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What are you doing on Open Data Day?
Open Data Day 2014 is February 22 – just two weeks away! What: It’s a gathering of citizens in cities all around the world to write applications, liberate data, create visualizations and publish analyses using open public data. Why: To show support for and encourage the adoption open data policies by the world’s local, regional […]
Read moreAnnouncing the Local Open Data Census
Let’s explore local open data around the world! Local data is often the most relevant to citizens on a daily basis – be it rubbish collection times, local tax rates or zoning information. However, at the moment it’s difficult to know which key local datasets are openly available and where. Now, you can help change […]
Read moreThe Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter, February 2014
Sign up here for monthly updates to your inbox. Greetings! One month into 2014, there’s plenty going on around the Open Knowledge Foundation, including lots of activity for Copyright Week mid-January as well as preparation for Open Data Day towards the end of February. As ever, the global Open Knowledge Foundation network has been busy, […]
Read moreBritain ‘shines light of transparency’ on secret lobbying. Just kidding.
The following article is cross-posted from OpenDemocracy. David Cameron’s lobbying bill exposes the hollowness of his muscular claims about cracking down on crony capitalism. Britain’s democracy remains under corporate capture. Image: Government wants to register Lobbying Agencies alone (Alliance for Lobbying Transparency) Today the government’s proposed Lobbying Bill will go into parliamentary ping-pong between the […]
Read moreCease and desist by the German government for publishing a document received under FOI law
The German Federal Ministry of the Interior has sent a cease and desist order to the Freedom of Information (FOI) portal FragDenStaat.de for publishing a document received under the German federal FOI law. The document – a five page study written by government staff – analyses a ruling by the German constitutional court in November […]
Read moreMyanmar – Developing a Knowledge Society from Scratch
This is a guest post by Waltraut Ritter from Knowledge Dialogues and Opendata Hong Kong/Open Knowledge Foundation Hong Kong, who recently visited Myanmar as basis for this interesting account. She can be contacted on waltraut(a)opendatahk(dot)com. New cars, new mobiles – photo by Waltraut Ritter, CC BY-SA The Worldbank Knowledge Economy Index ranks Myanmar as second […]
Read moreThe best data opens itself on UK Gov’s Performance Platform
This is a guest post by Francis Irving (@frabcus), CEO of ScraperWiki, who has made several of the world’s first civic websites such as TheyWorkForYou and WhatDoTheyKnow. This is the third in a series of posts about the UK Government’s Performance Platform. Part 1 introduced why the platform is exciting, and part 2 described how […]
Read moreLet’s fix EU copyright!
Today is Day 6 of Copyright Week, organised by EFF, looking at Getting Copyright Right. The European Commission is currently holding a Public Consultation on the review of the EU copyright rules – and they’re looking for your input. Unfortunately, the consultation documents that the European Commission are difficult to fill out: rather than encouraging […]
Read moreCopyright and Open Access 2014
This post is a guest post by Michelle Brook and Tom Olijhoek from the Open Knowledge Foundation Open Access Working Group. This week has been proclaimed Copyright week by the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and today, Wednesday Jan 15, is Open Access Day 2014. It is almost exactly 1 year ago that Aaron Swartz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz) […]
Read moreJoin the “Get Ready For Open Data Day 2014!” Hangout on January 21!
