[open-government] "The Government of Catalonia's Open Data Project is already a reality"

Mon Nov 15 20:04:24 UTC 2010

Dear Paolo,

Can these recommendations you suggested for the format of preservation of documents be found somewhere? I'd be very interested in reading them.

I also feel that more effort should be made by government to store their data in formats that are easily accessible and preferably machine-readable, but I'm not sure how far the obligation for this should go, considering the limited resources many of these public authorities have, and particularly considering the fairly limited ICT-awareness of many of the local authorities for instance. For any old documents, it would be too much burden, in my opinion, to ask the public bodies to convert these into better formats (or at least, it should not immediately be a priority). What could be required, is that an inventory is made of all existing material, so that at least that could be found, and that some priorities are given to the most interesting material to digitize and make accessible.

So how do you find a balance between these issues? How have you solved it in your recommendations?

Best regards,
katleen

From: open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Paola Di Maio
Sent: zondag 14 november 2010 16:23
To: Pedro Markun
Cc: open-government at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [open-government] "The Government of Catalonia's Open Data Project is already a reality"

Jacobo and Pedro

a few of us have been actively researching the unfolding of the FOI act in the UK vs other countries in Europe, for some years

What we have noticed so far, is that while having a piece of legislation in place is a good start, there are plenty of red tape issues that make the actual getting to the information very
expensive, time consuming and sometimes unnerving exercise.

The FOI in the UK  (nore in the EU that I know of) does not seem to prescribe what optimal format the data should be stored to make it easier to access and fulfil a FOI request, that means that it can take several pieces of correspondence and the work of various people including archivists to dig up pieces of information simply because the way it is stored is designed to make it difficult and expensive

 As the result of this investigation, our research team is issuing recommendations for future amendment of the act itself, in the meantime, it would be great to know that you
are aware of the problems we are facing with the act itself, so that you are not going to repeat the same mistakes, hopefully.

I am very interested in learning more about what your activities and challenges
are, and hope you' ll help us maintain our records up to date

Here are some references that may be useful

http://www.statewatch.org/foi/foi.htm

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2010/09/eu-sued-for-lack-of-transparency/68922.aspx

Hope to meet you next week at the camp

Best regards

Paola Di Maio

2010/11/14 Pedro Markun <pedro at esfera.mobi<mailto:pedro at esfera.mobi>>
Hey Jacobo,

great to hear from you. We've been doing the same thing here in Brazil with a community called Transparência Hacker. Brazil also doesn't have a FOIA altought the law is already in process of beeing voted and our group ensured that the text (and by ensured I mean 'we wrote ourselves) complies with all the Open Data Principles - so would love to exchange notes on that.

We've been in BCN the last week (for Drumbeat Festival) and while I was reading Jonathan email I got really pissed that we missed that and couldn't talk to no one while we were there.

Luckly, Daniela, who works with me, will be at the Camp. Hope you guys can catch up!

[]'s
Pedro Markun

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 10:35 AM, Jacobo Elosua <jet at ezaromedia.com<mailto:jet at ezaromedia.com>> wrote:
Hi Jonathan and all.

This is my first mail to the list. I am a member of Pro Bono Publico, the
NGO that has been most active in the OGD space in Spain to date.

The news about the Catalonian government OGD release are good, but they need
to be read in conjunction with a few sobering facts: Spain (with Luxembourg,
I believe) is the only EU country without 'Freedom of
Information-equivalent' legislation right now. We hope this reality will
change soon. There is a draft law in the making, although not particularly
advanced... (1). In addition to that, the data sets made available
proactively are still a million miles away from the desired level. On
governmental spending, to name one area, quality data availability is still
minimal.

A couple of us will be attending the Camp next Thursday and Friday. We are
looking forward to getting to know personally as many of you as possible. We
really want to establish good working partnerships to be able to contribute
as much as possible to the advancement of the OGD agenda from where we sit
geographically (2). We have a lot to learn from you guys.

Best regards.

NOTES:
(1) http://www.access-info.org/
(2) my colleague David Cabo sent an email on Friday to
wdmmg-discuss at lists.okfn.org<mailto:wdmmg-discuss at lists.okfn.org> detailing our (pretty much his) work in Spain
along the 'Where does my money go' lines. I am unclear about the different
lists and degrees of overlap. Let us know if it makes sense to forward it to
this list.

-----Mensaje original-----
De: open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org<mailto:open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org>
[mailto:open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org<mailto:open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org>] En nombre de Jonathan Gray
Enviado el: viernes, 12 de noviembre de 2010 16:45
Para: open-government at lists.okfn.org<mailto:open-government at lists.okfn.org>
Asunto: [open-government] "The Government of Catalonia's Open Data Project
is already a reality"

Great news! ;-)

http://blocs.gencat.cat/blocs/AppPHP/gencat/2010/11/09/el-projecte-dades-obe
rtes-de-la-generalitat-de-catalunya-ja-es-una-realitatthe-government-of-cata
lonia%E2%80%99s-open-data-project-is-already-a-realityel-proyecto-datos-abie
rtos-de-la-generalidad-de-c/?lang=en

--
Jonathan Gray

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

http://twitter.com/jwyg
http://identi.ca/jwyg

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