Science Library Pad

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 - 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

Open Science in Digital Canada 150

The Digital Canada 150 landing page is Canada.ca/DigitalCanada

The strategy is available on the Industry Canada site at the rather less elegant URL http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/028.nsf/eng/h_00569.html

Pillar 4 of the strategy is Digital Government, under which one of the new items is

We will develop Open Science to facilitate open access to the publications and related data resulting from federally funded research.

This item is also mentioned specifically in the April 4, 2014 speech in which Minister Moore introduced the strategy.

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

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

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

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).

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...

Related articles

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

open source in government - The Web Experience Toolkit

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

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.

tell data.gc.ca how you're using government data

On the data.gc.ca site is a page where you can tell them how you've used Canadian government datasets.

data.gc.ca - Tell us how you've used Data.gc.ca datasets

Since it is otherwise quite difficult for the site to know how government data is being used, I encourage you to use this form to submit not just applications built with data.gc.ca datasets, but any analysis, visualisation or non-governmental website that uses Government of Canada data, whether from data.gc.ca itself, from another government webpage, or requested by ATIP.  They are looking at all the feedback that is submitted.

@scilib It turns out they do read the data.gc.ca app submission forms. Just got a nice response.

— LeslieYoung (@LeslieYoung) June 22, 2012

There are two other contact channels:

• Suggest a dataset
• General and Technical Enquires

Information about data use, data desired, and technical requests all help guide the requirements for the expansion and redesign of the data.gc.ca site.

As a reminder, these are the commitments in Canada's Action Plan on Open Government:

• during Year 1 [i.e. 2012] of our Action Plan, we will continue to expand on the number of datasets made available through the existing portal
• during Year 1 we will complete our requirements for the next generation platform
• in Years 2 and 3, we will design and initiate implementation of the new data.gc.ca portal
• in Years 2 and 3 we will further improve the level of standardization of data published by departments
• the Government will make use of crowdsourcing, particularly among Canada's open data community, to make sure that this new open data portal meets the needs and expectations of those who will use it most

Previously

See previous posts in category opengovca

 

Notes from Open Government: Will it be Transformative? event

The AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) Ottawa chapter organised an event "Open Government. Will it be Transformative?".  The opening speaker covered the national Open Government Action Plan, followed by talks about the City of Ottawa's open data initiative and how open source lessons and licensing might apply to the open data world.

The Plenary speaker was Stephen Walker, Senior Director, IM Division, Treasury Board Secretariat.  He is the lead on the Open Government Action Plan.  Contact him at [email protected] or +1 (613) 946-3052.

You can find Canada's commitments to the international Open Government Partnership (OGP) at http://www.opengovpartnership.org/countries/canada

The other portal for information about Canada's open government initiatives is the site open.gc.ca

As part of membership in the OGP the Government of Canada has detailed specific initiatives in Canada's Action Plan on Open Government.  Stephen Walker emphasised that civil society has a key role to play in monitoring Canada's progress, and that in fact civil society participation is built into the OGP.  One of the key tests of the OGP will be to what extent its partner members are able to deliver on their action plan commitments next year.

Stephen Walker presented a detailed slide deck "Canada's Action Plan on Open Government" (in Canadian government style, the presentation is available in both a complete English version and a complete French version).  Hopefully it will be available online from AIIM and at open.gc.ca, otherwise you could contact him directly for a copy.

The other speakers were Rob Giggey, the City of Ottawa's lead on open data, and Thomas Prowse, an Ottawa tech lawyer with deep experience in the legal issues related to open source.

The City of Ottawa's short links to its initiatives are ottawa.ca/opendata and ottawa.ca/donneesouvertes

There is a partner civil society group (of which I am a member): Open Data Ottawa.

It was recently announced that the city will hold a second contest to develop applications, analysis and visualisations using its open data but there is no budget for prizes this time.  They are looking for sponsors to provide funding.  Contact Rob Giggey if you are interested in sponsoring.

