[open-government] Open data movement in Japan

Wed Apr 17 11:48:19 UTC 2013

Tomoaki

Many thanks for the update.

On the rollout strategy, you need to make a big splash *and* then grow over
the following months!  If you only have a few, boring, datasets on day 1
then it will not have the impact you need, especially the impact within the
government itself.  So aim to have a collection of useful and valuable
datasets on day 1 - including at least a few from the list of known
high-value and much reused datasets (see for instance the list on page 20 of
the World Bank Open Data Readiness Assessment Framework [1]).  On the other
hand it will almost certainly not be possible to get everything released for
day 1 - and certainly not without introducing excessive delay.  So make a
big splash, and then use that and the political commitment to work through
the 'harder' datasets over the next few months.

On the CC-BY-ND you need to push back on what *risk* the Ministry are trying
to mitigate - a major point in Open Data (and other types of Open Knowledge)
is that the information owner cannot predict what valuable reuses of their
information could result, and so the licence needs to be Open to permit
unpredictable valuable applications to happen.  

For instance, for text a "derivative" could be a translation into another
language or a précis [2].  Suppose a Japanese firm wanted to export widgets
to Russia, and wanted to include a portion of the METI's annual report
praising the strength of the Japanese widget industry and the quality of
Japanese widgets into Russian as part of its sales and marketing effort.
CC-BY-ND would not allow this.

Often government Ministry are worried about a derivative being claimed as an
original text from the Ministry.  However CC-BY already has sufficient
protections against this.

Regards

Andrew

[1]
http://data.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/1/od_readiness_-_revised_v2.pd
f
[2] beyond "fair use", if allowed in the jurisdiction

-----Original Message-----
From: open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org
[mailto:open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Tomoaki
Watanabe
Sent: 17 April 2013 11:07
To: Open Government WG List
Subject: Re: [open-government] Open data movement in Japan

Hello. Just a small update about Japanese situation, answering some
questions posted previously, and asking some questions for those of you who
could help:

<Data Portal>
I think this thread was initially about open data portal in Japan.
It is now officially published that Japan will have one.

The materials distributed at the March 21 meeting of eGov open data public &
private sector practitioners' conference is published on the web.
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/it2/densi/dai3/gijisidai.html

Among them is a roadmap for Japanese open data.
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/it2/densi/dai3/siryou5b.pdf

The third box now indicates that data catalog mentioned in the national open
data strategy document is actually a data portal.
There will be some experimental, pilot project kind of portal before the
full-fledged one will be developed.

It is not published what the data portal is going to be like, but I hear
that C-KAN's localization community in Japan is quite active.
The group is not part of OKF Japan, but there are some overlapping members.

<Openness definition>
To answer Daniel's question, I think a number of private-sector (including
civic & academic sectors here) members of this and other relevant government
boards are aware of what the openness means. The national strategy document
specifically emphasize machine-readability and allowing of commercial use.
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/it2/pdf/120704_siryou2.pdf (p.5)

But the idea of openness is not perfectly implemented, I would say.

For example, some of the white papers provided through "Open Data METI," an
open data portal developed by Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry are
under a CC-BY-ND license. (Others, and statistical data, are under a CC-BY)
http://datameti.go.jp/

In fact, I heard some people suggesting that text of "annual review"
kind of report may not need to be modified. Could anyone come up with a nice
example why allowing modification is beneficial? I am sure I will find some
example eventually, but it is always interesting to learn from others.

In general, I would say that it is not surprising if Japanese government
would eventually pick a CC-BY license as the default/ primary license for
open data.

<Policy question: Small start or Big splash?>

One of the difficult questions I discuss with government officials and
people in this space: Should we push for large-scale open data or is it okay
to start small and accumulate successful cases slowly over the years?

Is the society, user communities, government agencies, ready to embrace the
open data and ripe for innovation? If so, large-scale practice is sensible.
Failing to make a big success may develop into the perception that open data
is another "hype/ bubble."

If not, perhaps a coalition of the willing is an easier approach.
Over time, we can hopefully convince broader set of agencies and user
communities. It also means we cannot benefit from the buzz, economies of
scale, positive network externalities, etc.

Can anyone share your opinions or experience?

I have more questions, but this email is already too long.

Cheers,

Tomo
 OKF Japan/ CC Japan/ GLOCOM

----
Tomoaki Watanabe, Ph.D.
 Executive Research Fellow/ Associate Professor/
  General Manager for Research Project Division  Center for Global
Communications (GLOCOM)  International University of Japan
  http://www.glocom.ac.jp

 Executive Director, CommonSphere (formerly Creative Commons Japan)
  http://creativecommons.jp

 Founding Member, Open Knowledge Foundation Japan Initiative
  http://okfn.jp
----

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 10:10 PM, Daniel Dietrich
<daniel.p.dietrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> These are excellent news, Hiroichi! Looks like you guys are doing an
amazing work. Well done!
>
> Does "open by default" in this case means open as in the open 
> definition? http://opendefinition.org/okd/
>
> I am curious to learn more about the developments, so please keep us
posted.
>
> Would you perhaps be interested writing a guest post on the open
government developments in Japan for the main OKF blog? Ping me of list if
so.
>
> All best
> Daniel
>
>
>
> On 7 Mar 2013, at 14:18, kawashima-hiroichi at pref.saga.lg.jp wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> This is Hiroichi Kawashima from OKF Japan group. Let me follow up Tomo's
message on Open Data Portal on March 6.
>>
>> Thanks to Andrew, Daniel, Rufus and all whom we met in January 2012, 
>> and having learned various lessons from EU countries and US, we have 
>> been successful in promoting the agenda of Open Government Data in 
>> Japan. Eventually, the Cabinet Secretariat (CAS) issued the Open Data 
>> Strategy, which adopted the principle of "Open by Default" and 
>> prioritized on the economic aspect of the Open Government Data on 
>> July 4th, 2012. Currently, three government committees are discussing 
>> issues for implementation under the auspices of CAS, the Ministry of 
>> Internal Affairs and Communications (MIAC), and the Ministry of 
>> Economy, Trade and Industries (METI),
>>
>> In collaboration with MIAC and METI, the CAS convened committee is
formulating a road map and an implementation guideline for the government
officials. These roadmap and guideline are to be announced by the end of
March this year. The issues that are being discussed in the committee
include legal constraints, machine readability, data catalogue, a mechanism
to expand the scope of opened data, awareness building and evaluation.
>>
>> I wish to update the open data movement in Japan after the government's
announcement of the roadmap and the guideline. Please keep your eyes on the
movement in Japan.
>>
>> PS. As for the OpenSpending activities, we have launched Where Does My
Money Go sites for four cities, and the number of the participating cities
is increasing. Pelase see the site for Yokohama: http://spending.jp/.
Fortunately, our WDMMG activity is awarded as the Excellent Application and
as the Project for Smarter City by the Linked Open Data Challenge 2012
today!
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Hiroichi
>> ----
>> Hiroichi Kawashima, Ph.D.
>>   Founding member, OKF Japan group
>>   CEO, the Institute for Public-Sector Innovation
>> ----
>>
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