis platform Talis has recently launched a new data marketplace called Kasabi. In this post I wanted to explore why Kasabi should be of interest to the Open Data community. Our goal with Kasabi is to help make data as easy to use, […]

Read more

Notes from Open Metadata Workshop, The Hague, 15th June 2011

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. Last week I went to an excellent workshop on open metadata organised by Europeana. The workshop drew together directors from libraries, archives and cultural heritage organisations across Europe – such as the British Library, the Deutsche National Bibliothek, the UK National […]

Read more

What next for data journalism?

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We’re really exciting about our session on the future of data journalism at OKCon 2011 in Berlin. The session takes place on 30th June. From the blurb: In the past 2 years we have seen an explosion in the availability of […]

Read more

Sand dunes, civil society and legal structures in the cloud

The following guest post is by Charles Armstrong, social scientist, entrepreneur, and Founder of the One Click Orgs project, which the OKF supports. Charles will be joining us at OKCon2011 for his talk, One Click Orgs: simple democratic organisation Along the shoreline of the North Atlantic marram grass plays a vital role in the coastal […]

Read more

Survey of Civic Hackers

The following guest post is by David Osimo, European policy analyst and member of the OKF’s Working Groups on Open Government Data and EU Open Data Who are the civic hackers? What are their motivations and barriers? What impact are government 2.0 initiatives having? And most importantly, what policy choices should the EU make? To […]

Read more

OKFN’s London Office Opens at the Centre for Creative Collaboration!

The following post is from Kat Braybrooke, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. The OKFN now has an open-concept office space in downtown London at the amazing Centre for Creative Collaboration, thanks to one of the Centre’s representatives, Brian Condon. And as the OKFN’s London Community Coordinator, I have to say we’re all excited […]

Read more

From Extra Terrestials to Open Knowledge: Open Science and Open Social Science at OKCon

The following a joint post by Francois Grey and Rufus Pollock who are co-organizing the Open Science and Open Social Science workshop at OKCon. Remember that screensaver called SETI@home that was all the rage a decade ago? Over a million people downloaded it, so they could take part in a search for radio signals from […]

Read more

Launch of DonneesLibres.fr – Declaration on Open Data in France

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. Several key open data organisations in France – including Regards Citoyens, Creative Commons France and Veni Vidi Libri – have clubbed together to draft a Declaration on Open Data in France: The declaration emphasises the importance of a legal and licensing […]

Read more

Open Quake and GEM Collaborative Effort

The following guest post is by Roberta Borgognoni and Ben Wyss, from the GEM Foundation. They will be joining us at OKCon 2011. We are involved in the global collaborative effort GEM. GEM is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to engage a global community in the design, development and deployment of state-of-the-art models and […]

Read more

Spending Stories is a winner of the Knight News Challenge!

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We’re thrilled to announce that our proposal for Spending Stories has been chosen as a winner for the Knight News Challenge. What is Spending Stories about? News stories about government finances are common, but readers often find it challenging to place […]

Read more

Notes from Visualizing Europe event, 14th June 2011

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. Last week I participated in an event called Visualizing Europe organised by the folks at visualizing.org in association with the Open Knowledge Foundation and Infosthetics. There were lots of really interesting talks and demos on data visualisation projects from across Europe […]

Read more

Bulgarian translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We are pleased to now have a Bulgarian translation of the Open Knowledge Definition thanks to Peio Popov. You can find this at: http://www.opendefinition.org/okd/bulgarian/ If you’d like to translate the Definition into another language, or if you’ve already done so, please […]

Read more

Call for participation: Open Economics Working Group

The following post is by Guo Xu, Coordinator of the Open Economics Working Group and research associate at DIW Berlin. Help make economics more open! The Open Economics Working Group of the Open Knowledge Foundation is an informal, community-organized group working to ensure economics is built on sound, transparent foundations. We’re looking for people, especially students, to get involved […]

Read more

Open Data – Louder Voices?

The following guest post is by Michael Gurstein from the Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training in Vancouver. Micheal will be joining us at OKCon 2011 for his talk Open Data – Louder Voices? This post follows on from earlier posts on Michael’s blog here, here, and here. There is a great deal […]

Read more

Open Government Groups Urge Congress to Restore Funding for Transparency Projects

In a letter presented to Congress last week, signed by individuals and organisations including the Open Knowledge Foundation, the US government has been urged to restore funding to the Electronic Government Fund, “which provides critical support for the construction of a more transparent and efficient government and serves as a building block for private-sector innovations […]

Read more

4 Stars for Metadata: an Open Ranking System for Library, Archive, and Museum Collection Metadata

This post was written by participants of the LOD-LAM Summit which was held on June 2nd/3rd in San Francisco and is crossposted on the Creative Commons blog and the Open bibliography and Open Bibliographic Data blog. For author information see the list below the document. The library, archives and museums (i.e. LAM) community is increasingly […]

Read more

Opening up Government: Data.gov.uk publishes UK all central government spending data over 25k.

This post is by Friedrich Lindenberg, one of the core developers on the OpenSpending project. He describes some of the hurdles that had to be overcome to get to today’s online release of all UK central departmental spending data over £ 25k and some interesting questions stemming from the data. In November of last year, […]

Read more

Open Government Data Camp 2011 is coming soon!

Open Government Data Camp 2011 is coming soon! You can find more at: We’re currently working with the excellent Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt:Polska to finalise logistics for the event, which is currently scheduled to take place on 21st October 2011. As with last year’s event, we will have lots of developers, designers, data journalists, public servants, […]

Read more

Open design communities, entrepreneurial coalitions, and the partner state

This guest post is from Michel Bauwens, founder of the Foundation for Peer to Peer Alternatives. Michel will be joining us at OKCon 2011 for his talk No Open Society without Open Knowledge, no Open Knowledge without Open Infrastructures. To understand the reality or illusion behind projects claiming to practice co-creation or co-design, one must […]

Read more