Twitter:

• Stephen Walker @sbwalker61
• Rob Giggey @rob_giggey
• Thomas Prowse @tprowse
• Open Data Ottawa @opendataottawa
• Hashtag was #aiimyow

Here is a Storify of tweets (mostly mine) from the event.  There are many additional links embedded in the tweets.

Government of Quebec open data and open government - the Gautrin Report

The government of the province of Quebec today released the Gautrin Report, which covers Web 2.0 and government transformation related to technology.  It includes ideas such as a provincial open data site and improved internal collaboration for government employees.  In the press conference I also heard mention of a dashboard for government IT projects (with reference to the dashboard created by the US CIO).

The report (in French) is available: Gouverner ensemble : Comment le Web 2.0 améliorera-t-il les services aux citoyens? (PDF, 207 pages, 3,55 Mo)

You can also find two appendices and the complete text of responses to the government's online consultation about the topic at http://www.mce.gouv.qc.ca/publications/publications.htm

There was a brief press conference introducing the major elements of the report.

Also launched was a new Twitter account @GouvOuvertQc ("Open Government Quebec") and the open data site is live, albeit as a placeholder (I gather the real site will go live next month, June 2012): http://donnees.gouv.qc.ca/

There is a website for the entire initiative (also a placeholder at the moment): http://ouvert.gouv.qc.ca/

And a short press release: M. Henri-François Gautrin dévoile les principales recommandations de son rapport : Gouverner ensemble.

UPDATE 2012-05-03: The placeholder sites have been updated with more information, including a longer press release - Le gouvernement du Québec s'engage sur la voie du gouvernement ouvert.  It lists two actions for June: the open data portal and the IT projects dashboard

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.

A mockup of what the IT projects dashbard will look like is available (PDF).  (And yes, both the accented and unaccented version of the open data portal URL will work.)

It also lists 14 actions that will be completed by December 2012.  (I am not going to translate them all.)  They include planning, governance, and website launches.

There will be a website specifically for public feedback.

La mise en ligne d'un site Web www.défis.gouv.qc.ca qui permettra de solliciter les réactions du public et de renforcer sa participation à l'élaboration, au suivi et à l'évaluation des services publics;

For the moment, you can provide your feedback to the report on the consultation site.

ENDUPDATE

The report's recommendations are (my translations):

1. Essentially this recommendation is a call for an open data site, with machine-readable datasets.
2. Encourage citizen participation in the evaluation of the government's actions and policies.
3. This is an interesting, internal and external facing recommendation
   "Que le gouvernement s’engage à utiliser le potentiel du Web 2.0 pour stimuler et faciliter la collaboration des employés au sein et entre les différents ministères et organismes gouvernementaux."
   The government should take advantage of the potential of Web 2.0 to enable employee collaboration within departments and between different departments and government organisations.
4. The Premier of Quebec should declare he will follow the path of Web 2.0 and have an open government.
5. Basically says the Government 2.0 project should put in place step-by-step and be well managed.
6. Basically just restates the need for an open data portal and says it should start with data that is already covered for release under existing laws.
7. Says that the l’Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ) should be the depository for all government statistical data.
8. That all non-statistical data should be held by the National Library & Archives of Quebec (Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec) and that the library should be responsible for verifying the quality of the data.
9. Basically says the data should be machine-readable and discoverable by search engines, and that a specific data search engine should be developed.
10. Says data put on the open data portal should be under an open license (specifically one like the Open Government License).
11. Along with the open data site there should be a site where citizens and companies can provide feedback.
12. Says that the use of the open data should be encouraged (there should be incentives to encourage its use).  "Que soient développés des incitatifs pour encourager une utilisation innovatrice et créatrice des données gouvernementales."
13. In all communication plans, social media should be included as a means to gather citizen feedback and stimulate dialogue.
14. The government should do social media monitoring in order to respond to feedback provided in those channels.
15. Departments should use social media to create discussion spaces for citizens to provide feedback about big projects.
16. Have a way to measure citizen feedback and demonstrate that it is being used.
17. Have a citizen forum (online) for discussions.
18. LA COLLABORATION
    Un réseau social interne
    "Que soit amélioré l’intranet gouvernemental pour y inclure un outil de collaboration du type réseau social, qui permet des fonctionnalités comme le partage de documents, la stimulation du brassage d’idées, la bonification de l’information et les interactions entre les employés de la fonction publique."
    The government intranet should be improved to include a social network for collaboration and document sharing.
19. Develop a vision of how to use Web 2.0 for improving service quality.
20. Change the government's organisational culture to encourage the sharing of information, co-creation of new knowledge, and greater responsibilities for employees.
21. The government should provide the support necessary to help its employees maximise their use of Web 2.0, while respecting their ethical responsibilities.
22. Trust government employees, give them the ability to be innovative in using Web 2.0.
23. The governance of this open government project should be under the direct authority of the Premier.
24. There should be a governance committee (with various specific members listed).
25. Basically the purpose of the governance committee is to monitor and guide the various phases of the project.
26. More details about the governance committee.
27. Take security measures, try to ensure only correct information is sent over social media.
28. Take particular care with the security around private information.
29. Broadband Internet for all Quebec.
30. Accessible websites.
31. Keep the cost of Internet access and technology tools reasonable.
32. Provide training to citizens to help them use new technologies.

