[okfn-discuss] Open data in Sweden

Tue Aug 25 20:48:20 UTC 2009

Dear Jonathan,

Thanks for writing.  As you may know, I no longer blog new developments as 
I once did...
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/07/housekeeping.html

...But I've tagged your post for the OA tracking project, the alert service 
I'm encouraging people to use instead of my blog,
http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/OA_tracking_project

The tracking project, BTW, is based on a network of people who tag new 
OA-related developments in real time.  If you or any OKF colleagues would 
like to join as a tagger, we'd all benefit.  If the info at the second link 
above isn't enough, I'd be happy to say more.  For the purpose of this 
project, "open access" and "open knowledge" are equivalent; that is, any 
new development relevant to either is worth tagging.

      All the best,
      Peter

At 09:37 AM 8/25/2009, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>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
>
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