[open-government] How to open up local government data

Innovation Navigator innovation-navigator at chello.at
Fri Jul 9 07:12:04 UTC 2010


dear Steve,

political reality is a bit more complex as you described it.

In Vienna in the past three years the police provided real-time data to
a private neighbour-watch platform. Now they stopped that, referred to some
data protection provisions (nonsense) and even argued that security
is a PUBLIC task and that THEY will start such an online monitoring service
on the mobile phone.

so in socialist ruled countries it will be difficult to convince Governments
to release that kind of _politically sensitive_ data.

kind regards,


Gerhard

At 18:56 08.07.2010, Uhlir, Paul wrote:
>Good idea, Steven. This raises the issue of building on the pull 
>rather than engineering a push.
>
>Paul
>
>________________________________________
>From: Steven Clift [clift at e-democracy.org]
>Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 9:43 AM
>To: Tim Davies
>Cc: Uhlir, Paul; open-government at lists.okfn.org; Simon Rogers
>Subject: Re: [open-government] How to open up local government data
>
>My suggestion is to focus in a coordinated way on the local data
>everyday people really want - local crime data.
>
>Get politicians/parties to promise near real-time access to crime data
>when they are campaigning for election and build from there.
>
>
>Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
>   Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
>   Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
>   New Tel: +1.612.234.7072
>
>
>
>2010/7/8 Tim Davies <tim at timdavies.org.uk>:
> > (apologies, I hit send on the last message too soon... extra 'strategies'
> > bit in this version)
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 2:03 PM, Tim Davies <tim at timdavies.org.uk> wrote:
> >>
> >> Paul, Simon
> >> Paul: I very much agree on the need for thought on strategies and tactics
> >> to overcome some of the structural/cultural barriers to local open data.
> >> Principles:
> >> On Simon's principles, I wonder if they are strengthened by focussing on
> >> '#2 as Make is Readable for Humans and Computers' rather than 
> narrowing the
> >> focus to 'machine readable'.
> >> I'm not sure the claim "If developers can't build applications
> >> and campaigners can't analyse it, what use is it?" holds up entirely. I'm
> >> finding many use-cases of open data where data can't be easily turned into
> >> applications or subjected to very clever analysis - but people 
> are empowered
> >> simply by being able to browse a Spreadsheet and find the specific fact
> >> they've been asking a local authority for years.
> >> In terms of principles for data release, emphasising the process of at
> >> least the first three of the five-stars here is perhaps
> >> best: 
> http://inkdroid.org/journal/2010/06/04/the-5-stars-of-open-linked-data/
> >> I.e.
> >> $B!z(B make your stuff available on the web (whatever format)
> >> $B!z!z(B make it available as structured data (e.g. excel 
> instead of image scan
> >> of a table)
> >> $B!z!z!z(B non-proprietary format (e.g. csv instead of excel)
> >>
> >> Strategies:
> >
> >  In terms of strategies I wonder if there is also a useful 0.5 
> star point to
> > encourage local authorities to look at:
> > */2 - publish and keep updated a list of the data you know you have - even
> > if you've not made it open yet - and provide an easy way for people to
> > contact you to ask for it to be open.
> > That would provide a way of better allowing the release of data 
> to be driven
> > by local demand...
> > Tim
> > _______________________________________________
> > open-government mailing list
> > open-government at lists.okfn.org
> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government
> >
> >
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