[open-civil-society] Introducing open-civil-society {Scanned by Mailsafe}

Thu Aug 4 10:59:32 UTC 2011

Thanks David and David for kicking this off....

We've been having lots of disparate conversations about open data and so it's great to help and pull things into a more contained space (and hopefully a more coherent and connected discussion).

A couple of thoughts and a couple of questions:

David P - can you explain a little more about the groups you've mentioned please. as I'm now slightly confused about the difference between them and this list. do they not do the same thing (ie connect people and conversation around open data and civil society?). I'm sure there are differences, or you wouldn't have set up this list, but I'm not sure I quite understand them.

David K - do you see this group as focussing on how civil society uses public data? How civil society opens up its own data? Or both? clearly they are related and both needed, I just wasn't sure what you were proposing.

>From Urban Forum's point of view, we're very interested in the potential opportunity for communities and civil society to use open data to; hold the state to account, contribute to design and review/evaluation of public services and to inform their own work/activities. [that's not to say we're not interested in how civil society becomes more open and accountable to beneficiaries by adopting an open data approach. We are....just haven't expended as much brain time to that as to the civic participation/community involvement side of things].

Some of the key challenges we see at present in relation to open data are:

1)     That the sector is woefully unaware of the whole agenda (aside from a small minority...who I suspect are those on this list!). And even our 'champions' in Whitehall - OCS - are (by their own, private, admission) pretty clueless about what government is doing and how it relates to the sector.

2)     Open data is for the most part being led by/left to techies and datageeks...and the implications of are that a developer-led agenda will deliver developer-based solutions (ie for the geeks by the geeks)...and the real potential for opendata to be transformative will be lost.

3)     The government (and much of the debate) is couched in terms of 'transparency' as if this is an end in itself...rather than this being a precursor for greater accountability. Transparency can be hugely disempowering - eg publishing 125,000 lines of public spending data without any context/explanation, is worthless (and worse than that, it creates an expectation that we're missing something if we don't try and interrogate it to find the 'killer fact' needle in the proverbial haystack. We must move the debate on and challenge this type of thinking if we are to use opendata in any meaningful way.

4)     We currently don't have (or don't know of) the necessary tools to use opendata effectively - and by tools I mean ones that are designed for citizens and community organisations to use...not people with Phd.s in GIS!

5)     The real potential in opendata lies in integrating/using different public data sets, along with civil society's own data (and that from the private sector).

6)     If we do nothing the private sector will be all over this agenda like a rash and we will be so far behind it will be impossible to ever catch up.

Anyway...that's some thoughts from me.

Look forward to hearing what others think

Best wishes

toby

Toby Blume
Chief Executive
Urban Forum

E-Mail: toby at urbanforum.org.uk<mailto:toby at urbanforum.org.uk>  Web: www.urbanforum.org.uk<http://www.urbanforum.org.uk>
Tel: 020 7253 4816                     Fax: 020 7253 4817
Urban Forum is the trading name of Diverse Cities, a company limited by guarantee, number 3418682, and a registered charity, number 1096131. Registered address: 33 Corsham Street, London N1 6DR.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/tobyblume/

From: open-civil-society-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:open-civil-society-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of David Pidsley
Sent: 04 August 2011 11:18
To: List for Open Civil Society
Subject: Re: [open-civil-society] Introducing open-civil-society {Scanned by Mailsafe}

Further to Dave's summary, I'd like to welcome everyone to the list and encourage you to use:

our Civil Society Data Hub at http://thedatahub.org/group/civil-society which is a group for anyone interested in sharing open data related to Civil Society (voluntary, civic and social organisations); it is a great place to start moving datasets into, for example from http://data.ncvo-vol.org.uk; and

OKF's Civil Society Interest Group http://okfn.org/groups/civil-society/ for members and meeting people.

By way of a definition:

"Civil Society is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state's political system) and commercial institutions of the market." Wikipedia<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society>

For anyone just getting started in this space, you might like to read this article from October on Options for young volunteers: 'scrape vs. scrounge' for open charity data<http://davidpidsley.com/open-our-future>.

Feel free to contact me on anything open civil society related.

Kindest regards,

David

David Pidsley
Ambassador for Civil Society,
Open Knowledge Foundation

davidpids at gmail.com<mailto:davidpids at gmail.com>
Mobile: 07967 488604
Skype: davidpids
Twitter.com/davidpidsley<http://twitter.com/davidpidsley>
Facebook.com/davidpidsley<http://Facebook.com/davidpidsley>
LinkedIn.com/in/davidpidsley<http://linkedin.com/in/davidpidsley>
Blog: http://davidpidsley.com<http://davidpidsley.com/>

On 4 August 2011 10:53, David Kane <David.Kane at ncvo-vol.org.uk<mailto:David.Kane at ncvo-vol.org.uk>> wrote:

Hello - if you're receiving this email, it's because you've signed up to
the open-civil-society email discussion list.

A little background to the list - it came about as the result of a
conversation between myself and Jonathan from the Open Knowledge
Foundation. We talked about how there seemed to be a growing community
of people coming together who were interested in open data/open
knowledge and charities/civil society/social enterprise.

Jonathan very kindly offered OKFN's services in terms of hosting an
email discussion list - and so open-civil-society was born, as an
attempt to connect those people. But with no greater masterplan than
that.

What the list is specifically for is up to the list members. I think I'm
particularly interested in a few things:

 - how do open data and civil society work together? - what happens when
the practical collides with the technical? I'd be really interested in
case studies that people have of open data working for charities-
whether that's helping them become more accountable or improve their
services, or how they use open data to hold others to account.

 - sharing any events, reports, websites or data sets that are released
- it's always useful to be kept up to date with *relevant* material.

 - 'theoretical' discussion - what does open data mean for civil
society? Does civil society have an obligation to be more open? Where
are the boundaries between being a private organisation and being
accountable? Do the arguments for government becoming more open apply to
civil society or are there different ones? Are the benefits the same?
What are the downsides?

That's my starter for 10 - but I'm sure there are lots of other ideas.
Interested in thoughts that you have.

I'd also encourage you all to promote the list to others who might be
interested. It's been very informal and twitter-based so far (and the
list has actually been set up for a long time without any promotion!)
I'm the only moderator on the list so far - so any other volunteers for
that are welcome!

Thanks

David

David Kane
Research Officer
National Council for Voluntary Organisations
david.kane at ncvo-vol.org.uk<mailto:david.kane at ncvo-vol.org.uk> | 020 7520 2579
www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/almanac<http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/almanac> | @kanedr

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