Science Library Pad

evidence-based policy and open science in US 3rd Open Gov National Action Plan

https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/10/27/advancing-open-and-citizen-centered-government

3^rd Open Gov (National) Action Plan https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/final_us_open_government_national_action_plan_3_0.pdf

Open Government to Improve Public Services

10. Promote Evidence-Based Policy for More Effective Service Delivery

Using evidence and concrete data to evaluate government programs and policies can improve public service delivery at all levels of government. In July 2015, the Administration launched an interagency evidence-based policymaking group to promote more effective government service delivery and better results for families and communities in need. The group will work with agencies to build capacity to make better use of evidence and to make more transparent decisions about service delivery programs. The group will catalyze specific actions across Federal agencies that are designed to advance the use of evidence in decision-making and strengthen the use of data and evidence to develop and implement more impactful service delivery programs.

Access to Information

8. Advance Open Science through Increased Public Access to Data, Research, and Technologies

By providing access to government-funded scientific information and data, Federal agencies leverage scientific investments while catalyzing American innovation and novel applications for business and entrepreneurship. Federal agencies can also take steps to make the research they support more open. In September 2015, the Office of Science and Technology Policy encouraged Federal science agencies, in designing citizen science and crowdsourcing projects, to take steps to ensure that datasets, code, applications, and technologies generated by such projects are transparent, open, and freely available to the public. To continue momentum and collaborations for open science, the Office of Science and Technology Policy will:

* Increase Public Access to Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research. In 2013, the Office of Science and Technology Policy directed Federal science agencies to develop plans to increase access to the results of unclassified research supported wholly or in part by Federal funding. The public’s ability to search, retrieve, and analyze both scientific publications and research data leverages Federal investments and provides new opportunities for scientific advancement and economic growth. The Office of Science and Technology Policy will work to ensure that all Federal agencies that spend more than $100 million per year on research and development finalize plans and implement policies and programs to make scientific publications and digital data resulting from Federally funded research accessible to and usable by scientists, entrepreneurs, educators, students, and the general public.

* Encourage Increased Public Participation in Open Science Using Low-cost Scientific Instruments. One step that the Federal government could take to increase participation in citizen science and crowdsourcing is to develop hardware and software tools that are affordable, easy to use, and easy to improve. The Administration will kick off an interagency dialogue to identify best practices for how the Federal government can foster the development of low-cost scientific instrumentation and work with stakeholders through workshops and ideation challenges to identify opportunities for getting them into the hands of volunteers, such as air-quality monitors or wearables for monitoring personal health. Using these low-cost scientific instruments, volunteers can contribute their expertise to help advance a variety of scientific and societal goals

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

hacking and learning about hacking - in Ottawa - May and June 2015

Open events

• #FlashHacks at Maker Space North - May 24, 2015
  "Come and join us for a day of mapping the corporate network of the largest public companies in Canada and releasing this as open data."
• Bring your own data and learn about hackfests - register - June 1, 2015
  part of #CongreSSH
• Open Data Book Club (dataset club) - register (all welcome) - June 3, 2015
  by @opendataottawa
• Random Hacks of Kindness Ottawa - register ($5) - June 5-7, 2015
  by @rhok_ottawa

Closed / Teams Required

• #HackingConflict #Diplohack - see http://new.secdev-foundation.org/hackingconflict - http://hackingconflict.org/ - @diplohack - May 27-28, 2015
• #AquaHacking - http://aquahacking.com/en/ - @aquahacking - presentation to jury May 30, 2015

A week of Open Data in Ottawa - May 2015

A big line-up of open data related events in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

UPDATE 2015-04-23: As I live in Ottawa, I have provided some info about restaurants, and how to get around in the downtown area from the conference centre.  ENDUPDATE

UPDATE 2015-05-26: The IODC has released a programme of events throughout the week (PDF).  ENDUPDATE

Please note: most of these events require separate registration.

