[okfn-announce] The Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter, April-June 2012

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*The Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter, April - June 2012*

It's been another hectic few months here at the Open Knowledge Foundation!
We're getting really excited about this year's inaugral OKFest in Helsinki
(more later), but there's so much going on across the world of openness
that it's hard to see when we're going to find time to pack our suitcases!
>From the launch of the new data journalism handbook to the exciting new
developments our Labs projects <http://okfnlabs.org/> like Annotator and
Europe's Energy, as well as our growing and thriving global community,
we're almost overwhelmed by the number of directions openness is taking. To
try and get some oversight we've been undertaking two big studies of
openness around the world, the Open Data Census and an OpenSpending
investigation into fiscal mapping projects - read more below. You can keep
up to date by following us on twitter - @okfn
<https://twitter.com/#!/OKFN>- or checking out the
blog <http://blog.okfn.org/>.

If you fancy joining the hectic but super-exciting world of the OKF, check
out all the recent posts which have come up over on the jobs
page<http://okfn.org/jobs/>
.

The OKF is a not-for-profit organisation - all our services are provided
openly and for free. We rely on the generosity of our institutional and
individual supporters - and we need your help now more than ever. Please
visit http://okfn.org/support/ to find out more about becoming an Open
Knowledge Foundation supporter.

You can also read this newsletter on the [blog]() - with pictures and stuff!

*OKFest, September 17-22, Helsinki*

The Open Knowledge Festival is a full week of participatory sessions,
keynote lectures, workshops, hackathons and satellite events in Helsinki,
organised by diverse communities from over 40 nations across the globe.

The 2012 theme of OKFestival is Open Knowledge in Action, looking at the
value that can be generated by opening up knowledge, the ecosystems of
organisations that can benefit from such sharing, and the impacts that
transparency can have in our societies. Thirteen guest-organised topic
streams have now been
announced<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/05/15/okfestival-topics-of-2012-announced-2nd-call-for-proposals-published-experimentation-encouraged/>,
and the call for proposals is now closed with tonnes of exciting stuff
lined up. Keep your ears to the ground (or perhaps more effectively, your
eyes on the blog) for all the details!

You can still get early bird tickets
here<http://okfestival.org/early-bird-okfest-tickets/>- but hurry!
Can't wait to see you there!

*Stop press: You have until 20th July to make submissions for the Open Data
Academic research stream - see
here<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/29/call-for-papers-open-data-academic-research-at-okfest/>for
more.
*

*DDJ Handbook*

It was so exciting to see the Data-Driven Journalism handbook go live last
month. The product of a six month collaboration between the OKF and the
European Journalism Centre (EJC), with contributions from all the top names
in data journalism, the handbook was unveiled at the International
Journalism Festival in
Perugia<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/05/01/the-data-journalism-handbook-is-go/>.
As Tim Berners-Lee
said<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/04/25/data-journalism-handbook-why-is-data-journalism-important/>
:
    *"Data journalism is the future. Journalists need to be data-savvy"*
We hope that the handbook will help journalists to sniff out the stories,
and make them make sense to citizens around the world.

The online version of the handbook is freely available at
http://datajournalismhandbook.org/, or you can order a print copy from
O'Reilly <http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025603.do>.

*Open Spending*

The super sleuths over on the OpenSpending team have had a number of
breakthroughs over the past few months. We uploaded the massive data
release from Privacy International back in February, shining a light on the
normally underground world of the international market in surveillance
technology. Our Technology for Transparent and Accontable Public Finance
report was published last
month<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/05/30/technology-for-transparent-and-accountable-public-finance-report-published/>,
surveying intitiatives around the world working to map the money - you can
read it here <http://openspending.org/resources/gift/>. And we were very
excited that our OpenSpending.Mobi app was
nominated<http://openspending.org/resources/gift/>in the Rio Cities
Summit, along with the CityData app from our Open
Economics projroject (not least because it meant we got a little trip to
sunny Rio!).

Psst - check out these fab new
visualisations<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/05/from-xml-to-visualisations-iati/>,
using the IATI data on international aid!

