Science Library Pad

Work blogs: Sean Boots

Since I rarely blog about work anymore, I thought I should highlight people who actually do.

Sean Boots continues to post thoughtful commentary on the challenges of the digital transition in government and on ways to improve how we work.

https://sboots.ca/

Parliamentary Committee Meeting permalinks

On the Parliament of Canada website parl.gc.ca links to committee meetings are usually given using document IDs.  The problem is that if the meeting is amended (which happens often), they are creating a new document ID, and the previous document ID doesn't redirect to the new one.  Which means a link to a meeting that worked one day may break the next day, with no explanation.  (This is an incorrect implementation; I don't know whether it is a CMS issue, or why the links and document IDs are being managed in this way.)

So here's how a link is typically provided

http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=e&Mode=1&Parl=42&Ses=1&DocId=8451116

But it appears there is actually a permanent linking system in the background, it's just not used.  It's of format

http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Pub=CommitteeMeetingNotice&Acronym=[4 letter committee acronym]&Mee=[meeting number]&Language=e&Mode=1&Parl=[Parliament number]&Ses=[Parliamentary session number]

e.g. for the above document ID 8451116 URL, the equivalent would be

http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Pub=CommitteeMeetingNotice&Acronym=ERRE&Mee=34&Language=e&Mode=1&Parl=42&Ses=1

That is to say, meeting number 34 of the ERRE Special Committee on Electoral Reform, during the 42nd Parliament, session 1.

Crossposted from my Paper Vote Canada blog.

Canada - Open Science 2014-2015 assessment for OGP/OGAP

Canada is a member of the international Open Government Partnership (OGP).

Canada's second Open Government Action Plan (OGAP) 2014-2016, released November 2014, contains an Open Science commitment.

The OGP requires yearly self-assessment and independent assessment reports.

Both reports have now been released.  The commenting period for the self-assessment closed January 18, 2016, but the commenting period for the independent assessment just opened today (February 2, 2016).

• Canada - 2014-2015 independent assessment for public comment (PDF) - Open Science is on pages 43-46
• Canada - Open Science 2014-2015 self-assessment
• Canada - Open Science commitment in OGAP 2014-2016
• Canada - Open Government Action Plan 2014-2016

UPDATE 2016-02-03: To comment on Canada's 2015 independent assessment, use the web form or email [email protected] ENDUPDATE

Disclaimer: I work on the Open Science commitment.

Twitter

• Open Government Partnership @opengovpart
• Open Government Partnership Independent Reporting Mechanism @OGP_IRM

Websites

• Canada - Open Government http://open.canada.ca/en/about-open-government
• OGP - Canada http://www.opengovpartnership.org/country/canada/
• OGP - Canada - Action Plans
• OGP - Canada - Self-Assessments
• OGP - Canada - independent assessments
• OGP - Canada - Calendar (PDF)
• OGP - all independent assessment reports

 

Previously:
November 6, 2014  Open Science in Canada's 2nd Open Gov Plan

Related articles

Comment on Canada's Mid-term Self-assessment on Open Government Action Plan 2014-16

Comment on Canada's Mid-term Self-assessment on Open Government Action Plan 2014-16

Canada is a member of the Open Government Partnership, and follows a two-year cycle running from July to June (2014-2016, 2016-2018 etc.) Included in the cycle is a mid-term assessment after the first year of the National Action Plan (NAP) and a final assessment after the second and final year. Assessment is composed of internal self-assessment and a third-party Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM).

Canada has completed the first year of its second Action Plan (2014-2016) and so the internal self-assessment as of June 2015 is now available online. Feedback will be open online until Monday January 18, 2016.

The plan consists of a number of commitments, including Open Science. You can comment on the plan as a whole, or on individual commitments. You can also comment by sending an email to [email protected]

Based on the OGP calendar, the next Canadian National Action Plan (2016-2018) should be available in the July 2016 timeframe.

Disclaimer: I work on the Open Science commitment.

Statistics Canada asks for feedback on website beta

The Government of Canada hasn't seen many experiments with beta websites, but Statistics Canada is currently running one.

The beta at http://www.statcan.gc.ca/beta/n1/en offers page rating, per-page feedback, and a discussion forum.

If you've ever wished the government made better websites, this is your opportunity to contribute.

#Opendata community: Help us improve our #website (URL) and find the info that you need. Please RT #Beta http://t.co/8EiT8MOFFI

— Statistics Canada (@StatCan_eng) November 26, 2014

provide feedback on Canada's Open Gov Action Plan 2

Canada is doing a multi-part, multi-aspect consultation about the 2nd version of its Open Government Action Plan.

The three four parts are:

1. In-person consultations

2. Ideas generation

3. Discussion of proposed activities (proposed commitments)

4. Consultation on the draft complete Action Plan (NEW)

Part 3 is now running has completed, however activities are being posted progressively; not all proposed commitments will be posted at once.  At the time of this writing, there are four proposed commitments posted

• Open Data Institute
• Open Data [projects and activities]
• Mandatory Reporting on Extractives
• Canada’s Directive on Open Government – Creating a Culture of “Open by Default”

others will follow.