NOTE: I am not a professional translator.  This is just my best quick effort at translating these.  Feel free to correct my interpretations.  Apologies for anything that's incorrect.

Twitter:

• The account for the consultation (which presumably will now go silent) is @GautrinWeb2 and the accompanying hashtag is #GautrinWeb2
• The @GouvOuvertQc account has been using the hashtag #gouvouvert as opposed to the Government of Canada consultation which used #gouvert (well more specifically #parlonsgouvert)

Previously

August 5, 2011  Québec - Consultation publique Web 2.0

Canada and US at Open Government Partnership Brasilia Conference

Minister Tony Clement @TonyClementCPC and Erik Waddell @ErikWaddell of Treasury Board Secretariat are part of the Canadian delegation for the Open Government Partnership Conference.

The US delegation is headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her remarks at the conference opening are available (text and video).

UPDATE: Minister Clement's speech text is available - Speech by Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board and Minister Responsible for FedNor, Presenting the Government of Canada's Action Plan on Open Government.  ENDUPDATE

Here's a brief Storify of Canadian-related #ogp2012 tweets for April 17, 2012 (I will update it if there are more):

Previously:

See previous posts in category opengovca

Canadian Open Government Action Plan

President of the Treasury Board Tony Clement announced Canada's Open Government Action Plan in Regina (April 11, 2012).

@TonyclementCPC Announces Open Gov Action Plan for Canada and applauds @CityofRegina for #opendata launch. #yqr

— Alyssa Daku (@AlyssaDaku) April 11, 2012

The plan can be found on the Canadian Open Government site open.gc.ca: Canada's Action Plan on Open Government.  It outlines three years of progressive commitments to improving and strengthening Canada's three pillars: open information, open data and open dialogue.  Delivering the action plan now was part of the requirements for Canada's membership in the Open Government Partnership (and should eventually be posted at http://www.opengovpartnership.org/countries/canada ).  Minister Clement will be at the OGP meeting in Brasilia this month.

The plan has two foundational committments: an Open Government Directive and and Open Government License.

Open Government Directive

In Year 1 of our Action Plan, we will confirm our policy direction for Open Government by issuing a new Directive on Open Government. The Directive will provide guidance to 106 federal departments and agencies on what they must do to maximize the availability of online information and data, identify the nature of information to be published, as well as the timing, formats, and standards that departments will be required to adopt. ...

The clear goal of this Directive is to make Open Government and open information the 'default' approach.

Open Government License

... we will issue a new universal Open Government License in Year 1 of our Action Plan with the goal of removing restrictions on the reuse of published Government of Canada information (data, info, websites, publications) and aligning with international best practices. ...

The purpose of the new Open Government License will be to promote the re-use of federal information as widely as possible.