*School of Data*

We've been laying some solid foundations for the School of Data, which aims
*"to provide online training for data ‘wrangling’ skills – that is, the
ability to find, retrieve, clean, manipulate, analyze and represent
different types of data."* Following a recent coffee-fuelled 3-day
gathering in Berlin, we've developed a framework for the
school<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/14/laying-foundations-for-the-school-of-data/>.
We expect to launch the first iteration of the school in Autumn 2012. Find
out more about how to get involved
here<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/14/laying-foundations-for-the-school-of-data/>
.

*Open Science*

As announced in the last newsletter, we're proud to be providing two Panton
fellowships <http://pantonprinciples.org/panton-fellowships/>, providing
support to scientists who promote open access to data. The two fellows have
now been selected - we're well chuffed to have Sophie Kershaw and Ross
Mounce in the posts! Read all about them
here<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/03/30/introducing-our-panton-fellows/>
.

We're also excited to announce the
launch<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/05/31/announcing-the-open-science-podcasts/>of
the Panton Discussions - podcasts from our conversations around open
science with some very interesting folk. Check out the catalogue so
far here<http://pantonprinciples.org/panton-discussions/>,
and look out for more coming soon!

And if you've got some scientific research that you want to share with the
world, check out this useful introduction to using CKAN for open science
publishing <http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/19/ckan-science/>.

*Open Data Census*

Open data has been exploding over the past couple of years, and we want to
try and get some comprehension of where we're at on a global level. To that
end, we've launched the Open Data Census, seeking info on the "open" status
of datasets of different types around the world. We need your help!! You
can find out more on the
blog<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/04/17/launching-the-open-data-census-2012/>or
visit
http://opengovernmentdata.org/census/submit/ to contribute.

*Highlights from some of our other projects:*

   - TEXTUS <http://textusproject.org/> is moving forward in leaps and
   bounds thanks to a fantastic openBiblio event earlier this month - check
   out the new features and the plans
here<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/20/bibliographic-references-in-textus/>
   .
   - A new feature for CKAN, the Data
Store<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/03/27/introducing-the-datastore/>is
fantastic news for data wranglers, allowing storage of structured data
   with powerful querying.
   - Europe's Energy <http://energy.publicdata.eu/ee/> won a silver
award<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/03/24/europes-energy-wins-a-silver-award-at-malofiej-20/>at
the Malofiej awards for innovative infographics.
   - The Public Domain Review <http://publicdomainreview.org/> has released
   some new posters<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/05/28/all-things-come-to-those-who-wait/>and
added new
   filter options<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/04/10/new-filter-by-category-option-for-the-public-domain-reviews-collections/>to
make searching the treasure trove even easier.
   - And we've brought out shiny new releases of Annotator and
AnnoteateIt<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/04/03/annotateit-and-annotator/>,
   our code and platform for web annotation.


*Ideas and Musings:*

In case you missed them, here's some food for thought from the blog:

   - *Peter Murray-Rust* explains that the right to read is the right to
   mine<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/01/the-right-to-read-is-the-right-to-mine/>,
   and lays out his draft content mining declaration.
   - Find out why *John Wilbanks* thinks open data isn't
enough<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/05/28/why-open-data-isnt-enough/>
   .
   - *Jonathan Gray* explores what data can and cannot
do<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/04/what-data-can-and-cannot-do/>
   .
   - And Rufus Pollock gives a talk at the Lift conference on "Open Data,
   how we got here and where we're
going<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/04/02/talk-at-lift-2012-open-data-how-we-got-here-and-where-were-going/>
   "

* *
*Dates for your diaries:*


   - Open Science Hackday, 7th
July<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/15/open-science-hackday-7th-july-in-london-and-online/>,
   in London and online.
   - Open Legislative Data Conference, 6-7
July<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/25/international-open-legislative-data-conference-july-6-7-paris/>,
   Paris.


And remember to check out the Meet
Ups<http://www.meetup.com/openknowledgefoundation/>page to find out
about OKF stuff happening near you!



--
Blog Editor
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org/
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