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New CKAN features!
We’ve recently been working hard to improve CKAN. Now you can try out some of the new features… Groups – While CKAN already allows packages to be categorized with tags, which anyone can edit, now you can create curated groups of packages. Group administrators control who can edit the packages associated with a given group. […]
Read moreNew mockups for “Where Does My Money Go?”
We recently blogged about some mockups for our Where Does My Money Go? project. We’ve now got some new mockups for the project which are show below (click through for full size). Again, we’d love to hear what you think of the designs! You can either leave a comment below, or pop a note to […]
Read moreLatest Developments on Open Shakespeare (v0.8)
The last six months have seen significant developments on our Open Shakespeare project, many of which have are reflected on the website: http://www.openshakespeare.org/ The most major advance is the availability of new HTML and PDF editions of the texts, see, for example, these versions of Twelfth Night: http://www.openshakespeare.org/resource/view/92/twelfth-night-moby/ http://www.openshakespeare.org/pdf/twelfth_night_moby.pdf We’ve also made improvements to multiview, […]
Read moreConservatives Pledge to Open 20 Most Socially Useful Datasets
Thanks to a pointer from the ever-aware Julian Todd we’re heartened to see these pledges being made at the Conservative Party Conference in the UK: Use open source software as much as possible Publish on a website details of all government spending over £25,000. [ed: great news for Where Does My Money Go] Allow the […]
Read moreOpenFlights data released under Open Database License (ODbL)
OpenFlights is a site for “flight logging, mapping, stats and sharing”. We’re very pleased to hear they’ve just released their data under the Open Database License (ODbL): One of OpenFlights‘ most popular features is our dynamic airport and airline route mapping, and today, we’re proud to release the underlying data in an easy-to-use form, up […]
Read moreOpening up e-Government in Europe: accessibility, transparency and the ‘right to reuse’
European policy analyst David Osimo recently invited me to be on the steering committee of a new ‘Open Declaration on Public Services 2.0’. The background page says: Every two years, EU Ministers gather to agree on a Ministerial Declaration on e-government, which is the main European strategic document. This is usually accompanied by an Industry […]
Read moreFirst mockups for “Where Does My Money Go?”
We are currently building a prototype for the Where Does My Money Go? – and we’ve now got the first mockups of what the site will look like… For full size versions you can see: spending by region spending by function We’d love to hear what you think of the designs! You can either leave […]
Read moreData.gov.uk Launched – and it’s Using CKAN
The UK Government’s public sector data site launched last week in a private beta — and it’s using CKAN as its backend for storing all its dataset info! They’ve got more than a 1000 existing data sets, from 7 departments, all brought together for the first time in a re-useable form. They’re eager to get […]
Read morePublic Domain Calculators Meeting, 10-11th November 2009
There is often a tendency to talk of ‘the public domain’ and of works falling out of copyright and ‘into the public domain’ – as though there is a single set of works which are out of copyright all over the world. In fact, of course, there are different national laws about the nature and […]
Read moreErnest Marples UK postcode site has been taken down
Ernest Maples, a free service providing postcode data which we blogged about in July has recently been taken down due to legal action from the Royal Mail. Harry Metcalfe, one of the directors of the project, writes: On Friday the 2nd October we received correspondence from the Royal Mail demanding that we close this site […]
Read moreAustralian government releases open data for MashupAustralia competition
Yesterday the Australian government announced its new MashupAustralia competition, with a prize fund of over $20,000 Australian dollars: Today the Government 2.0 Taskforce is launching its MashupAustralia contest […]. To fuel your innovative mashup juices, around 59 datasets from the Australian and State and Territory Governments have been released at data.australia.gov.au on license terms and […]
Read moreMacedonian translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
We’ve just added a Macedonian translation of the Open Knowledge Definition thanks to Ljube Babunski. http://opendefinition.org/1.0/Makedonski_jazik If you’d like to translate the Definition into another language, or if you’ve already done so, please get in touch on our discuss list, or on info at the OKF’s domain name (okfn dot org).