UPDATE 2014-08-21: Open Information (including Virtual Library and declassifying documents) added.  ENDUPDATE

UPDATE 2014-08-29: Open Data Canada – Open Data Without Borders (unified open data across Canadian jurisdictions), Open Dialogue (consulting Canadians).  ENDUPDATE

UPDATE 2014-09-06: Three new proposed activities (proposed commitments):

• Open Science - the wording is a bit awkward, the clearest statement is "The Government of Canada proposes to maximize the release of federal scientific data and make more federally funded, peer-reviewed scientific articles and research publicly available ... free of charge."
• Open Information on Budgets and Expenditures - including "Investigating ways to release more budget data as open data"
• Open Contracting

ENDUPDATE

UPDATE 2014-09-20: The action consultation (phase 3 consultation) is now closed, as of Sept. 19, 2014.  However, the data.gc.ca mailing list has announced that there will be a 4th phase of consultation "to request public input on the draft version of Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government 2.0" from Oct. 6-17, 2014 Oct 9, 2014.  ENDUPDATE

To try to clarify the stages - in part 2 the public is invited to submit ideas, in part 3 the public is invited to provide feedback on selected activities, and in part 4 the public is invited to provide feedback on the entire plan.

There is some information in a news release - New Action Plan on Open Government: Engaging Canadians on Draft Plan - August 11, 2014.

US launches Digital government Service

The UK Government Digital Service was formed in April 2011 (according to Wikipedia).

On August 11, 2014 the White House announced the formation of a US Digital Service, as reported in the Washington Post

The White House on Monday announced that is was formally launching a new U.S. Digital Service and that they've hired to lead it Mikey Dickerson ... 

U.S. CIO Steve VanRoekel called it a "centralized, world-class capability...made up of our country’s brightest digital talent," forming a team that will be "charged with removing barriers to exceptional Government service delivery and remaking the digital experiences that citizens and businesses have with their Government."

White House launches "U.S. Digital Service" - by Nancy Schola @nancyschola - August 11, 2014

The organisation will apparently be referred to as the USDS - I couldn't find a website yet.  The Washington Post article points to a document on the CIO.gov site - U.S. Digital Services Playbook http://playbook.cio.gov/ that may give some ideas of the goals of the organisation.  The article indicates the model will be for the service to be a centre of expertise on design and transformation of services for the digital environment.

The US Digital Services Playbook has some rough similarities to the UK GDS Digital Principles and Design Principles.

UPDATE: WhiteHouse.gov blog post - Delivering a Customer-Focused Government Through Smarter IT.

Another piece of the puzzle is 18F Digital Services Delivery https://18f.gsa.gov/ @18f which will be used more to provide developer expertise to implement changes across the government.

Previously:
February 24, 2012  San Francisco Innovation - A startup called government

okfest14 - Neelie Kroes - notes

Open Knowledge Festival 2014 - July 16, 2014

Keynote - Neelie Kroes @NeelieKroesEU - European Commissioner for Digital Agenda

Video of presentation at http://youtu.be/0UNRZEsLxKc?t=29m45s

Interview video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGTLIfk-1BQ

• "I am in a hurry"
• we are in a dialogue, between politicians and the open knowledge community
• Why should we be open?
• 1. transparency. Better information should lead to better decisions.
• 2. fairness. Give taxpayers back what they pay for.
• 3. innovation.  The more you share, the more people have to build on.
• information can long sit gathering dust - let's release and turn dust into gold
• information should only ever be charged at the marginal cost, which in the digital environment is basically zero
• EU member states only have 1 year left to put this approach into national law
• Call for Tender now open: Pan-European open data infrastructure
• this work involves laws + portals + mindset change
• EU has delivered for open science.  Open access can be good for citizens, good for scientists, and good for society. 
• Horizon 2020 will offer 80 billion euros for research, and every resulting publication will be openly and [freely] available. Plus opening a lot more research data.
• EU also calling on member states to open up their publications from their national research funding
• citizens need to be informed + involved + engaged (with science)
• Consultation on science in transition - Open Digital Science http://www.consultation-science20.eu/ - closes 30 September 2014
• Open Internet
• We have "absolutely out-of-date" ideas from telecoms
• there must be an open Internet for all
• there must be an end of blocking and throttling of Internet, across the EU
• Open Education
• it is a crime when teachers are prevented from sharing open education resources
• copyright rules need to change
• rules were designed for a different age, more about limitation and control than creativity
• data mining copyright needs urgent reform
• whole EU Commission needs to have a digital mindset
• there is a better way - an open way

Ideas consultation for Canada's Open Gov Action Plan 2

You can submit ideas as well as upvote and comment on existing ideas in the Government of Canada's Open Government Action Plan 2 Ideas Dialogue.  It runs until end of June 2014.

One of the current ideas is Open Science, it could use some comments clarifying that open access is more than just "free online public access".

The Action Plan is national but is also part of Canada's participation in the Open Government Partnership.  You can see Canada's current Action Plan and other information at

http://www.opengovpartnership.org/country/canada

Previously:
Oct 31, 2013  Open Government Partnership and Canada - survey and more

Open Government Partnership and Canada - survey and more

Survey about open government in Canada: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ogpcanadaenglish

Deadline November 8, 2013.

Canada is a member of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), an international organisation.

The OGP has a third-party Independent Reporting Mechanism, to assess how civil society sees the progress of individual countries.

One of the main things it looks at is whether a country is meeting its Action Plan.

Here's Canada's Open Government Action Plan, Year 1

• on Canada's site: http://data.gc.ca/eng/canadas-action-plan-open-government
• on the Open Government Partnership site: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/country/canada/action-plan

NOTE: The original Canadian Open Government site open.gc.ca is gone and all of its links are broken; it redirects to data.gc.ca

Countries do their own self-assessments, in addition to the third-party assessment.  The Canadian self-assessment (the government's assessment of its own progress) is available at: http://data.gc.ca/eng/implementation-canadas-action-plan-open-government-year-1-self-assessment-report

If you have feedback for the third-party report you still have time to complete the official independent survey (also linked at the top of this post).  The independent reporting is being done by Dr. Mary Francoli of Carleton University. 

