[open-development] "Open Government Data Index" Re: [okfn-discuss] Anyone interested? Creating an "Open Knowledge Index"

Sun Jul 3 04:14:22 UTC 2011

Good morning Guo,

thank you very much for your project initiative, my congratulations

am I getting you correctly that such an index should address open government data in particular?

if yes, I would like to suggest not to call it something as general as "Open Knowledge Index"
since "Knowledge" to my mind is much more than just government data...

so while I think that such a project has an interesting rationale, for its index name,
"Open Government Data Index" would seem more suitable

please pass this mail on to 
open-economics at lists.okfn.org
open-development at lists.okfn.org
thanks,

looking forward to seeing many more answers on Guo's suggestions
cheers, Claudia

On Sun, 3 Jul 2011 03:21:56 +0200, Guo Xu wrote
> Dear list(s), 
> 
> The OKCon has passed and generated many ideas for exciting future projects. 
> 
> One of the promising ideas I discussed with several participants was 
> to compile an index to track progress in opening data - both over time 
> and across countries. This would serve several purposes: 
> 
> 1) Enable the public to make cross-country comparisons (i.e. which 
> country performs well?) and track longitudinal developments (i.e. 
> which country has improved on opening data?) 
> 2) Serve as a useful tool for conducting open knowledge research (e.g. 
> correlating the index with socio-economic variables - does open 
> knowledge really foster innovation and growth?) 
> 3) Ideally, increase impact of OKF in public - making the "Open 
> Knowledge Index" a citable measure of open government 
> 
> There are many indices out there - for tracking democracy, corruption, 
> innovation and human development - so why not a measure to track 
> progress in opening government? Such an index (leaving aside 
> methodological problems for now) could greatly increase visibility of 
> OKF's work: A success case here is Transparency International - before 
> Ti published its corruption index, journalists had a hard time reading 
> and understanding all the reports - with the creation of the 
> Corruption Perception Index, Ti has become one of the most known NGOs 
> in fighting corruption. 
> 
> So why not have an Open Knowledge Index, released annually in a report 
> and during the OKCon? This would greatly increase media attention! 
> 
> I have some professional experience in creating indices (my research 
> institute has been compiling the German innovation index for a while 
> and we are currently drafting the funding proposal for an index of IT 
> infrastructure resilience). The Open Economics WG itself has developed 
> some experience with creating composite indices with the Yourtopia app 
> we submitted previously at the Apps4Development competition. I would 
> therefore volunteer to coordinate such an index within the Open 
> Economics group, mainly as an open academic project. The first step 
> would be to construct a prototype; in the longer run, we might also 
> consider applying for research grants in order to create the index 
> annually. 
> 
> Just wanted to start a discussion and see who would be interested - we 
> are planning to discuss this in greater detail during our regular 
> Skype meetups. 
> 
> Guo 
> 
> _______________________________________________ 
> okfn-discuss mailing list 
> okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org 
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss 

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