[open-government] Plans for http://opengovernmentdata.org/?

Fri Mar 25 09:21:15 UTC 2011

Hi Daniel, all,

>re google calendar

Yes I would prefer a calendar everyone has access to more easily for editing
than is possible through G-Calendar. Had a look at grical, while promising
it's kind of techie, and ultimately you want something that is easy to
understand from the users perspective. Not sure if grical already lives up
to that. So yes, editing the G-Calendar is clumsy (although one can imagine
creating a general login and making that public, or at least for a group
e.g.), I just don't have a real alternative right now.

>> At ourdata.eu I for instance do not intend to explain what OGD is, what
tools etc are available, just a site with examples of what is happening in
Europe. So I can go to my gov, and you to yours saying 'why are we not doing
what is already common in [[other country here]]?'
>> Also ourdata.eu is not meant to list data sources etc.

>This is great but offers little flexibility of how do add / edit and
display the information. Finally the information could and >should be
synchronised or synchronisable between differnd site that *do augment each
other*. I am just unhappy with the >way information can be added, edited and
displayed.

Let me be clear that I regard ourdata.eu as a 'personal' website mostly, not
so much as a 'group' effort. I envisioned it that way in 2009, but I think
with the current scope (examples of re-use and initiatives) it fits my own
activities best as a personal site. That doesn't mean it needs to be that,
but that's the current starting point of my thinking. I am also very tempted
to keep that scope small as it is, to prevent me from trying to turn it into
e.g. epsiplatform.eu or opengovernmentdata.org.

That being said, I am perfectly fine with other people adding content, or
re-using content elsewhere. Having other people in the (Drupal) site as
editors is I think again not the most easy way to do it (accounts, who's in,
who's not?). So I have created a few scripts that can import rss feeds as
nodes into the site. It shapes the content to match the site set-up, and
detects double entries etc before importing. The key to adding content then
is in what feeds and with what type of tagging I put into the import script.
(I created the scripts to be able to import my bookmark collection for
instance, using a specific tag to make sure I have the 'right' bookmarks)
This would allow me to import content from any augmenting site we think is
useful for it.

As to re-using content from ourdata.eu elsewhere. We could go a similar
route, providing specific feeds for other sites to import as content, or by
running a script or two that e.g. allow opengovernmentdata.org access to the
database.

In any case, I don't see the necessity of using the CMS to do that, and
assume we'll do everything through the 'back door'.

>> FYI, at epsiplatform.eu there will be a growing list of sources and
especially people involved in OGD in various European countries, next to the
current news and reports etc. So maybe it's good to see if and how all three
sites can augment each other.

>Agree. Lets try the best to coordinate this. So I would like to
re-emphasise Jonathan's call

Yes, I'll be available for a call.

best,
Ton

-------------------------------------------
Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

ton at tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog
-------------------------------------------

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 6:04 PM, Daniel Dietrich
<daniel.dietrich at okfn.org>wrote:

