[open-government] We need international open government data principles

Mon Jul 11 13:24:26 UTC 2011

Sure, will do.

I'd love to see the effort to evaluate open government data expanded and
made more rigorous, and applied on more levels.  To see a bit more of what
Sunlight did to this effect, here's another blog post we did around the 10
principles, that lays out their relation to the 8:

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2010/08/11/a-principled-look-at-open-data/

We also tried at one point to expand the principles into something of an
evaluative framework; to see the effort we tried, this blog post is a good
starting point:

http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2010/evaluating-open-pages/

The issue with expanding any particular principle, of course, is that it
doesn't exist along a single continuum.  For example, there are many
different ways in which a piece of government information can be considered
permanent, so assigning a number on a 1-5 scale, for example, can be an
unhelpful simplification.  To be broadly successful, I suspect that the
principles (whichever were adopted) would have to be broken, in turn, into a
variety of other evaluative criteria.  Or, instead, judged rather
subjectively, in more of a narrative form.

This is something that Josh Tauberer has done quite well at time in the US.
 For an example of the data principles applied, see his post here:

http://razor.occams.info/blog/2009/12/01/congressional-disbursements/

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 8:08 AM, Javier Ruiz <javier at openrightsgroup.org>wrote:

> Thanks John
>
> please keep us posted on the OGP anyway, it seems an important development
> that will probably have consequences, besides driving a wedge through the
> BRICs
>
> Javier
>
>
>
>
> On 9 July 2011 00:48, John Wonderlich <johnwonderlich at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It seems to me that the OGP event next week would be a good place to
>> discuss the idea, but may not be the ideal place for further refinement of
>> broad open data principles and guidelines, since it's limited to a few
>> countries, and based on mutual encouragement for particular governance
>> reforms more than it's based on the broad collective action involved in
>> standards creation.
>>
>> Others more closely involved in the OGP process may feel differently, of
>> course.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Javier Ruiz <javier at openrightsgroup.org>wrote:
>>
>>> John and Rufus
>>>
>>> you are participating in this
>>>
>>> http://www.state.gov/g/ogp/index.htm
>>>
>>> do you think this is going to be the international governance space for
>>> open data?
>>>
>>> javier
>>>
>>>
>>> 2011/7/8 John Wonderlich <johnwonderlich at gmail.com>
>>>
>>>> Here are two:
>>>>
>>>> https://public.resource.org/8_principles.html
>>>>
>>>> http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/ten-open-data-principles/
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 7:13 AM, Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I just posted this on the OKF blog:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://blog.okfn.org/2011/07/08/we-need-international-open-government-data-principles/
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd really like to try and start a conversation around this again -
>>>>> with key stakeholders from around the world.
>>>>>
>>>>> The key thing in my mind is consensus - rather than new content. We
>>>>> have lots of good conceptual work, and clear wording to build on. What
>>>>> is needed is to bring key people to the table and to agree on
>>>>> something very short and very clear.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyone interested? ;-)
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Jonathan Gray
>>>>>
>>>>> Community Coordinator
>>>>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>>>>> http://blog.okfn.org
>>>>>
>>>>> http://twitter.com/jwyg
>>>>> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> open-government mailing list
>>>>> open-government at lists.okfn.org
>>>>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> open-government mailing list
>>>> open-government at lists.okfn.org
>>>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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