These are two clear actions that have great potential.

I won't list all the other details, just a bit from the open data activity stream, which indicates an updated portal in years 2-3 of the Action Plan:

During Year 1 of our Action Plan, we will continue to expand on the number of datasets made available through the existing portal, and we will complete our requirements for the next generation platform. In Years 2 and 3, we will design and initiate implementation of the new data.gc.ca portal, as well as further improve the level of standardization of data published by departments. The Government will make use of crowdsourcing, particularly among Canada's open data community, to make sure that this new open data portal meets the needs and expectations of those who will use it most

I think the government would be wise to look at the agile iterative approach demonstrated by the UK Government Digital Service as an model for revising the portal to meet user needs.

On Twitter

• Tony Clement - @TonyClementCPC
• Treasury Board Secretariat - @TBS_Canada
• Open Government Partnership - @opengovpart
  Brasilia conference hashtag now changed to #ogp2012
• UK Government Digital Service - @govuk
• UK Open Public Data - @datagovuk

Open Government Partnership Canadian contact

The contact for all matters related to Canada's participation in the Open Government Partnership is

Stephen Walker,

Chief Information Officer Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat

[email protected]

UPDATE 2012-04-18: TBS Press Releases - Minister Clement Releases Open Government Action Plan and Minister Clement Attends International Open Government Partnership. Minister Clement's speech announcing the Action Plan - Speech by Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board of Canada, to Regina and District Chamber of Commerce.  Minister Clement announces Canada's official membership - Canada Joins International Open Government Partnership.

At the time of this writing the Open Government Partnership conference is underway in Brasilia, there is a webcast available.  Minister Clement @TonyClementCPC and Erik Waddell @ErikWaddell are attending, along with others from the government and civil society (see list at bottom of blog post Canadian Open Government Consultation Final Report).

ENDUPDATE

Previously

You can see previous items related to this topic in category opengovca

Canadian Open Government Consultation Final Report

The Final Report of the Canadian Open Government Consultation has been posted

http://open.gc.ca/consult/results-resultatstb-eng.asp

It's a straightforward summary of the input provided.

There were over 260 submissions to the online consultation.

President of the Treasury Board Tony Clement states

These consultations were also instrumental in developing our Open Government Action Plan which I will present in April 2012 at the Open Government Partnership in Brazil. Each element of the Action Plan is supported by what we heard during the consultation process.

The key messages reported are

• Make information and data easier to find by improving the search function on government websites.
• Improve the organization of government websites, in general, by creating centralized portal(s) to provide catalogues of Government of Canada information and data in one place.
• Make more information and data available in standardized open formats with improved metadata, tagging and indexing.
• Promote the availability of open data through better communications and marketing.
• Improve consultation tools and websites by making them more user-friendly (e.g., plain language, no acronyms, etc.) and more interactive through the use of social media.
• Ensure that Canadians know that consultations are taking place and demonstrate that something is being done with consultation results.
• Be more open with Canadians by improving policies and rules so that government data and information is open by default.

The final report itself doesn't provide any specific information about what will be included in the Open Government Action Plan, however the January 2012 update to the Open Government Partnership described some initial possibilities.

UPDATE 2012-04-18: The Open Government Action Plan was released on April 11, 2012.  ENDUPDATE

Canada's Action Plan will be posted to is posted at the OGP website

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

The OGP meeting is in Brasilia, April 17-18, 2012. The OGP has posted a preliminary list of attendees (Excel format).

Canadian representitives listed are

• Stephen Walker - Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) - Stephen is the contact for all OGP related matters: [email protected]
• Tony Clement - President of the Treasury Board - @TonyClementCPC
• Erik Waddell - TBS - @ErikWaddell
• Michael Gurstein - Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training - @michaelgurstein
• Harvey Low - Representative - Canadian Council on Social Development, Community Data Program
• Fernando Perini - International Development Research Centre (IDRC) - @fperini
• David Eaves - @daeaves - David is also on the Canadian Government Advisory Panel on Open Government
• Pierre Boucher - Deputy CIO of Canada

The hashtag is for the event is #OGPBrasilia2012 #ogp2012 and the Twitter ID is @opengovpart

Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training

Rebooting the public square with open data and open source

there are myriad categories of raw data that are locked up inside the boundaries of government.  If governments were simply to publish this data, then private companies, civil society organisations, citizens and other government agencies will self-organise to use this data to create public value.  This holds the promise of better, cheaper government.