May 24: #FlashHacks at Maker Space North - register on EventBrite - see @opencorporates @makerspacenorth

May 25: Canadian Open Data Summit

http://opendatasummit.ca/

see @opennorth and hashtag #CODS15 for more information.

social: 5pm-7pm Networking Social at Heart and Crown (67 Clarence St, Ottawa)

May 26: IODC Unconference

http://opendatacon.org/unconference/

social: 6pm-8pm register for HUB Hosts: IODC Unconference Networking Social

possible W2P meetup in evening

May 27: a number of different events

2015 Open Data Research Symposium http://www.opendataresearch.org/project/2015/symposium

Joined Up Data Workshop / Open Data Leaders Summit http://opendatacon.org/pre-conference-events/

Opening Parliaments https://www.eventbrite.com/e/iodc-pre-conference-event-open-parliaments-tickets-17006256170 2pm-5pm - for more info contact @DanSwislow and @jkeserue - also see @openparl

CKANCon 2015 http://www.eventbrite.com/e/ckancon-2015-tickets-16681567016 hashtag #CKANCon

Data Standards Day http://iodc-standards.webfoundation.org/

Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) Meeting - register - 3pm-5pm

Open Data for Humanitarian Emergencies - register - 10:30am-noon

May 27-28: Possible #HackingConflict #Diplohack - see http://new.secdev-foundation.org/hackingconflict
For more information, please contact: [email protected]
- parent organisation @diplohack http://www.diplohack.org/

May 28-29: International Open Data Conference

see website http://opendatacon.org/ and hashtag #IODC15 for more information.

May 28 social: 7:30pm Open Knowledge community / School of Data meet and greet at The Brig Pub, 23 York St.

May 29: GoGeomatics Ottawa May Social

Richard Burcher of Ottawa OpenStreetMap will speak.  7pm at James Street Pub.

http://www.meetup.com/Ottawa-GoGeomatics-Canada-Monthly-Networking-Social/events/222139575/

Note: this is a small meetup group.

May 30 - June 1: IATI Technical Advisory Group Meeting

http://www.aidtransparency.net/technicaladvisorygroup/tag-meetings/tag-meeting-may-2015

registration https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TAG2015Ottawa deadline April 13, 2015

follow @IATI_aid and hashtags #IATI and #TAG2015 for more information

The events continue, although with less direct connection to just open data

May 30-31: Canadian Association of Learned Journals

Open Access and Open Data are major topics - see schedule (PDF)

Hashtag #CALJACRS15

May 30 - June 5: Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences

http://congress2015.ca/

follow @ideas_idees and rather tricky hashtag #CongreSSH

Note that Congress has many, many sub-conferences and events, including:

• Digital Humanities Summer Institute (a series of 2.5 hour workshops) May 30-31
• a hackfest on June 1

June 3: Open Data Ottawa - Open Data Book Club - Artifact dataset - 7pm - Smoque Shack - see @opendataottawa

(see bottom of post for June 5-7 Random Hacks of Kindness)

June 3-5: Conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science (CAIS)

http://congress2015.ca/program/events/conference-cais-68
(part of Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences)

hashtag #CAISACSI15

also see http://www.cais-acsi.ca/

June 3-5: Canadian Library Association Conference

http://www.claconference.ca/

follow @CLAOtt15 and hashtag #claott15

UPDATE 2015-06-04: The CLA conference website removed the per-day pages, and now has a single program page that doesn't provide per-session links http://www.claconference.ca/program ENDUPDATE

Some sessions that may be of interest include:

Session Title: Innovation in Canadian Libraries
Session Code: INNOV
Day: Wednesday June 3, 2015
12:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Session Title: Open Government – the Virtual Library, an opportunity to participate
Session Code: 417-15104
Day: Wednesday June 3, 2015
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Session Title: Transparency through the Federal Lens: Open Government Initiatives at Library and Archives Canada
Session Code: 417-15061
Day: Thursday June 4, 2015
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Session Title: Preservation and Access Through Trustworthy Digital Repositories
Session Code: 417-15192
Day: Thursday
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Session Title: Libraries and Open Data. How Open are We ?
Session Code: 417-15037
Day: Thursday June 4, 2015
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Session Title: Library and Archives Canada as a Trusted Digital Repository
Session Code: 417-15560
Day: Thursday June 4, 2015
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Session Title: Open Government Speed Dating
Session Code: 417-15031
Day: Friday June 5, 2015
8:30 AM - 10:30 AM

