[okfn-discuss] Open data in Sweden

[Jonathan Gray]

Dear Peter,

Just to let you know, I've now blogged this here:

  http://blog.okfn.org/2009/08/25/opengovse-a-registry-of-open-government-data-in-sweden/

Best wishes and lets definitely keep in touch!

Jonathan

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 9:59 PM, Peter Krantz<peter.krantz at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 21:06, Jonathan Gray<jonathan.gray at okfn.org> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Peter,
>>
>> This looks like a fantastic initiative and we'd love to blog about it
>> on the Open Knowledge Foundation blog (blog.okfn.org)! Any further
>> background information about the site, as well as relevant URLs
>> (press, interviews, history...) would be much appreciated.
>
> Hi!
>
> Thank you for your kind feedback! I got started with open government
> data when I was building eurlex.nu - a personal project to create a
> commentable semantic web version of european union legal information
> (not online yet). At first I just blogged my frustration:
>
> http://www.peterkrantz.com/2008/broken-eu-legal-information/
>
> Then I thought "I'll build it myself and show them how it should be
> done". However, when I requested the raw XML data for the European
> Union law i received a reply that it would cost me 10.000 EUR to get
> access to it (plus 3.000 EUR for each additional language). As a
> logical consequence I was determined to scrape the data and provide a
> better XML version for others to use for free.
>
> Previously I was a strategic development officer at the Swedish
> Administrative Development Agency (Verva). Before Verva was shut down
> at the end of 2008 I got the opportunity to spend some time listening
> into the W3C eGovernment interest group. There I learned more about
> initiatives in other countries and discovered how far behind we are in
> the swedish public sector.
>
> Thus, I spent a week of my summer vacation to set up opengov.se.
> Initially it is a registry of swedish public sector datasets. Each
> dataset has details about what the data is about, available formats,
> license and if it is online or not. Currently, there are only 3
> datasets that allows reuse and have data available in at least one
> open format. Users can comment on datasets and suggest new datasets
> for inclusion.
>
> Many agencies charge for raw data access. An example is SMHI, the
> Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, that has loads of
> weather data. Since the data costs money, people using weather
> information in their applications get it from the Norwegian
> authorities instead (http://www.yr.no/).
>
> The launch of the website has lead to some interesting results. I have
> been contacted by both civil servants that want help with open data
> plans and politicians that want advice on how legislation should
> change to increase the amount of open government data. I hope to be
> able to support the MP:s that have contacted me in creating a bill to
> increase access to data.
>
> opengov.se was mentioned in the morning show on swedish national
> television on august 7. I was unaware of that until I received error
> messages from my hosting provider about the site responsiveness. It
> was also featured in the editorial of a newspaper here:
>
> http://www.expressen.se/ledare/1.1663751/johanna-nylander-microsoft-hotar-var-demokrati
>
> The guidelines I have created are based on the principles laid out by
> the http://www.opengovdata.org/ group but modified to fit with our
> current legislative framework.
>
> The next step I am working on is to increase transparency by scraping
> proposed bills and public consultations from the central government
> website (think govtrack.us "light").
>
> Please send me an email if you want more information. Re-use the text
> in this email anyway you like.
>
> Regards,
>
> Peter
>



-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org