Don't miss a thing! Stay on top of what's happening in the #OpenMovement around the world.
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 moreFrom 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 moreLaunch 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 moreOpen 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 moreSpending 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 moreNotes 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 moreBulgarian 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 moreCall 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 moreOpen 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 moreOpen 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 more4 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 moreOpening 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 moreOpen 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 moreOpen 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 moreWho were the winners of Europe’s biggest open data competition?
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. Today we’re pleased to announce the winners of the Open Data Challenge, Europe’s biggest open data competition. The 1st prizes for each category will be awarded later today by European Commission Vice President, Neelie Kroes at the Digital Agenda Assembly in […]
Read moreAn International Standard for Open (Source) Hardware
The following guest post is by Jürgen Neumann, from the Open Source Hardware and Design Alliance. Jürgen will be joining us at OKCon 2011 as part of a panel on Open Hardware and Open Standards As the free open source paradigm is shifting towards open everything, there are still a few obstacles to completely shift […]
Read morePolish Open Budget Data
The following guest post is by Alek Tarkowski from the Centrum Cyfrowe, a think-and-do-tank fostering digital society in Poland. Alek will be joining us at OKCon 2011 for his talk On the road to Open Data in Poland – Where Are We Now? “Open budget” is a project started by Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska, a […]
Read moreOpenness as Strategy: Leading Open Knowledge Communities
The following is a guest blog post from Prof. Philipp Mueller about his talk on Openness as Strategy at the Open Knowledge Conference, June, 30th & July 1st 2011 in Berlin. We live in a world where information and communication technologies have confronted us with new logics of collective action that allow new forms of […]
Read moreSprint for Brazilian data catalogue Dados.gov.br
The following guest post is from Augusto Herrmann, Christian Miranda and Nitai Bezerra, from the Open Data team at the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management. They are all members of the Open Knowledge Foudation’s Working Group on Open Government Data. We are a team of three people working on open data at the Brazilian […]
Read moreHow open data improved election coverage in Finland
Jens Finnäs is a freelance journalist based in Helsinki, the author of Dataist, a blog about data journalism, and a member of the OKF’s Working Groups on Open Government Data and EU Open Data. Parliamentary elections in Finland are usually rather dull. Rarely does the rest of the world bother to pay any attention. But […]
Read moreWhen Washington DC took a step back from open data & transparency
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. When the amazing Emer Coleman first approached me a year and a half to get feedback on the plans for the London datastore, I told her that the gold standard […]
Read moredata.gouv.fr support the Open Data Challenge
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. Earlier today the new French open government data initiative, data.gouv.fr, posted a letter of support for the OpenDataChallenge from Séverin Naudet, who heads up the initiative and works with the French Prime Minister’s Office. Here’s an excerpt: I would like to […]
Read moreVisualizing Europe, Brussels, 14th June 2011
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. Next week some of Europe’s leading information designers and data visualisation experts will descend on Brussels for a one-day event showcasing projects and applications which visually represent Europe’s data. The event is organised by Visualizing.org in association with the Open Knowledge […]
Read moreOKF: T-Shirt Competition
This post comes from Lucy Chambers: Community Coordinator at the OKF. This week, she will be collecting designs for OKF T-Shirts We are in the process of creating some new OKF T-Shirts and would like to know what you would like to see on them! Whether you have a witty slogan, beautiful version of the […]
Read moreOpen Data Workshop and OpenCamp in Sofia, Bulgaria 4-5 June
On Saturday and Sunday (4th and 5th June) I was in Sofia, Bulgaria to run a Open Data Workshop on the Saturday and speak at the OpenCamp on the Sunday. Separate notes on the workshop are here: http://notebook.okfn.org/2011/06/06/open-data-workshop-in-sofia-bulgaria-4th-june/ with results of mapping of Bulgarian gov data on CKAN wiki: http://wiki.ckan.net/Bulgaria. Slides (fullsize): Open Data: What, […]
Read moreInterview with OKF Co-Founder Rufus Pollock on Open Spending
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. OKF Co-Founder Rufus Pollock recently interviewed at Open Tech 2011 about WhereDoesMyMoneyGo.org and OpenSpending.org. You can watch the video on blip.tv or YouTube, or you can download it by right clicking here.