You can read more about the Independent Reporting Mechanism on the OGP site: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/about/about-irm

---

As part of Canada's participation in the OGP, this year Canada is co-chairing the Open Data Working Group (one of five new thematic working groups).

You can contact the organisers of the working groups if you're interested in joining.

You can follow the livestream of the Open Data Working Group meeting from the OGP Summit, on October 31, from 10:15am Eastern to 11:30am (2:15pm GMT to 3:30pm).

UPDATE 2013-11-01: Video now on YouTube #OGP13 Summit: Open Data Working Group (starts at 08m10s). ENDUPDATE

Group Anchors for the Open Data Working Group are:

Stephen Walker, Senior Director, Open Government and Information Management, Treasury Board Secretariat, Government of Canada

José M. Alonso, Open Data Program Manager, Web Foundation and Member, Global Open Data Initiative

You can follow:

• OGP Summit 2013: #OGP13 and event website with livestream links http://www.opengovpartnership.org/get-involved/london-summit-2013
• Stephen Walker: @sbwalker61 (rarely used).  Organisation: @TBS_Canada and the data.gc.ca blog
• Jose Alonso: @josemalonso Website http://josema.net/ Organisation: @webfoundation and website http://www.webfoundation.org/

Previously:
April 11, 2012  Canadian Open Government Action Plan
April 18, 2012  Canada and US at Open Government Partnership Brasilia Conference

Related articles

How open is your government? Get the data | Claire Provost

Who Does it Best When it Comes to Open Data?

Ontario open government survey

The Province of Ontario is running a survey about open government

http://www.ontario.ca/government/open-government-initial-survey

including questions about what types of open data citizens would like released.

This is part of a larger open government initiative announced on October 21, 2013.

The Ontario open data portal had already soft-launched on November 8, 2012.

General URL http://ontario.ca/open

Twitter hashtag #openON

Feedback can also be provided via the general contact form.

Government Open Source: Web Experience Toolkit

The Web Experience Toolkit has been in the news lately, with mentions in Mashable and Fast Company due to appearing on GitHub and Government.

It also got positive mentions from David Eaves and Ben Balter at the Code for America Summit.

Below is a Storify of recent mentions:

collaborate to change the Canadian public service

Canadian public servant Stephen Walker, Senior Director, Open Government and Information Management posts on the data.gov.uk blog:

This fall, the Government of Canada (GC) will release its Directive on Open Government, defining more clearly than ever before, the obligation that employees have to deliver open data, open information, and open dialogue to Canadians. In addition, our Blueprint 2020 initiative further challenges employees to envision the future of the public service. In the UK, the government has already started to address this need for culture change in the 2012 Open Data White Paper: Unleashing the Potential.

By working together, we can strengthen our ability to find new ways to harness the power of the public service. Our new public service needs to be more creative and proactive in releasing data, and in building relationships which optimize the use of that data. These relationships help to bridge the transitional gap of cultural change that is needed to spur opportunity for innovation, and to revamp how the government provides high quality services to its citizens.

from data.gov uk blogs - Now is the Time to Collaborate on Cultural Change - October 11, 2013

The UK Open Data White Paper is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-data-white-paper-unleashing-the-potential

Canada's national open data portal also has a blog http://data.gc.ca/eng/blog

The Clerk of the Privy Council's website has information about Blueprint 2020.

Related articles

News story: Transatlantic Hangout: supporting open data innovation and business

open data speed dating - tweets from GTEC 2013

The Open Data Speed Dating at GTEC 2013 event was a success.

There's a photo gallery of images taken by an official GTEC photographer.

Here's a Storify of all the tweets from the event (there were about 200).

Web Experience Toolkit - CodeFest 2013

A modern technology for web components, the Web Experience Toolkit, had its second CodeFest.

The open source code and community are hosted on GitHub.

https://github.com/wet-boew/

Government of Canada employees have played a substantial leadership role in the creation of the toolkit, in its release on GitHub, and in growing the community.  It's a great example of government working in a modern way.

I've embedded links to the keynotes below, as well as a Storify of the event (I didn't attend, but I watched the keynotes on YouTube).

Event info at http://wet-boew.github.io/codefest2.0/

Keynote presentations

Ben Balter @BenBalter - http://ben.balter.com/open-sourcing-government/
https://github.com/benbalter/open-sourcing-government (repository for slides) - video from 14m43s http://youtu.be/E-AxzfaZQVc?t=14m43s to 1h13m

Raymond Camden @cfjedimaster -
https://github.com/cfjedimaster/CuttingEdgeHTML (repository for the slides) - video from 1h35m32s http://youtu.be/E-AxzfaZQVc?t=1h35m32s

Hillary Little @hilittle - http://www.hilarylittle.com/blog/2013/08/09/codefest-2013-keynote-2/ - video http://youtu.be/51hN1trnpXA

Previously:
January 11, 2013  open source in government - The Web Experience Toolkit

Related articles

The Software That Builds Software

G8 Open Data Charter, updated Canadian national open data portal

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today formally adopted an Open Data Charter with other G-8 Leaders at the Lough Erne Summit in Northern Ireland.  In keeping with the Charter, the Prime Minister announced the upcoming launch of a new Government Open Data Portal, data.gc.ca, which will provide Canadians with unprecedented access to government data and information.  The next-generation Open Data Portal will be officially launched on June 18, 2013, by Treasury Board President Tony Clement.

press release - PM announces new measures to make Government data more accessible to Canadians

Open Data Charter

Each principle contains high-level "we will" commitments.

