[okfn-discuss] Open Data is Civic Capital: Best Practices for "Open Government Data"

Fri Jun 5 13:56:12 UTC 2009

Brilliant!

I also wonder if you think it could be worth creating a very concise,
'open government data definition' - which detailed the necessary
additions to OKD as outlined in your essay?

(As is done in the OSSD: http://opendefinition.org/ossd)

Jonathan

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:50 PM, Josh Tauberer<tauberer at govtrack.us> wrote:
> Yes, I think you're right. I'll keep this in mind for the next version.
>
> Thanks.
>
> - Josh Tauberer
> - GovTrack.us
>
> http://razor.occams.info
>
> "Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
> falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
> Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)
>
> On 05/19/2009 01:53 PM, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>>
>> This looks great Josh!
>>
>> I wonder if there's any way you would consider alluding to the OKD in
>> the body of the text, as well as towards the end?
>>
>> E.g. by saying OKD compliance is a necessary but not sufficient
>> condition for open government data?
>>
>> Jonathan
>>
>> On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 7:37 PM, Josh Tauberer<tauberer at govtrack.us>
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi, all. I'm sorry I haven't had the time to say much here, though I've
>>> tried to watch the progress. Over the last several months I've been
>>> writing
>>> an essay-
>>>
>>>  Open Data is Civic Capital: Best Practices for "Open Government Data"
>>>  http://razor.occams.info/pubdocs/opendataciviccapital.html
>>>
>>> -which addresses a small portion of the issues that have come up in this
>>> group, so I thought I would share it here. The motivation to write this
>>> started at Transparency Camp [1] a few months ago, and at the end of the
>>> conference Gunnar Hellekson of Red Hat, and later I, decided to take on
>>> the
>>> project of bringing together a repository of best-practices guides for
>>> technology’s role in an open government. (We have a wiki page for the
>>> project [2] which lists some of the guides we’d like to see written.)
>>>
>>> The goal of Open Data is Civic Capital was 1) to motivate why open
>>> government data isn’t just an ideological issue but actually makes
>>> society
>>> more powerful, and can really make the world a better place, and 2) to
>>> outline some suggested priorities and recommendations for open government
>>> data, drawing on the recommendations of a number of past groups. The
>>> essay
>>> begins:
>>>
>>>    “Creating a well-informed public is a core value of representative
>>> government. It is a prerequisite for ensuring the best representatives
>>> are
>>> elected and a crucial component of government oversight—as well as being
>>> important in areas well beyond civics. This document speaks to why public
>>> government data (also called ‘public sector information’) is a valuable
>>> resource to society if put on the Web and shared freely with the public,
>>> and
>>> discusses how to go about doing it. We discuss technological
>>> considerations
>>> and end with sixteen guiding principles for best practices in open
>>> government data.”
>>>
>>> Hopefully you find this useful/informative (as opposed to spam :-).
>>>
>>> [1] http://transparencycamp.org/
>>> [2] http://wiki.opengovdata.org/index.php/Best_Practices
>>>
>>> --
>>> - Josh Tauberer
>>> - GovTrack.us
>>>
>>> http://razor.occams.info
>>>
>>> "Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
>>> falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
>>> Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
Jonathan Gray

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