[open-government] open-government Digest, Vol 11, Issue 35

Fri Jan 28 13:52:19 UTC 2011

Makx;

If you have not already done so, I recommend you look at the Open
Geospatial Consortium (http://www.opengeospatial.org/) to read about
interoperability standards and specification, how they do it and the
extent of their network.  Geomaticians have been doing that work for
years.

There other kind of open data advocates and users; we just do not
necessarily encounter them on open data lists.  These are the people I
work with, some know about open data, but they are not the activists
per say but have been constructing robust networks that are asking for
the same thing in a more bureaucratic or public policy formal way in
the social sector (Think - Community Data Consortium
https://communitydata-donneescommunautaires.ca/ as an example of
that).  Unfortunately we are stuck purchasing data from the state and
have to adhere to restrictive licensing policies when disseminating
our data, we are not fancy but have hundreds of para public
organizations actively sharing data, results and collaborating on
myriad projects.

There is the heavy statistical and public sector information data user
who may not be a developer but who does demographic and/or statistical
analysis specifically to inform public policy.  They are usually
subject matter specialists and intersect policy technology and social
science but mostly but not always are not experts at data
visualization.  They may be demographers, population health experts,
those involved in social policy, statisticians, etc. These folks want
demographic data and administrative data, the data that inform
government programs etc. These are mostly not the people most lists
cater to in the open data scene.  You find these folks on academic
data lists, library lists, in Canada on research data lists.

There are also the geomaticians who may use demographic and other
environmental data combined with geodata and remote sensing data, and
in this group you have a similar range of communities of practice as
you indicated below.  There are some who focus solely on the
algorithms of representing data, other's on webmapping, modelers and
then there are the cartographers who are the expert visualizers.  Some
use open data to do spatial analysis, some share their results, others
create data such as framework data maps, and some use desktop gis to
create maps.  Historically, these are the open data pioneers and have
very sophisticated portals, metadata, interoperability standards and
policy instruments in place to share their data.  They are not
necessarily the google maps folks, also known as neogeographers.  They
do more than dots on a map kinda stuff.  You find them in their own
lists (osgeo, geowankers, and their software lists). You also find the
range of open source to proprietary and from user friendly to very
scientific geeky software.  And you find huge complex databases (Think
satellite imagery, national map organizations, transportation GPS,
etc., You find them in GEOSS, GSDI,  etc.).  The environment crosses
all borders and is not bound by administrative territories motivating
early geomatians to collaborate, standardize and share in order to do
their analysis.

There are scientists who use entirely different datasets from myriad
scientific disciplines that range from crystallography to biology to
physics to astronomy to genetics and skirt the medical fields that are
not population health related and so much more.  They sometimes make
their way to these lists, but normally they find themselves tightly
knit subject matter specialist groups that sometimes cross pollinate
with other sciences.  Here you will find a whole range of amazing
expertise and lots of data modelers and also very specific large and
small databases (Think Hadron Collider data and thousands of
scientists collaborating or Super Computer Centres in the US, CODATA
etc.).  They have also been excellent open data advocates in their
field, in Canada you find
(http://ncasrd.scitech.gc.ca/eng/index.html).

There are medical users, and with them the discourse tends to be on
open journals, open access publishing.

These are not mutually exclusive categories and I am generalizing.
The open data lists based on my experience have a small minority of
the people I just listed, and not necessarily the super big data users
& producers nor the folks involved in public policy on either the non
governmental org side or the gov side.  The other part of the data
story are legacy data and/or preservation, again, a topic not often
heard in open data lists.

Thanks for opening up that conversation.  There is lots to build on in
the Open Data communities and lots of great examples from other
communities and if you can pull it off, you might be able to connect
some of these.