Open Data Day 2014 is coming! On February 22 – just over a month! And you might wonder: what is it exactly, where does it come from – and how can I organise or join an Open Data Day event? We have answers for you and we are glad to invite you to join us […]
Read moreCopyright Week: Public Domain Calculators
From 13 to 18 January the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is organising Copyright Week, an event focused on promoting six key principles for guiding copyright policy and practice. Each day is dedicated to one of the principles, and today is ‘Building and defending a robust public domain’. This post is preceded by another one on […]
Read moreCreative Commons 4.0 BY and BY-SA licenses approved conformant with the Open Definition
This post by Timothy Vollmer, Manager of Policy and Data at Creative Commons, originally appeared on the creativecommons.org website. In November we released version 4.0 of the Creative Commons license suite, and today the Open Definition Advisory Council approved the CC 4.0 Attribution (BY) and Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) International licenses as conformant with the Open Definition. […]
Read moreMapping the Open Spending Data Community
We’re pleased to announce the official release of “Mapping the Open Spending Data Community” by Anders Pedersen and Lucy Chambers, an in-depth look at how citizens, journalists, and civil society organisations around the world are using data on government finances to further their civic missions. The investigation began in 2012 with three goals: To identify […]
Read moreExtended: Open Data Scoping Terms of Reference
The Open Data Partnership for Development Scoping Terms of Reference deadline has been extended until January 13, 2014. We have received some great submissions and want to give more people the best opportunity to tackle the project. Truly, we recognize that the holiday season is a busy time. The Open Data Partnership for Development Scoping […]
Read more“Share, improve and reuse public sector data” – French Government unveils new CKAN-based data.gouv.fr
This is a guest post from Rayna Stamboliyska and Pierre Chrzanowski of the Open Knowledge Foundation France Etalab, the Prime Minister’s task force for Open Government Data, unveiled on December 18 the new version of the data.gouv.fr platform (1). OKF France salutes the work the Etalab team has accomplished, and welcomes the new features and […]
Read more2013 – A great year for CKAN
2013 has seen CKAN and the CKAN community go from strength to strength. Here are some of the highlights. February The beta of CKAN 2.0 was released with a much improved user interface and many new features. The European Union’s CKAN-powered open data portal, open-data.europa.eu, was also launched in beta. publicdata.eu was upgraded to CKAN […]
Read moreTop 10 Greatest Hits of 2013!
The year is drawing to a close. Before we tumble headlong into the new year, let’s take a moment to reflect on the incredible success of 2013. Here’s our Top 10 Greatest Hits of the last year, in reverse order… Launch of data.gov In May, one of the most significant CKAN instances ever was launched, […]
Read morePDF Liberation Hackathon – January 18-19
This guest blog post has been written by Marc Joffe, of Public Sector Credit Solutions. Open government data is valuable only to the extent that it can be used cost-effectively. When governments provide “open data” in the form of voluminous PDFs they offer the appearance of openness without its benefits. In this situation, the open […]
Read moreOpen Data Day 2014 is Coming Feb 22 – Time to Join the Fun!
This guest blog post has been written by David Eaves, public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and one of the initiators of Open Data Day. It was originally published on David’s blog. So, with much help from various community members (who reminded me that we need to get this rolling – looking at you Heather […]
Read moreFirst impressions from the 1-day introduction to Open Data
Last week I gave the Open Knowledge Foundation’s first 1-day Introduction to Open Data training course. Participants from a diverse group of organisations joined me at Friends House in London for a day of presentations, discussions and workshops. The course course covers the basic concepts – what does it mean for data to be ‘open’? […]
Read moreThe Open Knowledge Foundation urges the UK Government to stop secret corporate lobbying
The Open Knowledge Foundation has joined the members of the UK OGP civil society network in signing an open letter which calls on the Government to put an end to secret corporate lobbying. In its current form the government’s proposed lobbying bill (which is currently going through parliament) will let the vast majority of corporate […]
Read moreA report from the Ibrahim Governance Weekend
Early last month I was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the Mo Ibrahim Foundation‘s annual governance weekend, including the celebrated Ibrahim Forum. The MIF, headed by the eponymous and irrepressible Mo, does amazing work promoting good governance in Africa. It’s perhaps best known for its incredibly comprehensive Governance Index. Despite the terrible score of his […]
Read moreScoping Terms of Reference – Open Data Partnership For Development
What is the state of Open Data activities globally? Who is working on what and where? Where are opportunities to be fostered in the developing world? The Open Data Partnership for Development is a partnership between The World Bank, Open Data Institute (ODI) and Open Knowledge Foundation. Initial funding of $1.25 million in the first […]
Read moreThe Public Domain “Class of 2014”
The Public Domain Review gives it’s top pick of people whose works will, on 1st January 2014, be entering the public domain in those countries with a ‘life plus 70 years’ copyright term.
Read moreSigning on to civil society request to make public government data “license free” in the U.S.