Don Tapscott - 03m43s to 4m06s

The fifth and final episode of CBC's ReCivilization was "Rebooting the Public Square".  Ignoring the apocalyptic "this is the end of everything we know" tone at the beginning, it looks at the infrastructure of open sharing online (through discussions with Google and Mozilla), open data (through a discussion with Sir Tim Berners-Lee), and the kinds of activities that are enabled in the government sphere (through a discussion with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy).

I think it's an ok starting point for understanding some of the pieces, although there is a lot more to open government than is covered in the segment.  I was disappointed that as a Canadian show there was no mention of Canadian open government initiatives, which include

• national - open.gc.ca and participation in the Open Government Partnership
• provincial - data.gov.bc.ca
• municipal - ottawa.ca/opendata

(More sites are listed on Wikipedia - Open Data in Canada.)

The audio is available as broadcast on the web, there are also extended interviews available.  For those interested specifically in open government, the extended interview with Thomas Kalil is the most informative.  The series is also available (for free) in iTunes.

Twitter:

• @recivilization
• @dtapscott
• @adw_tweets
• @WhiteHouseOSTP
• @ericschmidt
• @MitchellBaker
• @timberners_lee

Previously:
December 30, 2006  Tapscott: turn your organization inside-out
December 28, 2006  Tapscott on collaboration and Wikinomics in the Globe
June 6, 2005  SLA2005 - live, semi-awake blogging of opening session - Monday 9:30 AM (featuring Tapscott keynote)

UK Open Government and Transparency

Francis Maude is UK Minister for the Cabinet Office.  He spoke about the UK experience in January 2012 for the World Bank.

Governments are finding transparency risky, difficult and uncomfortable. But transparency sticks – it’s irreversible once you start. And I believe transparency will become the defining characteristic of future public policy.

...

putting out raw data in the public domain for entrepreneurs and businesses to work with. Creating an information marketplace. And this is where I believe the UK is leading the way today.

Data sharing is underpinning everything we do to improve public services and to drive new waves of growth.

...

Companies large and small are also using the data to create innovative, products and applications.

Already we’re aware of 47 independent app developers working in the UK giving information to rail passengers through their smartphones – in a market that has for the most part open up in only a few major cities.

London commuters can now use their phone apps to decide whether to rush for the train or get a cup of coffee thanks to greater transport data.

Francis Maude's speech to the World Bank – Transparency and Open Data

You can also watch the webcast recording (Windows Media format).

In addition to the UK open data site data.gov.uk there are two other initiatives of note: gov.uk from the Government Digital Service and G-Cloud.

gov.uk is a project to have a single homepage to access UK government services.  They have been using an agile methodology, and the gov.uk site is now in beta, following an alpha.   From a homepage that is a blog to an official Twitter feed at @govuk that retweets team members, it is a great example of innovation at the heart of government.

G-Cloud includes government use of the cloud as well as data centre consolidation.  They just launched the CloudStore, a list of approved services.  It includes the notion of trying to open up government procurement to a wider variety of players.  They announced CloudStore Open for Business on February 19, 2012 in their blog.  The CloudStore, which runs on MS Azure, will be available as open source.  You can follow them at @G_Cloud_UK

RT @cantwaitogo The full UK Gov #cloudstore will be released as #opensource. < great, thx #oss #govit #gov20

— Andrew Stott (@DirDigEng) February 19, 2012

open policy @ DFAIT - Storify of the tweets

A lightly-curated Storify of the ~500 tweets from the February 9, 2012 event at DFAIT.