Session Title: Libraries Preparing for the Research Data Deluge ?
Session Code: 417-15038
Day: Friday June 5, 2015
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM

Session Title: It’s midnight, do you know where their data is? A taxonomy of how academic researchers understand the cloud, privacy and their data
Session Code: 417-15277
Day: Friday June 5, 2015
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM

June 5-7: Random Hacks of Kindness Ottawa

More info at http://rhok.ca/ - register on EventBrite ($5)

UPDATE: Most open data events are in Lanyrd

• http://lanyrd.com/2015/cods15/
• http://lanyrd.com/2015/iodc15/

UPDATE 2015-04-13: I made a Lanyrd guide for all the open data events

http://lanyrd.com/guides/open-data-week-in-ottawa-may-2015/

 

Related articles

Enabling the Data Revolution: Announcing the 3rd International Open Data Conference 2015

2nd Canadian National Hackathon - CODE 2015

CODE 2015

February 20-22, 2015

registration: https://canadianopendataexperience.ca/register/?lang=en

main site: https://www.canadianopendataexperience.ca/?lang=en (scroll down on the site to see all info)

gov site: http://open.canada.ca/en/canadian-open-data-experience-code

PR: http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=907729

A 48-hour hackathon using Canadian federal open data from http://open.canada.ca/en/open-data

Hashtag #CODE2015

Previously:
October 13, 2013  Canadian national app development competition - CODE 2014

Open Science in Canada's 2nd Open Gov Plan

Minister Clement has announced the 2^nd Open Government Action Plan (OGAP2).  It covers the years 2014-2016.

Building on the first Open Government Action Plan (released April 2012), there are the following new developments relevant to Open Science:

• The Directive on Open Government has been issued (effective Oct 9, 2014).  To the Policy on Information Management and the Recordkeeping Directive, the Open Government Directive adds specific requirements.  It requires departments to:
  • Maximize the release of Government of Canada open data and open information
  • Maintain comprehensive inventories of data and information resources of business value
  • Publish and annually update a departmental Open Government Implementation Plan (OGIP)
• There is an Open Science commitment in OGAP2, with Environment Canada and Industry Canada as co-leads.  The headline phrase is "maximize access to federally funded scientific research".  It includes:
• the development of an Open Science Implementation Plan
• launch of open access to publications and data resulting from federally-funded scientific activities
• establishing an online service to enable one-stop search for publications and data resulting from federal scientific activities
• publishing and updating an online list of peer-reviewed articles by Government of Canada scientists, dating back to 2012
• In addition, the existing commitment to provide a Virtual Library of all government publications is extended: "This new service will provide access to federal publications through an online, searchable repository of published federal documents of all kinds."

For more information, including the complete text of the Open Science commitment, see the new portal at open.canada.ca

UPDATE 2015-07-25: The easiest direct link to the open science commitment is to use the Open Government Partnership site - http://www.opengovpartnership.org/country/canada/commitment/open-science

Open Science and Open by Default in Canada

On October 9, 2014 the Government of Canada issued the Directive on Open Government. It is the "Open by Default" directive, stating

Departments must maximize the release of open data and open information by ensuring that all data and information resources specified [in Appendix B] are considered for release.

The directive covers all government data and information. In addition, the draft 2nd Open Government Action Plan lists some specific focus areas with deliverables, including C.1. Open Science.

Deliverables to be completed in 2014-2016:
C.1.1 Develop and publish a government-wide Open Science Implementation Plan which lays out strategies and milestones
C.1.2 Establish an online service to enable a one-stop search for publications and data resulting from federally-funded scientific activities.
C.1.3 Establish common Open Access requirements for federally funded scientific research.
C.1.4 Develop inventories of scientific data, and initiate the public release of data supporting scientific research publications.
C.1.5 Publish and maintain a consolidated online list of peer-reviewed articles by Government of Canada scientists dating back to 2012.