> Dear Ton,
>
> On 22.03.2011, at 14:01, Ton Zijlstra wrote:
>
> > Daniel, all,
> >
> > A calendar with OGD activities exists (see ourdata.eu front page) which
> Daniel has access to. We are also using this calendar for epsiplatform.eu
> > As to examples of reuse, gov initiatives I am currently rebuilding
> ourdata.eu to automatically showcase my 400+ bookmark collection on that.
>
> www.ourdata.eu is a great service, part of it is this Google Calendar
> which is the best resource for OGD events in the Eu that I am aware of. I
> just have my doubt that a service like google Calendar, where you have to
> grant permissions every time to individual contributors really is the future
> for decentralised cooperative tracking of events. GriCal goes in the
> direction of an open service that might suite our needs better.
> http://grical.org/
>
> >
> > It'd be good if we can find a way for both sites to augment each other.
>
> Absolutely! This is part of the challenge: to join forces, augment each
> other and not re-invent the wheel.
>
> > At ourdata.eu I for instance do not intend to explain what OGD is, what
> tools etc are available, just a site with examples of what is happening in
> Europe. So I can go to my gov, and you to yours saying 'why are we not doing
> what is already common in [[other country here]]?'
> > Also ourdata.eu is not meant to list data sources etc.
>
> This is great but offers little flexibility of how do add / edit and
> display the information. Finally the information could and should be
> synchronised or synchronisable between differnd site that *do augment each
> other*. I am just unhappy with the way information can be added, edited and
> displayed.
>
> > FYI, at epsiplatform.eu there will be a growing list of sources and
> especially people involved in OGD in various European countries, next to the
> current news and reports etc. So maybe it's good to see if and how all three
> sites can augment each other.
>
> Agree. Lets try the best to coordinate this. So I would like to
> re-emphasise Jonathan's call
>
> >> Anyone up for a virtual get together next week (e.g. Monday evening,
> >> Tuesday or Wednesday) to have a go at getting this ship shape? ;-)
>
>
> I am up for this and would propose next Monday, Mach 28th evening about 6pm
> CET or shall we poll via doodle?
>
> Best Regards
> Daniel
>
>
> >
> > best,
> >
> > Ton
> > -------------------------------------------
> > Interdependent Thoughts
> > Ton Zijlstra
> >
> > ton at tonzijlstra.eu
> > +31-6-34489360
> >
> > http://zylstra.org/blog
> > -------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 1:54 PM, Daniel Dietrich <
> daniel.dietrich at okfn.org> wrote:
> > Dear Jonathan, all,
> >
> > I agree that this is of high priority and we can make some improvements
> very quickly. I can spend one day on it later this week.
> >
> > On 21.03.2011, at 16:11, Jonathan Gray wrote:
> >
> > > I would say that this is a high priority right now - so people have a
> > > clearer landing page that:
> > >
> > >  *explains what open government data is and why it is interesting
> > >  * links to the open government data bibliography [1] (an update on
> this soon)
> > >  * links to opendatasearch.org
> > >  * links to lists of catalogues/competitions etc (these need updating!)
> > >  * map showing open government data initiatives around the world
> > >  * list showing upcoming events (can we use an external service for
> > > this and pull in via RSS?)
> > >  * list showing open government data related news
> > >  * pull in #opendata Twitter stream
> > >  * etc
> >
> > In addition to this we also need to think about the tool / technology. It
> is very clear that for the Open Government Data mapping project we want to
> collect information about
> >
> > * OGD initiatives
> > * OGD Events
> > * OGD competitions
> > * OGD catalogues
> >
> > And we need this information accessible in different ways, such as:
> >
> > * single item (url)
> > * list of items
> > * on a map (geo)
> > * in a calendar (time)
> > * syndicated (rss)
> >
> > Please see http://wiki.okfn.org/wg/government/mapping for more details
> >
> > Right now we use google docs google calendar and hand made KML files
> witch is very inefficient (apart from being using non open services like
> Google)
> >
> > I am looking at http://grical.org/ its open source and python. We have
> allready been in contact with the developer Ivan Villanueva.
> >
> > GriCal allows users to add "events" that can have different views like
> cal, list and map organised by user or by tags
> >
> > I would like to explore how we tweak grical to use it a the tool for
> decentralised OGD mapping. The events, initiatives, organisations could -
> once added to grical be include as item, list, calendar or map using iframe
> or the like into the Wordpress installation.
> >
> > What do people think?
> >
> > Regards
> > Daniel
> >
> > >
> > > Anyone up for having a bit of a hack session on this in next few weeks?
> >
> > count me in
> >
> > >
> > > All the best,
> > >
> > > Jonathan
> > >
> > > [1]
> http://ideas.okfn.org/ideas/54/open-government-data-bibliography-project
> > >
> > > On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 3:48 PM, Daniel Dietrich
> > > <daniel.dietrich at okfn.org> wrote:
> > >> Hi Tim,
> > >>
> > >> Thanks for bringing this up again!
> > >>
> > >> On 19.03.2011, at 23:26, Tim McNamara wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> Are there any plans for http://opengovernmentdata.org/? I think the
> domain could be re-purposed from highlighting the events of last November to
> something more generic.
> > >>
> > >> Absolutely this has been the plan for quite a wile now, wee:
> > >>
> > >>        http://wiki.okfn.org/wg/government/mapping
> > >>
> > >>>
> > >>> Some things we could include:
> > >>>
> > >>>  - links to and/org excerpts of academic paper & grey literature
> > >>>  - case studies
> > >>>  - contact people
> > >>>  - introduction to some of the technical tools (cf
> opendatamanual.org)
> > >>
> > >> all of these are very good points and should definitely find its way
> to the wiki / website
> > >>
> > >> @Tim: would you bee happy to take an more active role in getting this
> done?
> > >>
> > >> I am also looking to free some of my time to focus more on this.
> > >>
> > >> Best greetings
> > >> Daniel
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> Tim McNamara
> > >>> @timClicks
> > >>> _______________________________________________
> > >>> 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
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > 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
> >
>
>
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