Principle 1: Open Data by Default

Principle 2: Quality and Quantity

Principle 3: Usable by All

Principle 4: Releasing Data for Improved Governance

Principle 5: Releasing Data for Innovation

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-data-charter

UPDATE: Down in the technical annex there are some very specific commitments, including metadata mapping on GitHub.

Action 1: G8 National Action Plans

• We will publish individual action plans detailing how we will implement the Open Data Charter according to our national frameworks (October 2013)
• We will report progress on an annual basis (via the G8 Accountability Working Group) (2014 and 2015)

Action 2: Release of high value data

• As a first step, we will collectively make key datasets on National Statistics, National Maps, National Elections and National Budgets available and discoverable (from June 2013), and we will work towards improving their granularity and accessibility (by December 2013)
• We recognise that collective action by all G8 members has the potential to unlock barriers and foster innovative solutions to some of the challenges we are facing. We therefore agree on a mutual effort to increase the supply of open government data available on key functions of our States, such as democracy and environment. We will work on identifying datasets in these areas by December 2013, with an aim to release them by December 2014.
• We will set out in our national action plans how and when we will release data under the remaining categories according to our national frameworks (October 2013).

Action 3: Metadata mapping

• We have contributed to and commit to maintaining the G8 metadata mapping exercise (June 2013)
• This mapping can be viewed on Github and comprises a collective mapping ‘index’ across G8 member’s metadata, and a detailed page on each G8 member use of metadata within their national portal.

ENDUPDATE

2013 Lough Erne G8 Leaders' Communiqué

UPDATE 2013-06-19: The communiqué contains additional commitments in the Open Data section, including

48. This Open Data Charter will increase the supply of open government data across a number of key categories including health, environment and transport; support democratic processes; and ensure that all data supplied are easy to use. We encourage others to adopt this Charter. G8 members will, by the end of this year, develop action plans, with a view to implementation of the Charter and technical annex by the end of 2015 at the latest. We will review progress at our next meeting in 2014.

49. In keeping with the Open Data Charter principles, transparent data on G8 development assistance are also essential for accountability. We have all agreed to implement the Busan Common Standard on Aid Transparency, including both the Creditor Reporting System of the OECD Development Assistance Committee and the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), by 2015. To show greater G8 leadership we will ensure data on G8 development assistance is open, timely, comprehensive and comparable.

50. G8 members should over time apply the Busan common transparency standards to their respective Development Finance Institutions and international public climate finance flows consistent with the reporting of climate finance under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

ENDUPDATE

Updated National Open Data Portal

Updated http://data.gc.ca/ site, now running CKAN data engine with Drupal web front-end.

Includes:

• Updated Open Government License
• subsite for developers
• blog

There's an article in the Globe and Mail: Ottawa to grant app developers access to federal information.

Related articles

Why we should welcome a G8 Open Data Charter

open service development and the Expenditure Database

On April 22, 2013 TBS released the Expenditure Database.  It allows one to browse and search expenditures organised in ways that are easier to understand than the "votes" system under which they are actually allocated.  It is great progress within the overall open government initiative.

However, from a technology, design and process perspective, I think there are some opportunities that are being missed.

Victorian Service Delivery

Minister Clement is fond of saying that the government's data is like grandmother's silver, hidden away.  In fact, our current model of delivering applications is more like hiding the entire kitchen from view.  In Ottawa's Victorian homes, the kitchen is usually at the back of the house, closed off from the dining room.  The servants were supposed to work there in obscurity, with only the final result appearing with a dramatic flourish in the formal dining room. 

In most of those homes that wall has now been smashed down, because we found that in the post-servant age, the kitchen is the hub of activity in the house, where we socialise and cook together openly, a very human and social activity.

But in government software development, that wall still stands.  Applications are developed behind closed doors by public servants, and then suddenly appear, fully formed, on release day. This model of closed software development has some very real consequences:

• There is no opportunity for issues to be caught and corrected during the development process; instead we have to wait post-launch to find design issues that are only visible after public use
• It makes application development seem mysterious and closed off from the world.  In a country where we want young people--in particular young women--to see software development as an interesting career, we've hidden all the real human aspects of development away, all the interactions, discussions, decisions, and compromises that have to be made as we assemble the software from the available ingredients in our coding kitchen.
• It closes the government developer community off from the much larger national and worldwide community of developers, both reducing the network that they can tap into as well as hiding our own government excellence and expertise.

We need not just open data, we need the entire philosophy of open source web development: we need to develop in the open.

Modern Government Service Design

The UK Government has released a fantastic Government Service Design Manual.  It has some explicit statements and some built-in assumptions.  The underlying concepts are to develop government services using modern software engineering processes.  This means being open about the code as it is in development (e.g. through blogs explaining the work and github repositories making the code available) and iterating through the design, from Discovery, through Alpha, Beta, Live and (all important in the government) Retirement.

The UK Government Digital Service does its work in the open, through blogs, twitter, and github.

Software development is a process: the application you release at a moment in time is not an end, what's important is that the application should tell a story about itself, so that it can be improved and so that it can be an inspiration for further work.

The Expenditure Database

The Expenditure Database is a great step in providing easy citizen access to the underlying data.  But it doesn't tell any of the story of how it works, how the data is processed, and who did the work.  The meal has been delivered and it looks very nice, but the kitchen and the process of making it are still closed off from view, hidden in mystery.

Code on the Web

Of course this is not quite as simple a story because it is a web application, so in theory you could look through all of the JavaScript.  But that means reverse-engineering the code, trying to figure out how it works without having access to documentation (the recipe) and the developers (the cooks).  When someone is trying to understand an application the first thing they will do is read its story about how it works and how it was put together, and then ask the developers when there are aspects not clear or not covered in the documentation.  Without open code development, this avenue of understanding is closed.