Read moreOpen Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 12
Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 12 has just been sent out. If you would like to receive this via email, you can join our main okfn-announce list. Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 12 Welcome to the twelfth Open Knowledge Foundation newsletter! Contents: New report on sharing aid information is now open for comments Open Data […]
Read moreFields of Gold: short film about open data on European farm subsidies
Farm Subsidy have recently released a short film called Fields of Gold: Lifting the Veil on Europe’s Farm Subsidies. The film tells the story of a campaign to open up data about where money from the Common Agricultural Policy goes – from national Freedom of Information requests from the likes of Jack Thurston and Nils […]
Read moreDiscovering Where My Money Goes I: PESA
This is the first of a series of post looking at the data challenges for the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Where Does My Money Go project, for which I’m helping to gather and analyze data. I got involved in the project because I wanted to know how much money the Department of Energy spends on different […]
Read moreSwedish translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
We’ve just added a Swedish translation of the Open Knowledge Definition thanks to Peter Krantz (who’s work on open data in Sweden we recently blogged about) and Staffan Malmgren. http://opendefinition.org/1.0/Svenska If you’d like to translate the Definition into another language, or if you’ve already done so, please get in touch on our discuss list, or […]
Read moreNew report on sharing aid information is now open for comments
We’re pleased to announce the publication of a new report, Unlocking the potential of aid information. The report, by the Open Knowledge Foundation and Aidinfo, looks at how to make information related to international development (i) legally open, (ii) technically open and (iii) easy to find. The report and relevant background information can be found […]
Read moreAbusing “Open”: Macmillan’s Open Dictionary
Jonathan recently wrote about the availability of open dictionaries. In a recent comment to that post someone pointed us to Macmillan’s “Open” Dictionary (the reasons for the quotes will soon be apparent). With a sense of excitement I followed the link: “Could it be”, I thought, “That a mainstream dictionary producer has decided that open […]
Read moreOpen licensing for philanthropic foundations – “Why not?”
Harvard University’s Berkman Center, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Institute recently released a report on copyright and open licensing for private philanthropic foundations. The report examines: […] the copyright licensing policies and practices of a group of twelve private foundations. In particular, it looked at the extent […]
Read moreWhere’s my nearest postbox? Open data for UK postbox locations
Where is your nearest postbox, and when is the post collected from it? Now you can get open data showing the locations and collection times of over 116,000 postboxes in the UK. You can browse relevant datasets on CKAN at: http://ckan.net/tag/read/postboxes The story behind this data reads like an inverted version of The Little Red […]
Read moreOpengov.se – a registry of open government data in Sweden
Opengov.se is a registry of open government data in Sweden: Opengov.se is an initiative to highlight available public datasets in Sweden. It contains a commentable catalog of government datasets, their formats and usage restrictions. It makes a note of what percentage of the datasets are fully open – i.e. material that is free for anyone […]
Read moreWhere is the nearest bus stop? UK Department for Transport adds NaPTAN data to Open Street Map
The UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) has recently released data from the National Public Transport Access Node (NaPTAN) database to be put on Open Street Map (OSM). As it says on the NaPTAN website: NaPTAN provides a unique identifier for every point of access to public transport in the UK, together with meaningful text descriptions […]
Read moreOpening Up Government Data: Give it to Us Raw, Give it to Us Now
Last month Rufus Pollock, Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, spoke at OpenTech 2009 in a session with Richard Stirling of the Cabinet Office and John Sheridan of the Office of Public Sector Information. His talk gave a blueprint for how to open up government data: Opening Up Government Data: Give it to Us Raw, […]
Read moreWhat do you think about open government data in Australia?