Public data generated or commissioned by government bodies is becoming an increasingly important part of the public sphere — from new forms of civic participation, journalism, transparency and accountability to new opportunities for innovation and growth. The Open Knowledge Foundation is joining a band of civil society organizations – including Sunlight Foundation, Joshua Tauberer/GovTrack.us, Public […]
Read morePlanning Your Open Data Day 2014
Open Data Day is coming! On February 22, 2014 in a timezone near you! What is it? Open Data Day is a global community initiative to make and spread open data. People from all around the world gather together online or in person to make things with and around open data. Anyone is invited to […]
Read moreOpen Steps: 3 months documenting Open Knowledge in India
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 moreThe Open Knowledge Foundation Community Stories Tumblr: a new way of sharing your stories
The Open Knowledge Foundation international community has grown tremendously over the past decade. Since 2004 people have come together in over 46 countries (and growing!) to do amazing things with open knowledge in a huge variety of ways, across so many domains and topics, and working in collaboration on some incredible initiatives. It’s clear though […]
Read moreThe Open Knowledge Foundation opposes copyright term extensions in TPP negotiations
The Open Knowledge Foundation has joined a group of civil society organisations and activists from around the world in an open letter opposing proposals to increase the duration of copyright as part of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. This follows on from another recent letter asking for greater openness around the TPP negotiations, which […]
Read moreOpen Knowledge recognised as key to democracy in the digital age
Tonight the Open Knowledge Foundation will be honoured as a leading civic innovator at the National Democratic Institute’s thirtieth birthday celebrations (see the press release here). Other honourees will include Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the president of Estonia, Beth Noveck, founder of the Governance Lab in the U.S., and Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter. The […]
Read moreOpen Badges for OKF Scotland
The Following is a guest post by the Open Knowledge Foundation Community Member Graeme Arnott originally posted his blog here At the first meeting in Glasgow of Open Knowledge Foundation Scotland it was good to see some familiar faces from the ‘Open Badges in Scottish Education Group‘ (OBSEG). A little twitter conversation afterwards with Sheila […]
Read moreSign our petition asking the UK government to stop secret corporate lobbying
Today the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency are co-launching a petition endorsed by a group of transparency and civil society organisations, asking the UK government to rewrite the lobbying bill to give citizens a proper register of lobbyists in the UK As we’ve written about before, the lobbying register proposed in […]
Read moreOpen Data Empowers Us to Answer Questions that Matter
This article by Rufus Pollock, Founder and Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, is cross-posted from “Telefonica Digital Hub” released on 5 December 2013. Every day we face challenges – from the personal such as the quickest way to get to the work or what we should eat to global ones like climate change and […]
Read moreThe DataTank 4.0
This post was written by Pieter Colpaert, a member of the Open Knowledge Foundation Belgium Chapter. The DataTank is open source software, just like CKAN, Drupal or Elastic Search, which you can use to transform a dataset into an HTTP API. Today (the 5th of December 2014), we are proud to launch the 4.0 version […]
Read moreAnnouncing Sunlight’s international lobbying disclosure guidelines
This is a cross-post by Julia Keserű, Lisa Rosenberg and Greg Brown from the Sunlight Foundation, originally published on the Sunlight Foundation blog. With more and more civil society organizations in the open government universe recognizing that “thorny issues” — such as political finance transparency or surveillance — need to be tackled somewhat more vehemently, […]
Read moreOpen Knowledge Foundation Newsletter, December 2013
Sign up here for monthly news to your inbox. Welcome! Hello and welcome to our latest news update on what is happening in and around the Open Knowledge Foundation. As we approach our 10th anniversary, we are reflecting on the open movement over the last decade and planning for the opportunities and challenges ahead. We […]
Read moreGlobal Community Stories #6(b): Ireland, Germany and Updates
Ireland: Meetups, OpenSpending projects and prominent media exposure… In July our Irish group held Open Data Ireland Meetup #9, which was dedicated to ‘Local Government’ and was attended by around 20 people – see follow-up blogs posts among other here and here. In October this was followed up with Open Data Ireland Meetup #10 that […]
Read moreCreative Commons Version 4.0 Released