Instead one has to dig through the code and make guesses.  For example, it looks upon examination that it is drawing the data from a local file: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/ems-sgd/edb-bdd/data.js

If instead the code were in a shared repository and documented, it would be much easier to understand how it works and the rights to reuse and modify would be a lot clearer.  As well one would expect there would be both examples of using the data file as well as an explanation of how it was generated.

Expenditure Database Development

What Expenditure Database development would look like if it followed this model:

• In advance of coding, in the Discovery phase there would be an internal call for requirements and expertise, e.g. on GCpedia (the Government of Canada internal wiki)
• An alpha using open source code would be quickly released
• The alpha would use public budget open data from data.gc.ca
• If the data wasn't available, it would have to be released (the rule is, internal developers shouldn't have any special or privileged access to information)
• A beta would be released to the public incorporating feedback and code changes
• At the beta phase at the latest, code would be shared on github (a public code repository and developer community) and there would be public explanations and documentation of the work going on.
• The developers would be using their own accounts; it would be clear whom to contact for questions about the software.
• Once the system goes live, there would be an ongoing process to incorporate improvements to the code, improve the documentation, and respond to internal and external questions from other developers and users.

What We're Missing

Just a few examples of what we're missing as a consequence of the current implementation:

• There are no permanent URLs to departments or searches.  That means if I want to point you at the expenditures for the National Research Council, I can't just give you a URL.  I have to say "go to http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/ems-sgd/edb-bdd/index-eng.html and search or scroll to National Research Council and then click on it and then scroll down and click on the details for various parts of it".  A good standards-based design and testing process should have revealed this issue.
• The Expenditure Database "stands alone" on a difficult-to-remember GC standard URL.  You have to know to navigate to it, or get the link from somewhere.  Why not tbs-sct.gc.ca/expenditures as a short link?  There is also no link from the database to data.gc.ca nor is there a link from data.gc.ca to the database.
• Without documentation about how the data were created, it's not clear if it's using budget data from data.gc.ca or whether it is using a custom database, and how the numbers are being generated; without access to the code there is a lost opportunity for other developers to learn how to parse, manage and display the budget data.
• Without the code, it's not possible for developers to either make their own websites using a similar approach, or to improve the Expenditure Database code itself.
• Without pulling the data directly from data.gc.ca there is no opportunity to explore all of the challenges that external developers need to solve, such as how to deal with versioning (what if a number has to be changed in the released data? how to tell if it has been changed?  how to see the previous version?) and performance (should there be an API instead of a download?  should the download be cached locally?  for how long?) and updates (how to tell when a new budget year has been released?)
• Without the code shared and the work publically described, people are left to speculate as to how the results are generated.
• Without the code shared and the work publically described, there is no entry point for external developers; there is no community-building for external developers.
• There's no contact point. The site gives no idea who developed the Expenditure Database, how it works, or who made the design decisions. The code and its development is made mysterious, the work of the kitchen hidden, rather than being demystified.
• There's no way to download the data displayed; you can only take a screenshot.
• There is no standard web navigation (e.g. the back button doesn't work)
• There's no way to compare departments

Additional information

TBS PR - Searchable Information on Government Spending is now Just a Click Away

Call for Feedback

I welcome your feedback on this post, with any clarifications, corrections, suggestions or pointers.

Thanks to Stephen Anthony, Adam Frankowski, Patrice Collin and Nick Charney for providing ideas and feedback that improved this post.

data.gc.ca - consultation on next version of open data portal

Some thoughts from the Canadian public service about Canada's national open data, specifically as delivered through the data.gc.ca portal

... a gigantic level of excitement around the potential for pan-Canadian federated open data.  So the work that we do to drive interoperability between open data activities of British Columbia, or Edmonton, or the federal government, recognizing the fact that users and developers are going to want to combine and integrate data from multiple sources... that really gets us going.  All of the possibilities around the... re-thinking around how we make an open data portal that does a lot more than the original open data portal (which was largely experimental at the beginning and was always a pilot), moving that idea forward, specifically around user engagement.

Those of you who have used data.gc.ca to date will know that it doesn't come with a lot of tools for user engagement.  Our hope--coming out of events like this one today--is to help drive the design and delivery of that portal to maximize its functions in terms of engaging the users, or bringing users together with each other, in order to facilitate greater use, greater uptake of the open data.

And just from a third point... this idea that we are driven to deliver open data to developers to help with the development of apps--interesting, innovative ideas that will drive the kind of time efficiency that Ray mentioned earlier as well.  But we do have to remember to think about the citizens.  So the capacity for the platform or any government department or jurisdiction to ensure that the data serves the citizens (who may not be as technologically advanced) is also very important to us, and that gets us very excited about things like visualizations and interactive tools that will allow the citizens to see data in different ways that mean something to them.

Stephen Walker, CIO Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat

from video Innovating with Open Data.

You can reach Stephen, who is also the contact point for Canada's Open Government Partnership country committments, at

[email protected]

(613) 946-3052

You can see previous postings in category opengovca

Also see related articles...

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Gov as a startup - notes on talk by Audrey Chen of the CFPB

open source in government - The Web Experience Toolkit

Gov as a startup - notes on talk by Audrey Chen of the CFPB

It is challenging to innovate from within a bureaucracy.  So when I saw a report about the work that the US CFPB is doing to bring better design, technology and culture to government service delivery, I was intrigued.

Background

For designers like [Audrey] Chen, the CFPB’s approach isn’t just about making the government’s work more tech-savvy or aesthetically pleasing: Horrible design leads to a bad user experience...