Back in June the Australian Minister for Finance announced a new Government 2.0 Taskforce. Part of the work of this new taskforce includes: increasing the openness of government through making public sector information more widely available to promote transparency, innovation and value adding to government information Paralleling recent initiatives such as the UK’s Power of […]
Read moreCKAN 0.9 Released
We are pleased to announce the release of CKAN version 0.9! CKAN is the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, a registry of open knowledge packages and projects. Changes include: Add version attribute for package Fix purge to use new version of Versioned Domain Model (vdm) (0.4) Link to changed packages when listing revision Show most recently […]
Read moreNew report published: The Socioeconomic Effects of Public Sector Information on Digital Networks
The National Academy of Sciences in the U.S. has just published a new report, The Socioeconomic Effects of Public Sector Information on Digital Networks, edited by Paul Uhlir from the U.S. National Committee for CODATA. There are lots of interesting contributions in the report, including from OKF Advisory Board member Chris Corbin, Communia Coordinator Juan […]
Read moreOpen Plaques: open data about UK heritage sites
Open Plaques is a project to find and document all the UK’s blue heritage plaques, which commemorate sites where famous events occurred, or with a connection to notable historical figures. There are currently over 1700 plaques, which can be browsed by area, by person, by role or by organisation. Though the project is currently in […]
Read moreOpen Data and the Semantic Web Workshop, London, 13th November 2009
We’re currently organising a workshop on ‘open data and the semantic web’, which will take place in London this autumn. Details are as follows: When: Friday 13th November 2009, 1000-1800 Where: London Knowledge Lab, 23-29 Emerald Street, London, WC1N 3QS. (See map) Wiki: http://wiki.okfn.org/SemanticWeb Participation: Attendance is free. If you are planning to come along […]
Read moreOpening up local government data?
Openly Local is a recently launched “first draft of getting hold of and making accessible local government data in a consistent and useful form”. There is generally a lot of support for open data from central government in the UK – particularly from the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI), the Cabinet Office and with […]
Read moreOpen Data Session at Repository Fringe 2009
Earlier today the OKF’s Jordan Hatcher and Jo Walsh gave a tutorial on open data at the Repository Fringe 2009. There are some detailed notes on the JISC Datashare blog: Repository Fringe 2009: Afternoon Tutorial (Open Data) Jo gave an overview of the Open Knowledge Foundation – in particular focusing on four principles for developing […]
Read moreNew business models for subscription services?
There are a lot of subscription based models around for access to data services. I notice this more since I’ve been working for UK HE/FE. One example of such a service is the SCRAN image archive, another is the Statistical Accounts of Scotland. The subscription-based model has to expose something to prove it’s worth subscribing […]
Read moreWhat features should be included in a catalogue of open government data?
There have recently been several posts about what features are desirable in government data catalogues. The Sunlight Foundation recently announced they are planning to build on data.gov to allow “community participation so that people can submit their own data sources” (including support for adding data that is not open such as data with noncommercial restrictions). […]
Read moreOpen dictionary databases: an overview
Open dictionaries are excellent examples of open knowledge projects. Whether monolingual or bilingual, and whether dealing with definitions, etymology, translation or pronounciation – they can often be large, collaborative undertakings. Dictionary databases have a wide variety of potential applications – from education and research to machine translation and integration with software applications and services. We’ve […]
Read moreInterested in open knowledge and international development?
Next Wednesday 22nd July there will be a virtual meeting for a new Working Group on Open Knowledge in Development: http://wiki.okfn.org/wg/development If you’re interested in open knowledge and international development you’re welcome to come along and join in discussion, which will be about what the new working group should focus on – as well as […]
Read morePostmaster General Ernest Marples’ Postcode Lookup API
Harry Metcalfe and Richard Pope recently let us know about their new postcode lookup API, named after Ernest Marples, the Postmaster General who introduced the Postcode: http://ernestmarples.com/ More about the service: Post codes are really useful, but the powers that be keep them closed unless you have loads of money to pay for them. Which […]
Read moreBeta release of Weaving History!