This is a guest blog post by Timothy Vollmer, Manager of Policy and Data at Creative Commons. Creative Commons has finally released Version 4.0 of the license suite. It’s been two years since we began the license update process, but now it’s done. The 4.0 licenses are the most global, legally robust licenses produced by […]
Read moreOpen Knowledge Foundation and BBC sign Memorandum of Understanding
On Monday of this week, the Open Knowledge Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding with the BBC. The BBC also signed separate memorandums with the Europeana Foundation, the Open Data Institute and the Mozilla Foundation. Laura James, CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation, signs the MoU with James Purnell, BBC Director of Strategy and Digital. […]
Read moreGlobal Community Stories #6 (a): Greece, Bangladesh, Argentina and Canada
It is once again time to take a trip around the world and hear a bit about some of the great things that are happening in our growing network of Open Knowledge Foundation Local Groups. Due to the sheer volume of activities and updates we want to share this month, our Global Community Stories post […]
Read moreGlobal Open Knowledge Festival Meetups – a warm-up in 3 steps
It was just last week that we invited the open communities to start collaborating and warming up for the upcoming Open Knowledge Festival. Today we can already share with you the learnings and outcomes of the first OKFestival Meetup (in Berlin) – as we would love to imagine it, this was just the first in […]
Read moreDispatch: Crisismappers Community needs Data Makers
What does open data / open knowledge have to do with Crisismapping? Everything. In times of crisis, we live in open data / open government ecosystem. We seek, build and make it happen in real time – talk converts to action quickly. On Tuesday, November 19th, the School of Data hosted a full day pre-conference […]
Read moreWhat needs to happen to enable citizens to Follow the Money around the world?
The following post is from Alan Hudson, Policy Director (Transparency & Accountability) at ONE and Jonathan Gray, Director of Policy and Ideas at the Open Knowledge Foundation. A few weeks back, we launched a new global “Follow the Money” network of organisations pushing for the transparency needed to enable citizens to hold decision-makers to account […]
Read moreOpen letter asking for greater transparency around Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations
The Open Knowledge Foundation has joined more than 30 civil society organisations and experts in signing an open letter asking leaders for greater transparency around the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations. The controversial negotiations have been covered in The Guardian and The Washington Post over the past few days following the leaking of a draft chapter […]
Read moreThe Global Open Data Initiative Needs Your Input
This is a cross-post by Julia Keserü from the Sunlight Foundation, taken from both the Global Open Data Initiative blog and the Sunlight Foundation blog. Open Data has enormous unfulfilled promise to change how governments work and to empower citizenship. As more governments and issue experts discover new potential in the public release of data, […]
Read moreLaunching Spending Stories: How much is it really?
Spending Stories is a new way to put spending figures in their proper perspective. Developed by the Open Knowledge Foundation and Journalism++ with funding from the Knight Foundation, Spending Stories is an app that helps citizens and journalists understand and compare amounts in stories from the news. When we hear that the UK’s school meals […]
Read moreTell us what you think of the Open Knowledge Foundation
We’re turning our Open Knowledge Foundation data analysis inward. We want to know all about You, your thoughts and Open Knowledge goals. You can shape the future of Open Knowledge Foundation by answering a short community wide survey. In keeping with all things Open Knowledge Foundation, we honestly want EVERYONE to answer the survey. This […]
Read moreOpen Knowledge Festival Meetups all around the world – now!
We’re getting closer to the Open Knowledge Festival (Berlin, 15-18 July 2014 – save the date!) and it’s time to roll up our sleeves! OKFestival (as friends call it) will gather people from all the open movements, communities and projects of the world. Planning and making stuff all together will be awesome. So why should […]
Read moreData Expedition: Investigate the Extractive Industries of Nigeria
UPDATE: there is now a dedicated page for the Nigeria Extractives Data Expedition here Who operates the often poisonous wells in the Niger Delta? How does the money flow between the contractors running the oil fields and the government? Join us for an online Data Expedition to Investigate the Extractive Industries of Nigeria, December 7, […]
Read moreHelp Turn Voices from BBC Radio into Open Data for Wikipedia
This is a cross-posting from the OpenGLAM blog written by Michael Smethurst, development producer at the BBC – see the original post. An invite On Saturday, 18th January 2014 between 10am and 5pm the BBC is teaming up with the Open Knowledge Foundation’s OpenGLAM initiative, Creative Commons UK and the Wikimedia community to host an […]
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