[okfn-advisory] Reminder (NOW): OKF Advisory Board conference call, Thursday 3rd December @ 1800 GMT

Thu Dec 3 17:57:24 UTC 2009

Dear All,

Just a final reminder of Advisory Board meeting today which starts in
just over five minutes!

I look forward to speaking with people then.

To join the call, please dial in and then enter the Passcode when
prompted followed by the # key.

 * When: Thursday 3rd December, 1800 GMT
 * Passcode: 901854
 * Telephone number:
   * UK only: 0844 84 84 84 0
   * Germany: 01805 123 0131
   * Everywhere else: +44 844 873 60 60 or +49 1803 002 063

If anyone has problems please call me directly on +44 7795 176 976 or email me.

Regards,

Rufus Pollock

2009/12/1 Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org>:
> Hi all,
>
> Please find below details for connecting to OKF Advisory Board
> conference call on Thursday.
>
> As requested, I've also drafted a summary of the OKF's recent
> activities, and questions to guide discussion (also below). This is a
> bit longer than I hoped, but a skim should give you a flavour of what
> we've been up to and what we're looking for advice about!
>
> Looking forward to it!
>
> Jonathan
>
> ## Connecting to call
>
> To join the call, please dial in and then enter the Passcode when
> prompted followed by the # key.
>
>  * When: Thursday 3rd December, 1800 GMT
>  * Passcode: 901854
>  * Telephone number:
>    * UK only: 0844 84 84 84 0
>    * Germany: 01805 123 0131
>    * Everywhere else: +44 844 873 60 60 or +49 1803 002 063
>
> Low cost evening rate via 0844 8 360 360 after 6pm.
>
> ## Agenda
>
> ### The Foundation and its community
>
> The OKF (okfn.org) is a not-for-profit community-driven organisation
> dedicated to promoting open knowledge in all its forms, "from sonnets
> to statistics, genes to geodata".
>
> We have a wealth of projects and working groups, which can be seen here:
>
>  http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwyg/3878224172/sizes/l/
>  http://okfn.org/projects
>  http://wiki.okfn.org/wg
>
> I have provided a summary of the most important developments with
> respect to these below.
>
> We are currently working hard to make it easier to understand what the
> OKF does, to make its operations more transparent and to make it
> easier for people to get involved. We are reorganising its structure
> and governance to reflect the fact that it is democratic, meritocratic
> and, crucially, driven by representatives of the community it serves.
> In the next few months we are planning to make a series of micro-short
> films about different areas the OKF works in and why they matter.
>
> Main general questions for Advisory Board:
>
>  * What should the OKF be focusing on?
>  * What can it do better?
>  * Any ideas for new opportunities?
>  * How can it encourage more people to get involved?
>  * Ideas for better publicity and communications?
>
> ### CKAN, an open source registry of open data
>
> CKAN (ckan.net) is one of the OKF's flagship projects. It is an open
> source registry of open data and large collections of open content. It
> aims to make it easier to find and reuse open material.
>
> The UK Government recently decided to use the software for CKAN, the
> OKF's open source registry of open data, to build data.gov.uk [1].
> Though not yet launched, the new government site has received lots of
> favourable media attention (partly in the wake of the US's data.gov).
> We hope that in the near future the UK Government will authorise us to
> publish the thousands of datasets they are listing on the main CKAN
> site.
>
> CKAN also contains the European Open Data Inventory, co-created with
> the NGO EU Transparency and launched at a press conference in Brussels
> [2]. We also launched a 'Linking Open Data' group for semantic web
> data at a recent workshop in London [3]. We are currently creating a
> German version of the site aimed at German open government data and
> scientific datasets. We are also in discussion with several NGOs about
> using CKAN for open data related to international development.
>
> There are plenty of opportunities to use CKAN to document open
> government data, open data in science, collections of open content and
> public domain material. We are in touch with several groups about
> using it, and are starting to advertise volunteer 'editorships' to
> encourage people to get involved. We are testing a new 'Is It Open?'
> service which will allow people to make publicly documented requests
> asking if a given work or dataset is open.
>
> Questions:
>
>  * What can we do to promote CKAN better (in different domains)?
>  * What can we do to improve it? (E.g. visualisation of tags, better
> user profiles, ...)
>  * Ideas for specific people we could contact? (E.g. Scientific
> organisations, Amazon Public Datasets, Google, ...?)
>  * Ideas for specific collections that we should create where there
> might be demand? (E.g environmental data...)
>
> [1] http://blog.okfn.org/2009/10/08/datagovuk-launched-and-its-using-ckan/
> [2] http://blog.okfn.org/2009/05/11/european-open-data-summit/
> [3] http://blog.okfn.org/2009/11/20/after-the-open-data-and-semantic-web-workshop/
>
> ### Open Definition, defining the 'open' in open data, open content
> and open services
>
> The OKF aims to promote legal and technical guidance and standards for
> making content, data and software services open.
>
> Its most high profile success in this area is OKF Director Rufus
> Pollock's 'Raw Data Now' meme which was taken up by Tim Berners-Lee,
