[Open-data-census] The 2013 Open Data Census submission and review is ready to go!

Mon Sep 30 12:26:37 BST 2013

Dear Christian, Tracey & al,

As in Canada, the Swiss also have the problem (reality!) of having a
different situation in each canton. Furthermore, none of the government
datasets - in my opinion - have a license that fulfills clause 11 of the
Open Definition <http://opendefinition.org/okd/> on unrestricted
distribution, instead you usually need written permission to use the
data commercially.

For many this may prove to be just a beaurocratic hurdle: there is lots
of free data out there. Because of this grey area, I've included a link
to the relevant Terms & Conditions if you hover on the little (i)
info-icon. While our community is putting up a big effort to push for
open licensing on a federal level, the primarily legal reform that is
necessary means we are still stuck with red across the board. But this
may be a tip for other countries in legal OGD limbo.

I have spent the morning reviewing and updating our country profile -
notably adding links to  the OGD portal launched at OKCon,
Opendata.admin.ch <http://opendata.admin.ch> where possible. Please feel
free to co-review here:
http://2013.census.okfn.org/country/overview/Switzerland/

All the best,

Oleg

On 25/09/13 19:30, Tracey P. Lauriault wrote:
> Thank you Christian;
>
> I just went to take a look and I can see that you provided a new
> comment box, excellent, however, there was also a request for
>
> Yes No For *Some Jurisdictions* Unsure and to have a place for notes
> right there.  For example, on the transportation question, sure you
> can get a paper schedule for most, but for us in Canada, as previously
> discussed, transit is not delivered by a central national authority,
> it is deliverly by cities and municipalities.  If we decided to narrow
> things a bit, from 3500 cities, and decide to pick all cities over 100
> 000 people, then we would be down to about 37 cities, then we would
> have to assess at that level.  For each of your questions.  For the
> time being we would have to respond unsure for all, and write this big
> long note to you.
>
> In addition, Statistics Canada just sent Diane and I a note requesting
> that we up the score for Statistical Data, see the correspondence
> below.  Again, the way the government is structured we can say yes to
> some, but must say no to others.  For example, might be yes for some
> at the federal level, not all departments, but then when we get to
> provinces and territories, then the issue becomes very problematic. 
> Think of Canada as you would the EU in terms of federated
> jurisdictions with different ways of doing things.
>
> I tried to participate in the WG remotely, but as you were aware, the
> wifi issue was problematic.  I am not sure how we can work with this
> new version, as wonderful as it might be for those who have
> centralized national governments who do all of these things.
>
> How can I help improve this with you so that we can have a more
> nuanced picture of the results?  I would be so happy to participate in
> a working groups of sorts.
>
> Sincerely
> Tracey
>
> StatCan correspondence below:
>
>     Andrew;
>
>     Some of Statistics Canada data are under that licence, most are
>     not.  For example, economic division, environment, health, crime
>     and so on are not nor are population projections, death rates,
>     birth rates and so on are not under that licence. If you wish to
>     have cross tabs on the free data, that is at a very large cost, as
>     that is considered a custom order, of if you want data aggregated
>     to boundaries such as wards, neighbourhoods or health districts,
>     that also is a very hight cost.  In addition, our current
>     government cancelled the census, as you know, the free data from
>     the national household survey are considered unreliable and uneven
>     and do not scale down to smaller geographies due to the
>     methodology adapted.  Statistics Canada made the census data free,
>     real census data as they had recovered the costs from earlier
>     sales, what they made free were these NHS which are of much less
>     quality and ealier census data only.
>
>     What is available via the portal is a small sample of what the
>     statistical agency holds, and in fact, for real data practioners
>     and users, we do not go to the portal as the search functionality
>     is terrible.  The system in place does not scale well.  Most
>     people still go to the statistics canada website as you have the
>     data with the methodological guides, the surveys and so on, the
>     information surrounding the data.  In theory a centralized portal
>     seems nice, but the reality is, in the case of Canada anyway,
>     there is a distance created between the data producer and the user
>     when the data are centralized in this way, which means you loose
>     context and access to the specialists who can answer questions. 
>     Also, the geographic search for the data are lost in this
>     centralized portal.  So it is not the best way.
>
>     Furthermore, that is only one agency, there is citizenship, hrsdc,
>     industry, and so on who all produce statistical data as well as
>     administrative data and their data are not in the portal as they
>     should be nor are they available from their site.  The ranking is
>     not just for Statcan it is for statistical data in general.
>
>     I think the score should remain the same, and in fact, if we
>     actually had access to the inventory of datasets produced by the
>     federal government, we may consider lowering this score even more,
>     as only a small sample of actually produced federal data are in
>     that portal.  Finally, with the decimation of Library and Archives
>     Canada, access to historical data are now impeded.
>
>     Until which time that all data are open, I think this score has to
>     stay.
>
>     Thank you for bringing it up howerver.
>     Sincerely
>     Tracey
>
>
>
>     On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 4:58 PM, <Andrew.Smith at statcan.gc.ca
>     <mailto:Andrew.Smith at statcan.gc.ca>> wrote:
>     Hello Diane, Tracey and Patricia,
>      
>     As you are listed as editors for Canada for the OKFN Open Data
>     Census, we are contacting you regarding updates to the OKFN website.
>      
>     The National Statistics section for Canada in the G8 OKFN Open
>     Data Census has a mark of 3/6. The reasoning for that mark is that
>     Canadian national statistics are not openly licensed and free.
>      
>     This is outdated information, the data on the Statistics Canada
>     website is free and openly licensed since 2012. The licence is
>     available here:
>     _http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/reference/licence-eng_
>      
>     Also the data is freely available through the Open Data portal
>     data.gc.ca <http://data.gc.ca> for all federal statistics and is
>     also covered under the Open Government Licence found here:
>     _http://data.gc.ca/eng/open-government-licence-canada_
>      
>      
>     Would you contact or update the OKFN website to reflect these
>     changes and increase the mark?
>     _http://census.okfn.org/contribute/_
>      
>      
>     Thank you,
>     Andrew
>      
>      
>     Andrew Smith
>     Unit Head | Chef d'unité
>     Electronic Solutions | Solutions électroniques
>     Dissemination Division | Division du diffusion
>     R.H. Coats Building | Immeuble R.-H.-Coats / Floor | Étage 8 F
>     Statistics Canada | 100 Tunney's Pasture Driveway, Ottawa ON K1A 0T6
>     Statistique Canada | 100, promenade Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa ON
>     K1A 0T6
>     _Andrew.Smith at statcan.gc.ca_ <mailto:Andrew.Smith at statcan.gc.ca>
>     Telephone | Téléphone 613-951-1152 <tel:613-951-1152>
>     Facsimile | Télécopieur 613-951-0632 <tel:613-951-0632>
>     Cellular | Cellulaire 613-897-4230 <tel:613-897-4230>
>     Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada
>
>

-- 
Opendata.ch - /Enabling Open Government Data in Switzerland/
Swiss Chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation
*Oleg Lavrovsky* // Board Member // Crowdsourcing Champion
____________________________________________________
http://twitter.com/loleg sip:loleg at sip.linphone.org
skype://dotoleg http://goo.gl/xb5qq +41763060739
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