We are pleased to announce the first public beta of Weaving History! Weaving History lets you create ‘factlets‘, containing basic information about historical events, persons, and so on, which you can string together to create historical ‘threads‘. These threads can then be visually represented on maps and timelines. There’s a function that lets you automatically […]
Read more2nd Communia Workshop, Torino
Just over a week ago was the 2nd Communia Workshop, which took place in Turin. The theme was ‘Global Science and the Economics of Knowledge-Sharing Institutions’ – and there was a great line up of scientists, economists, and legal scholars, as well as representatives from various research bodies and NGOs. Papers, slides and audio will […]
Read moreSpeaking at OpenTech 2009
Tomorrow I’ll be talking at OpenTech 2009 in a session on “Open Government Data” with Richard Stirling of the Cabinet Office and John Sheridan of OPSI. With the recent, and very welcome, news on opening up government data both here and abroad I’ll be giving some suggested dos and don’ts for this process under the […]
Read moreOpen Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 11
Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 11 has just been sent out: Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 11 Welcome to the eleventh Open Knowledge Foundation newsletter! Contents: The OKF turns five and we need your support! Open Database License (ODbL) goes 1.0 European Open Data Inventory + Summit Launch of the Open Data Grid New developments […]
Read moreOpen Database License (ODbL) v1.0 Released
Open Data Commons have released v1.0 of the Open Database License (ODbL), a share-alike license for data and databases. This is really big news for anyone working on open data as there are very few open data licenses available and none that provide for share-alike. From the announce: We are delighted to announce the release […]
Read moreThanks for all the fish (data)!
EUTransparency, who created FarmSubsidy and organised the European Open Data Summit have launched a new site with data on payments made under the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. From the press release: Today sees the launch of fishsubsidy.org, a new transparency website from the farmsubsidy.org stable. It presents data on 97,260 payments totalling 8.5 billion euro […]
Read moreNew developments on ‘Where Does My Money Go?’
We’ve been doing some more work on Where Does My Money Go?. The project, will provide an interactive represention of UK public finance using maps, timelines, and best of breed visualisation technologies. We’ve now put together a basic visualisation based on data we’ve cleaned up from the Treasury: http://www.openeconomics.net/wdmmg/dept/ We’ve also had confirmation from the […]
Read moreFrench translation of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD)
We’ve just added a French translation of the Open Knowledge Definition thanks to Caroline Ker and Séverine Dusollier at the University of Namur, Belgium! http://opendefinition.org/1.0/Francais If you’d like to translate the Definition into another language, or if you’ve already done so, please get in touch on our discuss list, or at info (at) the OKF’s […]
Read moreNew developments on Public Domain Works!
We have now completed a major load of data into the Public Domain Works database: http://publicdomainworks.net/ There are now 125318 persons, 12840 items and 299141 works in the database. The data we have there comes primarily from two sources: people and book data from Philip Harper’s NGCOBA and recordings data from the online discographies provided […]
Read moreODC Open Database License (ODbL) Release Candidate 2 is Out
Open Data Commons, a project we help host and run, has put out its second and final “Release Candidate” of the Open Database License (ODbL). As it states in the announcement: The Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0 “Release Candidate 2” is now available at: http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/ As expected there haven’t been many changes from the first […]
Read moreKForge v0.16 Released
Another release (v0.16) of KForge is now out. It’s amazing to think this will mark KForge’s 4th anniversary! KForge is the software behind our KnowledgeForge service and the code is now very stable — we plan for the next release to be our official “1.0”. On this occasion there are the following changes worthy of […]
Read moreTwo new board members: James Casbon and Paula Le Dieu!
We are pleased to welcome two new members to the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Board of Directors: The first is James Casbon, a bioinformatics programmer: James Casbon has been working with open knowledge throughout his professional career. He has been responsible for analysing and managing large scale data sets in genomics, aerospace and finance. He is […]
Read moreThe OKF Turns 5 – And We Need Your Support
This month the Open Knowledge Foundation is five years old. Over those last five years we’ve done much to promote open access to information — from sonnets to stats, genes to geodata — not only in the form of specific projects like Open Shakespeare and Public Domain Works but also in the creation of tools […]
Read moreNew mailing list for open knowledge in development
We’ve just launched a new mailing list for those interested in open knowledge in development: http://lists.okfn.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/open-development As you may have seen we had a session on Open Knowledge for Development at OKCon 2009. There was also discussion of the value of sharing knowledge for development at the 5th Communia Workshop – particularly from Pierre Guillaume […]
Read moreVirtual meeting for Working Group on Open Data in Science
Next Tuesday 2nd June the Working Group on Open Data in Science will have their first meeting. While the meeting will focus on the Working Group’s activities, anyone is welcome to participate. Details are as follows: When: 2nd June 2009, 1600 GMT Where: #okfn IRC channel on oftc.net (you can connect via Mibbit) Wiki: http://wiki.okfn.org/wg/science/1 […]
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