Cheers
Tracey
datalibre.ca and civicaccess.ca

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 7:00 AM,
<open-government-request at lists.okfn.org> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Some issues related to users,     intermediaries and
>      interoperability (Makx Dekkers)
>   2. Worrying French proposal to apply privacy rules   to corporate
>      bodies (Chris Taggart)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:13:51 +0100
> From: "Makx Dekkers" <mail at makxdekkers.com>
> Subject: [open-government] Some issues related to users,
>        intermediaries and interoperability
> To: <open-government at lists.okfn.org>
> Message-ID: <001401cbbe1b$aa1ddf70$fe599e50$@com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
> Dear all,
>
> In the six months that I've been on this list, I've been following the
> discussions, trying to look at how I can use ideas and results from this
> forum in my own work. That work is mostly consulting in the public
> sector (government organisations and cultural heritage institutions)
> related to information management and interoperability.
>
> There are a couple of things that I note and like to offer for
> discussion (my apologies if these issues have already been discussed and
> resolved):
>
> 1. Whenever the term "citizen" comes up, I am not sure how that class of
> users is differentiated. It seems to me that there are at least four
> different profiles:
>
> a. The hacker - the person with the laptop in the backpack and a full
> programming toolbox (Python, Perl, XSLT etc.)
>
> b. The expert - the person with good understanding of technology and its
> application but no time to program and/or figure out the details of data
> formats
>
> c. The layperson - the person with basic skills in using technology,
> able to install and run applications on computer and smartphone
>
> d. The digital have-not - the person with no access to or knowledge of
> technology, computers or Internet
>
> As far as I can see, the people that are mostly the focus of the
> discussions here are the hacker and the expert. Are there any studies
> that have looked at or are looking at the diverse landscape of users and
> their needs?
>
> 2. On the issue of the "value chain" from data producer to data
> consumer, what most discussions concentrate on is a direct connection
> between the two - a programmer accessing data and creating an app for
> that data.
>
> What would interest me is also to consider what types of intermediaries
> there are (could/should be), i.e. organisations (public, non-profit and
> for-profit) that take open government data and use it to build useful
> and/or profitable, sustainable services.
>
> In that context, it is clear (see for example the MEPSIR study I was
> involved in,
> http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/actions_eu/policy_act
> ions/mepsir/index_en.htm) that the field of government data is very
> heterogeneous with some information lending itself to (commercial)
> exploitation, other information with primarily social value or
> information where government has a legal obligation to distribute.
>
> What would be the relation between the type of data and the adoption of
> technology and the need for legal and organisational arrangements? Would
> this forum have a role in "selling" the benefits of provision and re-use
> of open government data to data providers and (potential) re-users?
>
> 3. One issue that interests me very much from my own background in
> building interoperable systems, is in what way data providers can work
> together to build open data collections in a coherent and interoperable
> way.
>
> So far, the developments seem to look mostly at how a consumer can take
> the data of a provider, maybe mix and merge this with data from other
> sources to aggregate information and produce new knowledge. However, the
> providers are treated as islands and consumers/programmers try to build
> bridges across data islands.
>
> In what way could or should data providers work together to implement
> interoperable open data solutions? The objective would be to enable both
> better "back-office" or cross-agency integration as well as making the
> life of (re-)users easier (for example reducing the need for site
> scraping or Linked Data vocabulary matching). Are there any
> cross-agency, cross-border, cross-domain initiatives to develop and
> promote common solutions and tools?
>
>
> Clearly, I understand that at this time, with lots of people and
> government agencies getting interested and experimenting, the best way
> to get this under way is to connect hackers with data. The results of
> hacking can give useful insights in what works and what not, but in the
> end the objective should be user-friendly and sustainable services that
> meet the needs of society.
>
> I am interested in views of this community. Maybe we could start mapping
> out some activities for the working group in the next year or so to
> start looking at some of these and other issues?
>
> Cheers, Makx.
>
> ----------------------
> Makx Dekkers
> Independent Consultant
> Barcelona, Spain
> www.makxdekkers.com
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:30:19 +0000
> From: Chris Taggart <countculture at gmail.com>
> Subject: [open-government] Worrying French proposal to apply privacy
>        rules   to corporate bodies
> To: open-government at lists.okfn.org
> Message-ID:
>        <AANLkTim7g0qsRrQLdWmS80Z=Op0iR8j8kXQwXxTQEbtv at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>
> http://blog.brusselssunshine.eu/2011/01/backclash-against-transparency-right-to.html
>
> Excerpt:
>
> Last week, French right-wing MP Bernard Carayon in?an interview for
> the website Rue89?boldly stated "I claim that the State and private
> companies should also benefit from physical persons' right to privacy.
> [...] Companies should be allowed to define for themselves which
> information remains secret [...]."
> Carayon, who also chairs the French corporate-funded think-tank
> Prometheus Foundation, recently tabled?a remarkable legislative
> proposal in the French Parliament?that aims to enhance business
> secrecy to the point of seriously undermining the public's right to
> know about corporate practices.
> Carayon wants to increase protection for "economic information" by
> introducing a three-year prison sentence and a 375.000? fine for
> anyone found guilty of breaching ?the confidentiality of information
> of an economic nature". The sentence would be doubled if the culprit
> has acted "with the intention of causing harm" or has "made a personal
> profit" by leaking the information.
>
> This is a must-read for all concerned with transparency and access to data
>
> Chris
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------
> OpenCorporates :: The Open Database of the Corporate World
> http://opencorporates.com
> OpenlyLocal :: Making Local Government More Transparent http://openlylocal.com
> Blog: http://countculture.wordpress.com
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/CountCulture
>
>
>
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> End of open-government Digest, Vol 11, Issue 35
> ***********************************************
>

-- 
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
http://traceyplauriault.ca/