The draft is open for consultation until noon Eastern time, Monday October 20, 2014. You can contribute to the consultation by leaving a comment at the bottom of the draft document. (Note: this is the fourth and probably final phase of consultation on the 2nd Open Gov Action Plan.)

US gov department Public Access Plans

On February 22, 2013 the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research” (PDF)

2. Agency Public Access Plan

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hereby directs each Federal agency with over $100 million in annual conduct of research and development expenditures to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government.

It is not clear to me how one is supposed to find these Public Access Plans.

So I'm making a list.  Which currently is a list of one.

• Department of Energy - Public Access Plan (PDF) July 24, 2014
  - web - presentation (PDF) - DOE OSTI web - Statement on Digital Data Management

Why a policy about open access is a PDF in response to a PDF is a separate issue.

If you know of any other departmental public access plans, please let me know.

UPDATE 2015-02-09: Agency for Heathcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) http://www.ahrq.gov/funding/policies/publicaccess/

UPDATE 2015-02-14:

NASA http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2014/12/05/NASA_Plan_for_increasing_access_to_results_of_federally_funded_research.pdf - a Research Data Policy, including requiring Data Management Plans - all articles to go (somewhat surprisingly) into PMC

USDA http://www.usda.gov/documents/USDA-Public-Access-Implementation-Plan.pdf - all articles to go into "USDA public access archive system" an "expanded and enhanced repository system" which (although the document doesn't make it particularly clear) I guess will be a next generation version of PubAg

UPDATE 2015-03-03:

Health and Human Services (HHS) packaged all of its sub-agency plans into one list on
http://www.hhs.gov/open/public-access/

Ones marked with an asterisk* are new.

• NIH’s Public Access Plan
• FDA’s Public Access Plan*
• CDC’s Public Access Plan*
• AHRQ’s Public Access Plan
• ASPR’s Public Access Plan*

SPARC (which is the source for this info) has a useful summary, including:

• plans focus on both articles and research data
• All five agencies will use the NIH Manuscript Submission System to deposit articles into the PubMed Central database, which will serve as the focal point for compliance.
• The CDC will take the additional step of dually hosting its funded articles in the agency’s local repository, called CDC Stacks.
• to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after publication

UPDATE 2015-03-17: There is a good summary list available from Columbia University Libraries

http://scholcomm.columbia.edu/open-access/public-access-mandates-for-federally-funded-research/

The Defense Department (DoD) has released their draft plan: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/pdf/DoD_PublicAccessPlan_Feb2015.pdf

via Heather Joseph at SPARC http://sparc.arl.org/blog/dod-releases-draft-public-access-plan (who is my source for most of the public access plans)

UPDATE 2015-03-18: National Science Foundation (NSF) http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/public_access/ with accompanying press release.

 

Related articles

Increasing Public Access to the Results of Scientific Research

Two U.S. Government Agencies Announce Plans to Make Research and Articles Publicly Accessible

U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Announces Public Access Policy

starting a new open science policy position

As of Monday September 15, 2014 I have joined Environment Canada for a one-year Interchange (a kind of temporary work assignment).  I will be working on policy and planning related to the Open Science proposal for the 2nd Canadian Open Government Action Plan.  The open science initiative includes open access and open research data.  To quote from the proposal

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.

If you're a Government of Canada employee, you can find information and provide feedback on the government wiki GCpedia as well as joining the discussion group on GCconnex.

Members of the public and GC employees can also leave a comment about the proposed activities at http://data.gc.ca/eng/Open_Science

Previously:
Sept 6, 2014  update on Open Science and Open Access for Government of Canada research
June 18, 2013  2013 G8 Science Ministers Statement

Live election results open data in Canada

This is a post for me to gather information about the provision of live (real-time) election results open data in Canada.  If you know of any examples, please let me know.