Read moreOCLC, WorldCat Rights and Responsibilities, and Open Data Licensing
The following guest post is from Jim Michalko, VP in charge of the OCLC Research Library Partnership. Karen Calhoun, former VP of Metadata Applications, who has previously been working on these issues, has recently left OCLC to relocate and begin the first phase of her retirement. She has transitioned her role as OCLC’s spokesperson for […]
Read more36 hours left to enter OpenDataChallenge.org!
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. There are now around 36 hours left to enter the OpenDataChallenge.org, Europe’s biggest open data competition! There are €20,000 worth of awards and prizes for ideas, applications, visualisations, and datasets. If you have: an idea for a useful service that could […]
Read moreInterested in data-driven journalism?
The following guest post is from Lilliana Bounegru at the European Journalism Centre (EJC). The EJC in collaboration with Mirko Lorenz at Deutshe Welle have created a survey that aims to gather the opinion of journalists on the emerging practice of data-driven journalism and understand their training needs in this field. Data has always been […]
Read moreInterested in #RHoK + #opendata?
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. This weekend developers all over the world will get together for a series of events as part of Random Hacks of Kindness, which aim to use “practical open technology to make the world a better place“. We imagine that many of […]
Read moreOKCon 2011 Programme released
The following post is from Hauke Johannes Gierow who is on the OKCon 2011 organising team, and is a Community Coordinator at OKF Deutschland. At the Open Knowledge Foundation we work towards an open society with open content, open data, and free/open source software all over the world. We work with developers, designers, civil servants, […]
Read moreDiscovery.ac.uk launches Open Metadata Principles
The following guest post is from Owen Stephens, who is a member of the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Working Group on Open Bibliographic Data. Discovery is a new JISC funded initiative to help realise a vision set out in 2010 by the JISC and Research Libraries UK (RLUK) ‘Resource Discovery Taskforce’ (RDTF). The RDTF Vision is […]
Read moreOpening up data on the European parliament
The following guest post is from Niels Erik Kaaber Rasmussen, Founder of ItsYourParliament.eu and member of the OKF’s Working Groups on EU Open Data and Open Government Data. Most people are unaware that the political parties they know from their national parliaments behave differently in an European context. Two Danish parties for example belong to […]
Read more“We Love Open Data” workshop, DMY Festival, Berlin, 3-4th June 2011
The following post is from Esa Mäkinen, an open data advocate, a journalist at Helsingin Sanomat and member of the OKF’s Working Groups on EU Open Data and Open Government Data. Finnish novels used to be 200 pages long in the 1910s. A few hundred years later and the novels are longer: nowadays they are […]
Read moreHacking for Transparency at Brazil’s Major e-Government Conference
The following guest post is from Daniela B. Silva and Diego Casaes from the Transparency Hacker Community in Brazil. CONSEGI, an open source software and e-Government conference organized by (and mostly for) public IT departments and officers, took place on May 11, 12 and 13th, in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. For the first time, […]
Read moredata.gouv.fr to promote free public data
The following guest post is from Regards Citoyens, a French organisation that promotes open data. Three months ago, the French Prime Minister announced officially the creation of the EtaLab governmental team, dedicated to the future data.gouv.fr. On Friday May 27th, two official texts have been published: a decree (fr) that defines new juridic rules regarding […]
Read moreHack4Europe!