Washington Post - Who leaves Comedy Central to work for the government? - September 7, 2012

I contacted the US Embassy and they very graciously worked to arrange a presentation by Audrey Chen.

There have been more recent articles as well.

the change was tiny, a typo fix. Iceeey suggested the agency change the line “Daily rountrip cost” to “Daily roundtrip cost.” But this small request was a very big deal.

For the first time, the Consumer Protection Bureau was accepting a direct change to one of its internal documents not from someone inside the agency but from an average citizen somewhere across the country. The document had been published on the software code collaboration website GitHub, with the express idea that it could be hacked, commented on, and improved in public just like open source software.

Wired - How GitHub Helps You Hack the Government - January 9, 2013

This is an additional point of connection between the Canadian gov and the US CFPB, as Canada has put its Web Experience Toolkit on GitHub.

I later found this article from O'Reilly Radar as well

As the first federal “start-up agency” in a generation, some of those needs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are even more pressing. On the other hand, the opportunity for the agency to be smarter, leaner and “open from the beginning” is also immense.

Progress establishing the agency’s infrastructure and culture over the first 16 months has been promising, save for larger context of getting a director at the helm. Enabling open government by design isn’t just a catchphrase at the CFPB. There has been a bold vision behind the CFPB from the outset, where a 21st century regulator would leverage new technologies to find problems in the economy before the next great financial crisis escalates.

O'Reilly Radar - Open source is interoperable with smarter government at the CFPB - April 10, 2012 - by Alex Howard (@digiphile)

Presentation Notes

Audrey Chen is the Creative Director, Technology & Innovation, at the CFPB.

There was a short slide presentation followed by discussion. In the introduction, Audrey Chen emphasized the nature of the CFPB as a 21st century organisation, using design and technology to empower consumers.

She made the connection between design's user-centred nature and modern technology's agile development approach - with the two together you can work quickly to deliver designs that meet user needs.

She talked about the rapid growth of the CFPB, from 300 to over 1000 employees, describing it as the explosive growth characteristic of a startup, and bringing concepts that have been useful for startups:

• do more with less
• flexibility
• self-reflection

She noted that even with a large budget in the context of the startup space, the CFPB has a small budget relative to the banks that it regulates.  Thus the importance of maximising its resources, and adjusting to changes quickly.

She talked about innovative approaches for recruiting the necessary creative and design-oriented staff for the organisation, including embedding a recruitment ad in the page source for the website ("If you're viewing this, you should probably come work on our Technology & Innovation team.")

In order to connect all the new employees together, particularly in an environment where 1/3 of them are working remotely, there is a cfpb.local intranet site, enabling self-organisation and discovery of expertise, using e.g. tagging of employee profiles (anyone can add a tag to a profile).  The idea being that this was a flexible, crowdsourced way of building up knowledge about who is in the organisation and the skills that they bring.

The Importance of Design

Design was part of the core message that she presented, a natural fit with her core role as Creative Director at the CFPB.  She showed their design principles:

• public service, public trust
• give the user control
• aesthetic integrity
• design with data
• inclusion and accessibility
• coherent end-to-end user experience

Fundamentally, she said, "design expresses your value system".

She discussed the approach they took to create the Know Before You Owe service.  A key: you can see everything about how they did it online - every design they tried, every consultation they did.  This is not just about sharing, it's about building the public trust in the organisation through transparency.  "Radically transparent at every step" is how she described it.

She also talked about CFPB finding its strengths - data sets that are unique to CFPB, or the ability of CFPB to create a compelling online experience - and partnering with other agencies when it makes sense for them to take the lead (e.g. the Department of Education for student loan information in general, the CFPB for a well-designed Paying for College site)

Q&A

* I asked a question about how they have arranged their physical space to support collaboration and information sharing between all the new and diverse employees.

She said that they use an open space "bullpen" design, with small groups that are working on the same thing ("functional teams") all in one open shared space.  A difficult adjustment for many of the employees, but it was tested on a small scale and they could demonstrate that those teams were more productive.

She said that 1/3 of the agency is remote, in particular many of the creative people they hired were based in major US cities and didn't want to move to DC.  They deal with this by using video conferencing and screen sharing.

* I asked about the online tools

She said that the intranet is primarily wiki based, allowing easy changes, and that the staff directory with open tagging helps people connect.

* Kent Aitken asked about the challenge of placing such a high level of trust in employees (allowing them to make changes and add tags)

She said they always err on the side of trust, but that the wiki requires login, so all changes are tracked, providing accountability.

* Mary Beth Baker asked about recruiting, hackfests and change-making in an organisation

Audrey Chen's reply was that you have to be brave - you have to make a case for what you believe in, at high levels in your organisation, using business language.

She said that CFPB had found success with a code-a-thon that was very specific, centred around a specific data set unique to CFPB.

* I asked about approaches to internal information sharing

She said they have both lunch & learns and "hootenanies", where design teams can share more generally what they're working on and what interests them.

She said they would like to do Google Time (20% time) but they have been too busy with the core of their work to make it possible.

She concluded by saying that as a small agency, in a space dominated by players that have huge financial resources, CFPB is using design to compete and technology to lower its costs.

---

It was an informative presentation.  I wish more people had attended, I should have promoted it more widely.  Thanks go out to Audrey Chen and to the organising team at the Embassy.

open source in government - The Web Experience Toolkit

The Government of Canada has its Web Experience Toolkit on GitHub

https://github.com/wet-boew

By making the WxT open source, it has been possible for organisations outside of the government to use it for their websites and to improve it.  Both the University of Ottawa and the City of Ottawa are now using WxT.