Elections data is one of the high-value datasets listed in the G8 Open Data Charter, in section 6 Technical Annex, subsection 6.2 Collective Actions, subitem Action 2: Release of high-value data:

Government Accountability and Democracy - Government contact points, election results, legislation and statutes, salaries (pay scales), hospitality/gifts

Canadian Examples

* Edmonton - provided through Socrata API - https://data.edmonton.ca/City-Administration/2013-Edmonton-Election-Unofficial-Results/7cfp-j3h7

"Provide a live stream of Election Results on Election Night. ... every 2 minutes as results are received from Voting Stations"

*Strathcona County - Live election night results - http://www.strathcona.ca/local-government/strathcona-county-elections/election-2013-open-data/#live

Appears to be results as XML files.  File specification available: http://www.strathcona.ca/files/files/at-lls-2013election-results-specification.pdf

Quebec provides four formats, but I don't know if they're in real time.

http://www.dgeq.org/docResultats.html

Other Info

I also found a standard from the UK but I don't know how widely used it is

http://openelectiondata.org/

Here's a story about elections data from the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jun/21/open-data-election-hack-vote

If you have any information or expertise in this area, please let me know.

update on Open Science and Open Access for Government of Canada research

This is a bit of a complicated trail, but here goes:

Open science is in the Digital Canada 150 strategy.

Open science was a proposed idea in the phase 2 ideas consultation for the 2nd Open Government Action Plan.

Open science is now a proposed action (proposed commitment) in the phase 3 activitives consultation.  This is the last phase of online consultation.  The next step will be to issue the OGAP 2 plan.

The feedback on the proposed idea does not carry over to the proposed action.  If you want to be heard again, you have to post comments on the proposed action: Open Science.

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

There are also still in-person consultations to be completed.  You can read about them here and here.

I do not have the exact schedule.  Contact [email protected] for the correct information.

It looks something like this, but there may be changes:

Round Table #6

September 11 – Halifax (1841 Argyle St., Halifax City Hall, Halifax Hall)

3 hour session

September 12 – Saint John, New Brunswick ?

Round Table #7	October – Edmonton (date and location to be confirmed)	3 hour session
GTEC	October – Ottawa (details forthcoming)	Workshop
Round Table #8	Lethbridge (date and location to be confirmed)	3 hour session

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.

okfest14 - Open Digital Science - notes

Open Knowledge Festival 2014 - July 16, 2014

Session "Open, Digital Science - moving beyond open access" by Celina Ramjoué and Silvia Luber.

Sched entry.

Etherpad https://pad.okfn.org/p/Open,_Digital_Science

Dr. Ramjoué and Dr. Luber presented the progress on open science in the EU to date

• full open access mandate in Horizon 2020 research program
• also pilot on open research data in Horizon 2020 - see Guidelines on Data Management in Horizon 2020 (PDF)
• now working on next step: Open Digital Science
• public consultation: http://www.consultation-science20.eu/ closes 30 September 2014

They presented a framework of the larger set of issues involved when you look at the impact of digital technologies on all of science:

The session was mainly group discussions; these are summarized in the Etherpad.

The question of what policy actions are needed to support this new scientific ecosystem is an interesting one; it's a complex system and we are still figuring out necessary pieces.

okfest14 - Eric Hysen, Google Civic Innovation - notes

Open Knowledge Festival 2014 - July 16, 2014

Keynote - Eric Hysen @EricHysen - Google Civic Innovation

"Let's build the road network of civic technology."

Video of presentation http://youtu.be/0UNRZEsLxKc?t=57m20s

Interview video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeyZxsQzes8

Excited by the great reaction to my talk at #OKFest14. I've posted the full talk https://t.co/fIBAWF3Zzm and slides https://t.co/p054R3uCqf

— Eric Hysen (@EricHysen) July 17, 2014

Google Docs URL for slides.

Text of talk.