The following post is from Europeana, cross posted from the Europeana blog. What are the benefits of making cultural heritage data open and reusable? How can it support the development of new content markets, generate new jobs and enrich people’s life? Europeana and its partners Collections Trust, Museu Picasso, Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center and […]
Read moreOpen Government Data Workshop, Sofia, 4th June 2011
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. OKF Co-Founder Rufus Pollock is going to speak at Open Camp Sofia 2011 on the 5th June. Just before we’re going to be running a workshop/hackday on open government data. If you’d like to come along, please register here: From the […]
Read moreGuardian piece on open data in science
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. The Guardian recently published an interesting article on open data in science, including interviews with OKF Co-Founder Rufus Pollock and other leading voices from the world of open science. Here’s Rufus: “The litmus test of openness is whether you can have […]
Read moreExpert Python & Javascript coders wanted!
The following post is from Jason Kitcat, Operations Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. The Open Knowledge Foundation is currently looking to hire more developers! In brief: What: Seeking top-notch Python and Javascript coders (do not have to be both!) to work on the Open Knowledge Foundation’s world-changing projects including CKAN and OpenSpending When: We […]
Read moreOne week left for early bird tickets for OKCon
There is only one week left to get early bird tickets for OKCon, so please hurry if you want to make use of this offer! Early bird applications will close on June 1st. OKCon 2011 in Berlin will include keynotes, panel discussions and workshops on topics ranging from open data’s role in democracy and culture, […]
Read moreOpen Data talk at Census Microdata workshop
Jo Walsh, Service Manager at EDINA and a member of the Open Knowledge Foundation board, writes: Yesterday I gave a last-minute talk on open data, the work of OKF and EDINA to a Census Microdata workshop in Edinburgh. The slides consist of screenshots with links and cover the following. CKAN – the Data Hub and […]
Read moreThe Open Data Challenge: €20k of prizes, 10 days left to enter!
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. There are currently 10 days left to enter the Open Data Challenge, Europe’s biggest open data competition to date! You can submit ideas, applications, visualisations and datasets until the 5th June 2011 via the following link. We’d be very grateful for […]
Read moreCan Crowdsourcing Improve Open Data?
The following guest post is from Tom Chance (@tom_chance), founder of OpenEcoMaps. This post is cross posted from the London Datastore blog with permission from the author. What happens when open data is wrong? Can crowdsourcing improve it? Often, open data enthusiasts assume that the next step after the release of some government data is […]
Read moreSustaining open data business
Jo Walsh, who works as a project manager at EDINA and sits on the Open Knowledge Foundation board, writes: These thoughts on sustaining open data business were provoked by ORCID, a not-for-profit business set up by a group of large academic publishers and a few leading universities. Its aim is to provide a central directory […]
Read moreOKCon 2011: Travel Bursaries & Early Bird Tickets Available
OKCon 2011 is now just over one month away. Registration is ongoing at so you can still book your tickets online here. Early bird prices will be available until 1st June 2011 only, so book early! The official deadline for submissions has passed (but if you’ve missed it – please contact us and we will […]
Read moreWorkshops Preceding OKCon2011
OKCon2011 is glad to announce that registration has now opened for the pre-OKCon workshops. More details can be found below. Pre-OKCon2011 CKAN Workshop Tuesday, June 28, 2011 from 9:30 AM – 6:00 PM (GMT+0100) A chance to get hands-on with the technical side of working with CKAN. In each session, a core CKAN developer will […]
Read moreThe Annotator – Preview
In November 2010, Rufus Pollock announced the Annotator project on the OKFN blog. Since this initial release the project has been developed into a fully fledged product. The Annotator is a JavaScript widget that can be added to any webpage to allow inline annotation of its contents. Combined with a storage system, such as AnnotateIt, […]
Read moreHow to study lobbying with crowdsourced open data
The following guest post is from Regards Citoyens, a French organisation that promotes open data. For about a year, Regards Citoyens has been working together with the French chapter of Transparency International in order to bring more transparency in the processes of influence and lobbying within the French parliament. Lobbying is a very controversial subject […]
Read moreHelp to map the public domain around the world!
The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation. We’re currently looking for more people to help map copyright law in countries around the world – so we can make it easier for people to find and reuse works which have entered the public domain. We’re particularly keen to contact […]
Read more-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.