There was a writeup in Wired about the WxT: Canadian [Coders] Solve Mystery of Open Source Government.

the Treasury Board of Canada hosted a CodeFest to invite hackers — mostly government staffers — to hack its Web Experience Toolkit, or WET — a set of open-source tools that the Treasury Board uses for building websites. One hundred and fifty people came. Many of them were young developers, excitedly swapping code and sharing ideas across tables.

There are some minor issues: It's Treasury Board Secretariat, not Treasury Board, and TBS is the government's central policy agency not an "obscure Canadian tax-collecting agency".  (Admittedly it is difficult to decode that from the TBS website, but if you read far down enough you get to "policies, directives, regulations, and program expenditure proposals with respect to the management of the government's resources".)

You can follow Web Experience Toolkit info on Twitter using the hashtag #wxt and the account @WebExpToolkit

Author of the article is Robert McMillan @bobmcmillan

Featured or indirectly mentioned are:

• Paul Jackson @pjackson28
• Mary Beth Baker @bethmaru
• Lucia Harper @Lucialand
• Laura Booker (of OpenPlus) @bookerlaura
• @OpenPlusSoft
• Mike Gifford (of OpenConcept) @mgifford
• Luke Charde @lukecharde

UPDATE: There is a Drupal working group, the next meeting is January 25, 2013 at Ottawa City Hall.

Canadian Open Government License consultation

Deadline is end of January 2013.

Proposed license: http://www.data.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=0D3F42BD-1

Provide feedback via web form: http://www.data.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=0D3F42BD-1#yoursay

French language Twitter chat about license 11 décembre 2012 de 15:30 à 15 :50 HNE - mot-clic #CTcauserieMin sur @SCT_Canada

English language Twitter chat about license December 11, 2012 - 4 to 4:30 p.m. EST - hashtag #TBMinchat hosted on account @TBS_Canada

December 11 from 4 to 4:30 p.m. EST @tbs_canada is hosting a #opengov licence tweetchat with @tonyclementcpc using #TBMinchat.

— TBS Canada (@TBS_Canada) December 6, 2012

Le 11 décembre de 15:30 à 15 :50 HNE @sct_canada vous reçoit pour une causerie sur la licence #gouvert avec @tonyclementcpc #CTcauserieMin

— SCT Canada (@SCT_Canada) December 6, 2012

President of the Treasury Board Clement has spoken recently about open data and other issues at an event called Public Sector Engage (PS Engage, #PSE2012).

Previously:
See previous posts in category opengovca

another commute-time map, powered by open data

I've written previously about different ways of visualising transit on a map, including commute time, in my post visualising city transit layers.

Some Twitter buzz today and recently about Mapumental mashing up public transit open data with properties available to buy and rent - effectively letting you search for homes within a commute time range that you set.

Mapumental: The “I want a better commute” Property Finding Service for Britain bit.ly/RKPyrv via @mysociety @steiny

— Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly) November 8, 2012

It's actually been around for a while with just travel times.

#lift12 @rufuspollock showing Mapumental bit.ly/z8E4UQ as an example of a map that helps one make decisions

— Richard Akerman (@scilib) February 24, 2012

The property part is new.

Here's the map with just commute time (20 minutes to arrive by 9am at SW1A 0AA which is Westminster, the UK Parliament)

and here's the map with available homes to rent overlaid

You can check it out at property.mapumental.com
or the specific one I showed is http://property.mapumental.com/map/SW1A0AA-a-0900/44d71ed3

Hackfests and Apps Contests

Here's a thing I wrote on the government internal wiki (which is only available to government employees).  Some of the content was based on an email I received.

If you have ideas about how to make it better, please feel free to leave a comment (or edit it directly on the wiki, if you're in the Government of Canada).

 

Hackfests and Apps Contests

There are a number of ways to encourage the use of open data and the building of a community. This article uses the broad umbrella of "hackfest" (hackathon, codefest, etc.) to cover some approaches.

Common approaches include:

• an online community discussion channel (e.g. mailing list, discussion board)
• ideas-generating events or contests
• code development events or contests

Community-Building

Sites that offer data, APIs, or other technical capabilities often need support from a broader community in order to sustain and grow their capabilities. This is a key element of community engagement.

Communities may be sector-specific, or they may be based on particular skills or expertise.

Key communities may include:

• software developers
• user interface design experts
• technology standards experts
• domain experts (e.g. health experts, energy experts)
• intended users of a particular technology (e.g. parents for a consumer recall application)

Developer Outreach

In cases where a desired outcome is the development of new applications or hardware in order to promote economic growth, software development experts are a community that needs specific targeted outreach.

In the United Kingdom, the national Open Data White Paper identifies the need for a Developer Outreach Strategy

We need to work collaboratively to ensure that developers are aware of what datasets are being released, in what timeframes, and to maintain relationships with those at the cutting edge of technology who can help government do things differently and in more agile ways. This kind of conversation between government and users facilitates capacity building both ways to great benefit for the public good.

One approach to this for government websites is to ensure that every site has a /developer subpage that provides contact and community information. Such a page needs to be backed up with active community engagement.

In the US, the national Digital Government Strategy states

To establish a “new default,” the policy will require that newly developed IT systems are architected for openness and expose high-value data and content as web APIs at a discrete and digestible level of granularity with metadata tags. Under a presumption of openness, agencies must evaluate the information contained within these systems for release to other agencies and the public, publish it in a timely manner, make it easily accessible for external use as applicable, and post it at agency.gov/developer in a machine-readable format.