> who gave a TED talk on this topic (citing Rufus in his slides). This
> has received lots of attention in the media and in the blogosphere.
> Someone has kindly donated us RawDataNow.com, which we are planning to
> set up with details on how and why to publish raw data [4].
>
> Apart from that we have been continuing to work on OpenDefinition.org
> - which we are currently in the process of revamping. Open Definition
> includes definitions for 'openness' in content, data and services. We
> are aiming to provide specific guidance for open data in science, as
> well as for open government data (with input from Working Groups in
> each area).
>
> We recently authored a report on legal and technical aspects of making
> data open, directed at international development data [5]. We are
> currently starting to undertake a similar piece of work for the Open
> Society Institute about open government data and the (older) freedom
> of information movement.
>
>  * What can we do to better promote opendefinition.org?
>  * Are there specific people we should contact regarding third
> parties adopting it as a standard?
>  * Ideas for how we might apply this work in new/emerging areas?
>  * Ideas for how we can improve documentation?
>
> [4] http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-discuss/2009-October/001710.html
> [5] http://blog.okfn.org/2009/09/21/new-report-on-sharing-aid-information-is-now-open-for-comments/
>
> ### Open Data Commons
>
> OKF recently adopted the Open Data Commons legal tools for open data
> (opendatacommons.org). These are legal tools, a bit like the Creative
> Commons licenses, but specifically aimed at making data open. There is
> a public domain legal tool (the PDDL) and a 'sharealike' style license
> (the ODbL). Open Street Map is currently looking into using the ODbL.
> Quite a number of open data projects have used them, including the
> Guardian newspaper in the UK.
>
>  * What can we do to promote these tools effectively in different domains?
>
> ### Where Does My Money Go?
>
> 'Where Does My Money Go?' is project which analyses and visualises
> information about UK public spending. It was a winner of the UK
> Government's 'Show Us A Better Way' competition. We are currently
> working on a prototype with funding from the Cabinet Office [6].
>
> There has been lots of interest in the project, and we are currently
> in discussion with the UK's Channel 4 about further funding. The next
> stage is to have much more fine grained detail, more local
> information, and more useful analysis. Ultimately we're interested in
> porting this model to other countries.
>
> [6] http://blog.okfn.org/2009/11/11/alpha-release-of-where-does-my-money-go-prototype/
>
> ### Events: OKCon, workshops, COMMUNIA
>
> We have been busy with several events.
>
> In March we organised the EU funded 5th Communia Workshop (on "Public
> Sector Content and Data"), for which we had UK Government Cabinet
> Office minister as keynote, and talks from government departments,
> NGOs and cultural heritage institutions across Europe [7]. We also had
> our annual OKCon 2009 conference, which brought together open
> knowledge users and advocates from different communities [8].
>
> Last month we had a workshop on 'open data and the semantic web' which
> was a major event for the UK Linked Data community [9]. We were
> completely oversubscribed, and participants included the great and the
> good from the UK semantic web community, as well plenty of people from
> media and government. The BBC even came down to interview people! We
> also had a small focused workshop on building a set of European public
> domain calculators - to help find out which works are in the public
> domain in a given jurisdiction [10].
>
> We are currently organising OKCon 2010. We hope to have a big session
> on open government data. Details on other events are at:
> http://okfn.org/events
>
> We are also a member of Communia, a European policy network for the
> digital public domain. As such all advisory board members are eligible
> to receive support to attend events. The next events are scheduled to
> be in Luxembourg, Istanbul and Turin. Please let us know if any of you
> would be interested in coming along to any of these events!
>
> Questions:
>
>  * Any other ideas for workshops we should have?
>  * Ideas for sessions at OKCon 2010?
>
> [7] http://communia-project.eu/ws05
> [8] http://blog.okfn.org/2009/05/20/open-knowledge-conference-okcon-2009-post-event-information/
> [9] http://blog.okfn.org/2009/11/20/after-the-open-data-and-semantic-web-workshop/
> [10] http://blog.okfn.org/2009/11/17/documentation-from-the-public-domain-calculators-meeting/
>
> ### Other projects
>
> We have lots of other projects, including:
>
>  * Open Shakespeare (complete works of Shakespeare in an open form
> with associated material),
>  * Weaving History (exploring historical events using maps and timelines),
>  * Public Domain Works (registry of works in the public domain),
>  * Open Text Book (registry of open textbooks),
>  * Open Economics (economic data store plus basic graphing facilities)
>
> More information can be found at:
>
>  http://okfn.org/projects
>
> Thats all for now!
>
> --
> Jonathan Gray
>
> Community Coordinator
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://www.okfn.org
>
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> okfn-advisory at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-advisory

-- 
Promoting Open Knowledge in a Digital Age
http://www.okfn.org/ - http://blog.okfn.org/