[ok-scotland] Fwd: first board meeting?

Mon Jul 5 20:15:25 UTC 2010

Hi Stuart

Yes I agree with you that these are 'technological ideologies', and that 
the capability or capacity to be transparent can be a challenge. I see 
that more as a matter of policy and capability than as a choice. 
Speaking in a general sense, as you are, most organisations make such 
things public because they are obliged to. Research data providers are, 
through their institutions transparent in the sense that these details 
are a matter of public record - for a similar reason as one of those 
underpinning the ideology of open data, that the work is publicly 
funded.  I expect that OKF does not have huge resources to manage, and 
in any case I guess that the board does what it says and discharges its 
statutory responsibilities, whether or not the results are online. 
However I don't see any real difference between this 'organisational 
transparency' and issues around transparency of the research process - 
the ethics, epistemology and economics of packaging up provenance and 
context information - which limit what can practically be made open by 
the originator and reused by others.  They are all responses to 
questions that may be asked as a matter of policy about what has been 
done with the resource enabling some work, and about how others can make 
sense of the results - which in some cases is limited. A couple of blog 
posts by Gavin Starks and Ben Goldacre, that Jonathan Gray recently 
pointed to on the general 'open science' list, are an interesting take 
on that theme. Anyway I suppose these are topics for other lists and 
occasions - I admit I haven't done much exploring of the OKFN list 
archives and should do that.

cheers,
Angus

On 05/07/2010 11:59, stuart macdonald wrote:
> Hi Angus -  Whilst I'd agree that it would seem sensible that 
> organisations that espouse openness do practice what they preach my 
> comment was meant more in a general sense and not specific to OKF. 
> Certain organisations for certain reasons cannot or may not choose to 
> be transparent. The triumvirate of open source, open access, open data 
> are technological ideologies and in that sense are seen as 
> facilitatory to those who wish to use/practice them. In my mind 
> whether an organisation wishes to make public balance sheets, budgets, 
> governance structures is a separate matter.
>
> cheers
> Stuart
>
>
>
>
> On 05/07/2010 00:12, Angus Whyte wrote:
>> The Edinburgh meeting was the first time I'd done anything connected 
>> with OKF. I also enjoyed the meeting and would like to be involved in 
>> others I think. If other lists are better places to discuss why it 
>> makes sense to be part of OKF or not fine. It may be a truism that 
>> what and how things gets decided depends on 'who turns up' more than 
>> any formal governance process, but if the point of having meetings in 
>> Scotland is to be able to turn up it seems to me governance shouldn't 
>> be off-topic. I disagree with Stuart on organisational transparency 
>> and 'open data' are separate issues - the one provides the context 
>> for (and limits of) the other.
>>
>> Having followed Jonathan's links I find the OKF governance page 
>> vague. I see OKF is legally a limited company, presumably without 
>> share capital, and in more general terms is about ' open discussion, 
>> meritocracy and tolerance'. I've been involved enough with a few 
>> associations to be bored stupid by discussion of articles of 
>> association and the like, but agree with Paola that the OKF site 
>> could be more helpful on how people get on its board, who gets to 
>> spend its money and so on. I am defintely not interested in 
>> discussing the details on this list or any other, but if OKF has a 
>> 'memorandum and articles of association' why can't they be made 
>> available, like (say) Wikimedia does ?
>>
>> Angus
>>
>>
>> On 30/06/2010 19:39, Phil Barker wrote:
>>> On 30/06/10 17:11, Andres Guadamuz wrote:
>>>> There is no such thing as OK-Scotland, as Robin stated, this is 
>>>> just a mailing list of people in a common geographical area who 
>>>> might want to organise events together.
>>>
>>> That's what I thought OK-Scotland was. I can see the sense of a 
>>> Scottish group within OKF, to organise meetings that are convenient 
>>> for people in Scotland to go to and to discuss issues devolved to 
>>> the Scottish Government.  I really enjoyed the first one and would 
>>> be willing to help organise others (especially one focussed on 
>>> education). But it only makes sense to me if it is part of OKF.
>>>
>>> Phil
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> ok-scotland mailing list
>>> ok-scotland at lists.okfn.org
>>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/ok-scotland
>>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> Dr Angus Whyte
>> Research Officer
>> Digital Curation Centre
>> University of Edinburgh,
>> Appleton Tower, Crichton Street
>> Edinburgh EH8 9LE
>> (+44)131 650 9986
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>>
>> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
>> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>>    
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> ok-scotland mailing list
>> ok-scotland at lists.okfn.org
>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/ok-scotland
>>    
>
> -- 
> Stuart Macdonald
> EDINA&  Data Library, University of Edinburgh
>
> 0131 650 3304 (Tu&  Th)
> 0131 651 1744 (M, W, F)
>
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>    

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr Angus Whyte
Research Officer
Digital Curation Centre
University of Edinburgh,
Appleton Tower, Crichton Street
Edinburgh EH8 9LE
(+44)131 650 9986
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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