• (we need) tools (that can) scale
• Google is building APIs
• what's important is not just code and content, it's connectivity (between parts of the ecosystem)
• right now we have a lot of incredible stagecoaches, but not enough roads
• 1) open isn't enough 2) interoperable 3) ecosystems not apps
• (right now open) data is released without incentives
• everyone is repeating the same work (e.g. transit apps)
• (open data released as) spreadsheets far exceeds the releases of data as structured (e.g. XML) data
• plus you must release the data under a proper license, that allows reuse and modification, in order to give developers certainty
• "open data is hardly ever appropriately licensed"
• open data is rarely updated, or when there is new data, it's released as a new dataset (rather than linked to the previous data)
• summary: open data needs to be structured, updated, licensed
• 1) open isn't enough 2) interoperable 3) ecosystems not apps
• (it is) too hard to connect different types of data
• we need unique IDs
• example: The Popolo Project (open government data specifications relating to the legislative branch of government)
• example: The Open Civic Data Project
• 1) open isn't enough 2) interoperable 3) ecosystems not apps
• hackathons -> apps -> then nothing
• hackathons produce apps, not ecosystems
• example: Code for Germany (based on Code for America concept) with multple OK Lab locations across Germany
• example: Voting Information Project
• example: Google Civic Information API

Q: Andrew Clarke, Omidyar @andrew_c_clarke - What is the most needed (thing in this space)?

A: government (unique) identifiers

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

okfest14 - Global Witness - notes

Open Knowledge Festival 2014 - July 16, 2014

Keynote – Patrick Alley of Global Witness @Global_Witness

Video of presentation is not available.  Interview with Patrick Alley at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znu9sSZ6ynM

• organisation looks at issues such as the resource curse, conflict diamonds
• the organisation has a banking transparency wish: open financial transparency
• TED Prize awarded to Charmian Gooch of Global Witness, "Global Campaign to Abolish Anonymous Companies"
• open data can be used for change
• pushing for public registries of companies
• communications challenge: how to stand out above the noise
• use of graphics to communicate: Deadly Environment shows trend of environmental activists being killed
• some progress is being made
• extractive companies disclosure language in US Dodd-Frank law
• information about beneficial ownership of companies
• with all this info, there's a need for tools (to help people understand the information)
• a shadow system supports the extraction of money from countries, particularly wealth from natural resources
• obtaining the information is not enough
• powerful, rich interests oppose openness
• advocacy organisations need to be tough

csvconf 2014 - The Content Mine - notes

csv,conf 2014 - July 15, 2014

14:00 The Content Mine by Peter Murray-Rust @petermurrayrust

Presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/petermurrayrust/csvconf

• "liberating scientific facts for humanity"
• crawl, then data mine the literature, publish resulting facts CC0
• uses technology to extract information from PDFs, "can now turn PDFs into science"
• information will go to Wikipedia and as linked open data to DBpedia
• site is contentmine.org

Peter is using the UK Exceptions to Copyright for Research (PDF), specifically the text and data mining exception.

csvconf 2014 - Data Hacking with Wikimedia Projects - notes

csv,conf 2014 - July 15, 2014

12:20 Data-Hacking with Wikimedia Projects: Learn by Example, Including Wikipedia, WikiData and Beyond by Matt Senate @wrought and Max Klein @notconfusing

Matt and Max have clearly done a lot of thinking about how to make a project work within the WikiMedia context.  The project they described is about automatically extracting information about open access content and then enriching multiple WikiMedia sites with the appropriate information.

Video available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5T6RoEckAQ

• Wikipedia is by far the largest of the WikiMedia projects
• In order to contribute successfully, you need to understand the community for each project, the cultural protocols.
• Rambot added US Census data to WikiMedia
• When contributing from an open access article to WikiMedia
• text to WikiSource
• media (images etc.) to WikiMedia Commons
• metadata to Wikidata
• signals (information about the article such as license) used to enrich e.g. citations in Wikipedia
• the bot is called RecitationBot
• goals:
• improve citation management
• integrate metadata into wikidata
• forge deep knowledge resources
• automation combined with human judgement
• Paths for Data Hackers (things to work on in order to succeed, particularly in WikiMedia context)
• reputation
• understanding of cultural protocols
• knowing the history and context of previous efforts, and fitting your work into that narrative
• connecting to community e.g. IRC, mailing lists
• RecitationBot is essentially a process of enriching newly posted citations
• can also initiate RecitationBot with a DOI as you create a reference

csvconf 2014 - Data usability: the tabular data package - notes

csv,conf 2014 - July 15, 2014

10:35 session Data usability: the tabular data package and friends by Nick Stenning @nickstenning