Ideas Generation

Many events have idea generation as a first stage of the event (typically online-only to get people started thinking). Others are ideas-only (no code created), or run idea generation in parallel with the coding.

Examples:

• ideas as first stage: Nokia Creating Innovation for People and Planet challenge closes July 31, 2012 followed by an apps contest (the "Do Good Hackathon") http://dogoodhackathon.com/ - if you don't "claim" your idea by registering for the hackathon, anyone can use it
• ideas-only: the GC IT Innovation Challenge ran in 2009
• ideas in parallel: the City of Ottawa offered separate prizes for ideas and for code in its 2010-2011 Apps4Ottawa contest

Apps Contests

There has been an upsurge in organisations offering prizes for creative use of their technology assets, most typically an "apps contest" using open data that they have released. This has ranged from the municipal to the international level.

It is an easy entry point into leveraging the value of released data, but it should be considered only one piece of an overall engagement strategy.

A caution on expectations from cash prizes - they will incentivize creation of individual apps, but they are not sufficient to help build community. Four Ways Summer of Smart has Reinvented Civic Hackathons states

Don’t (just) offer cash prizes. (Hackathons should build a community.) We have seen dozens of apps contents and hackathons where it’s assumed that a few thousand dollars of incentive as a prize will help seed the projects and produce innovation. But as many have found, this model simply isn’t effective – and there is a clear reason why: civic hackers are driven not by money, but by the potential of their work to create civic and social change.

Canadian Apps Contests

Completed or Currently Running events

• Apps4Ottawa - the City of Ottawa in 2010-2011 - with organising support and hackfests from citizen's group Open Data Ottawa
• Apps4Edmonton - August 2010
• Apps4ClimateAction BC - August 2010
• Apps4Good - May 2010
• London Open Data Budget App
• Canpages API
• e-Health 2012 Apps Challenge
• Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) MintChip Challenge - Deadline for submissions is August 1, 2012
• «Let’s Develop Together!» [Société de transport de Laval (STL)
• AppStar (UTSC Mobile App Development Competition)

Upcoming

The City of Ottawa will have a second contest in fall 2012. The lead at the City of Ottawa is Rob Giggey (Twitter: @rob_giggey).

US Government

The US government offers a general platform for citizen competitions of many different types called Challenge.gov The tagline is: "On Challenge.gov, the public and government can solve problems together."

Hackfests (General Information)

Developers will sometime create simply based around a data release or a hackfest event, without needing to have a specific contest. For example a wide range of applications for bus arrival times were created following the City of Ottawa's release of real-time transit open data - there was no contest, but the data release was widely promoted and there was a related 2012 Ottawa Transit Data Day event.

Canadian Hackfests

• Hack Regina Fall 2012
• Startup Edmonton Summer Hackathon 2012 - #hackathonyeg
• Hackons la corruption 2012 organised by Quebec Ouverte
• Gatineau Hackathon 2.0 - May 5, 2012
• 3rd Open Data Ottawa Hackfest - December 3, 2011 - @opendataottawa - #hackott
• Random Hacks of Kindness Montreal - December 2011 - @rhokmtl
• Random Hacks of Kindness Toronto - December 2011 - @rhokto

GC Hackfests and related events

• WET Codefest - July 2012 - event to work on government web standards
• Open Policy@DFAIT - February 2012 - although not a hackfest per se, it included an unconference where various aspects of application development and coding were discussed

National-level Hackfests

• Dutch Parliament Hosts Apps4Democracy Event - Sept. 2012 - "The Dutch Parliament is planning a major release of parliamentary data as open data, and the hack day is aimed at letting coders explore and work with the data."
• UK - 4th National Hack the Government Day - April 2012 - #nhtg12 - also see blog post National Hack The Government Day 2012 - hosted at http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/

Ottawa & Gatineau Groups

There are many Ottawa-area groups with expertise related to community-building and software development.

These include:

• Open Data Ottawa
• Gatineau Ouverte
• Girl Develop It Ottawa
• Geek Girl Dinners Ottawa
• Hacks & Hackers Ottawa

Province of Quebec open data portal and IT dashboard

On June 28, 2012 the Province of Quebec launched its open data portal donnees.gouv.qc.ca

It looks pretty good although it has no developer outreach or engagement section.  I think all open data sites should have a /developer page as that is a key group of users.

The province also released an IT dashboard, which tracks progress and expenditures on its information technology projects.  http://www.tableaudebordprojetsri.gouv.qc.ca/

This kind of tool can have a big impact on decisionmaking, in particular it can help to expose which projects should have their scope reduced or be eliminated altogether.

The release of these two sites meets the commitments laid out in Quebec's open government report, the Gautrin report.

Le portail www.données.gouv.qc.ca sera mis en place dès juin et les données y seront publiées progressivement.

En juin, un tableau de bord sur l'état de santé des projets informatiques sera diffusé dans le portail des données ouvertes.

See my May 2012 post Government of Quebec open data and open government - the Gautrin Report for more information about other recommendations including a coming public consultation site.

UK Open Data White Paper and data.gov.uk relaunch

If you follow a lot of UK government open data people your Twitter stream may have lit up with tweets this morning (rather early in the morning, for those of us in North America).

There was a hashtagless event that combined a launch of the Open Data White Paper and Departmental Open Data Strategies

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/open-data

with a relaunch of data.gov.uk itself.

UPDATE 2012-06-29: The OKFN blog has details on the site and the CKAN code that powers it - UK Government Releases Open Data White Paper and new Data.Gov.UK ENDUPDATE

I Storified what showed up in my Twitter stream (I can't guarantee it's full coverage, it's just what I saw from those I follow).