[ok-edinburgh] Open Knowledge Scotland - feedback on announce mail?

[Jo Walsh]

dear all at EUDL,

Robin, Stuart and I, with some folks from SCRIPT, and support from IDEA 
Lab, are planning a 4-hour Open Knowledge mini-conference at inSpace 
below the School of Informatics, on 13th May.

Here's the draft of the email announcement, which we should start 
circulating very soon. The text is cribbed from the text for the Open 
Knowledge conference in London. It would be great to have some feedback 
on this text. Would you attend this event? Is it clear what we're asking 
for? Does the tone fit the scope (a fairly informal afternoon/evening, 
hoping to attract people from outside of the University as well as 
within it?)

Comments on or off-list would be very much appreciated.


Open Knowledge Scotland
-----------------------

Where: School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
When: Thursday May 13th, 3-7pm
How much: free
Register:  http://okscotland.eventbrite.com/

Open Knowledge Scotland brings together individuals from across the open 
knowledge spectrum for an afternoon and evening of talking and teaching.

Please feel encouraged to contribute a short talk on any aspect of 
creating, publishing or reusing data or content that is open according 
to http://opendefinition.org/  Please sign up to present a short talk 
when registering.


Open knowledge promises significant social and economic benefits in a 
wide range of areas from governance to science, culture to technology. 
Opening up access to content and data can radically increase access and 
reuse, improving transparency, fostering innovation and increasing 
societal welfare.

In addition to high profile initiatives such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap 
and the Human Genome Project, there is enormous growth among open 
knowledge projects and communities at all levels. Moreover, in the last 
year, many governments across the world have begun opening up their data.

In academia, open access to both publications and data has been 
gathering momentum, and similar calls to open up learning materials have 
been heard in education. Furthermore this gathering flood of open data 
and content is the creator and driver of massive technological change. 
How can we make this data available, how can we connect it together, how 
can we use it collaborate and share our work? How can Scotland benefit 
from open data?

## Topics

We welcome proposals on any aspect of creating, publishing or reusing 
content or data that is open in accordance with http://opendefinition.org.

Topics include but are not limited to:

### Technology * Semantic Web and Linked Data in relation to open 
knowledge * Platforms, methods and tools for creating, sharing and 
curating open knowledge * Light-weight, adaptive interaction models * 
Open, decentralized social network applications * Open geospatial data

### Law, Society and Democracy * Open Licensing, Legal Tools and the 
Public Domain * Open government data and content (public sector 
information) * Open knowledge and international development * Opening up 
access to the law

### Culture and Education * Open educational tools and resources * 
Business models for open content * Incentive and rewards open-knowledge 
contributors * Open textbooks * Public domain digitisation initiatives

### Science and Research * Opening up scientific data * Supporting 
scientific workflows with open knowledge models * Open models for 
scientific innovation, funding and publication ('open-access') * Tools 
for analysing and visualizing open data * Open knowledge in the humanities



-- 
Jo Walsh

Unlock places - http://unlock.edina.ac.uk/
phone: +44 (0)131 650 2973
skype: metazool

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.