Data publishers at #csvconf: my message to you today is “put it in a box.” Publish your data as data packages: http://dataprotocols.org/

— Nick Stenning (@nickstenning) July 15, 2014

Slides at https://github.com/nickstenning/put-it-in-a-box

• analogy with international shipping: things in containers vs. people carrying them individually
• things not in containers are very expensive to move
• which means you do a lot of work carrying the things, rather than using the things
• containers are: 1. simple, 2. opaque, 3. diverse within constraints ("moderated diversity")

Introducing The Data Package, datapackage.json

See info at http://dataprotocols.org/data-packages/#specification

My question: What about BagIt?

Answer from Rufus Pollock (@rufuspollock): Other formats were examined, there is a white paper.

UPDATE 2014-08-01: Review of Existing Packaging Work via @rufuspollock

csvconf 2014 - introduction - notes

csv,conf 2014 introduction by Max Ogden and Rufus Pollock - @maxogden and @rufuspollock
July 15, 2014

(csv is Comma-Separated Values, a way of representing data.)

• wanted to reach out to data hacker community
• wanted to bring together open data / open tools / open standards communities
• csv has strength of simplicity
• csv inherently "hackable"
• csv can be used for big or small data, it "scales", it "streams"

Hashtag #csvconf

Canada's G8 Open Data Charter Plan

I listed some key G8 commitments in the June 2013 post G8 Open Data Charter, updated Canadian national open data portal.

As of February 21, 2014 the Government of Canada has released Canada's Action Plan for the G8 Open Data Charter with planned actions out to December 2015.

There are eight items:

1. Canada will issue mandatory government policy to direct federal government departments and agencies to release their data holdings proactively by default.
2. Canada will release, continuously update, and enhance high-value datasets in the 14 key areas identified in the G8 Open Data Charter.
3. Canada will work to ensure that all federal open datasets released are published via the Government of Canada's Open Data Portal - data.gc.ca
4. Canada will ensure that all released open data are fully described to ensure ease of discovery.
5. Canada will ensure all released open data are published in open formats and free-of-charge.
6. Canada will engage with civil society organizations and the public to support the identification and prioritization of datasets for open release.
7. Canada will share our open data experiences with other governments in Canada and around the world to share what we have learned and to learn from others.
8. Canada will work to empower future generations of open data innovators by encouraging them to unlock the value of open data.

Note that the above is separate from the Open Government Partnership commitments in the similarly-named Canada's Action Plan on Open Government.

Related articles

New G8 Open Data Charter

G8 Open Data Charter Highlights Open Data as Crucial for Governance and Growth

Policy paper: G8 Open Data Charter National Action Plan

presenting Open Scientific Data at Geospatial Advancement Canada 2014

I will be doing a short presentation on Open Scientific Data at

Geospatial Advancement Canada 2014 (in Ottawa)

My talk is currently scheduled for noon on March 3, 2014.

No hashtag has been announced yet.

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.

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

Canadian national app development competition - CODE 2014

The Canadian Open Data Experience – CODE – is a 48 hour nationwide app development competition

The event is sort of softlaunched, in that the date isn't posted yet. Minister Clement announced it, and later said

The other thing that I announced today, by the way, is our first appathon, where we're going to invite entrepreneurs of all ages next February [2014] to go onto the data.gc.ca website/portal and in a 48-hour period come up with the next app that uses Canada's open government data and develop something that will be of use to citizens

Possibly this will be timed to coincide with International Open Data Day 2014 on February 22, I don't know.

UPDATE 2014-01-09: CODE event will be February 28th to March 2nd  ENDUPDATE

There is a basic signup site at http://www.canadianopendataexperience.com/ and social media

• Twitter @CODE_hackathon and currently the rather overloaded hashtag #CODE
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CanadianOpenDataExperience

The government is supporting it, but not running it.  It will be run by XMG, who do the similarly-named but separate Great Canadian Appathon (it's not clear if the events will be one and the same in 2014).