Australia - Online Availability of Government Entities' Documents Tabled in the Australian Parliament

The Australian Auditor-General has published a report examining the online availability of tabled documents to the Australian Parliament and has provided three recommendations.

Victoria - 21st Century Approach to Government Information

The Victorian Parliament's Economic Development and Infrastructure Committee today tabled a report calling for improved access to Victorian Government information.

Government 2.0 Action Plan - Victoria

The Victorian Government 2.0 action plan involves direct citizen engagement in conversations about government services and public policy through open access to public sector information and web 2.0 technologies. It also enables collaborative working which is both open and engaging.

Victoria launches App My State competition with $100,000 in prizes

Victorian Government Premier John Brumby has launched the world's biggest apps competition App My State and encouraged entries from everyone in Victoria.

Daniel O'Neil - 15-second Case Studies in Open Government Data

Paper presented by Daniel O'Neil at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC on Wednesday 26 May 2010. EveryBlock filters an assortment of local news by location so you can keep track of what's happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over your city.

Data.gov Concept of Operations

The goal of Data.gov is to provide the public with free and easy access to high value, machine readable data sets generated and hosted by the federal government. It will enable the public to easily find, access, understand, and use data that are generated by the Federal government. For data sets that are already available, Data.gov emphasizes making it easier for the public to find and discover data in more usable formats. For data not widely available to the public in the past, the focus is on providing more data more quickly while still protecting and promoting privacy, confidentiality, and security.

data.gov.uk : how did we do it?

Presentation by professor Nigel Shadbolt, UK Open Data Advisor, 17th March 2011, Paris. Conference organized by Microsoft France.

David Eaves - Open Data, Baseball and Government

Paper presented by David Eaves from Centre for the Study of Democracy, at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC on Wednesday 26 May 2010.

Government 2.0 and Transparency in the UK: the story of data.gov.uk

Paper by Andrew Stott, Director for Transparency and Digital Engagement, Cabinet Office, UK Government. Paper presented to CeBIT Australia, Government 2.0 Conference, 3 November 2010. Includes discussion on Public Data Principles.

Municipal Open Government Framework - Work in Progress

Introduces concept of OpenData.CA in the cloud and emphasized the need to Collaborate Now! The presentation provides a current state of Government 2.0 and describes considerations related to the components of a framework: Collaboration, Open Data, Organizational culture, policies and standards and technology.

New Zealand Open Government Access and Licensing Framework (NZGOAL) and data.govt.nz: Issues and Lessons Learned

Presented to International Open Government Data Conference, by Richard Best, Government Technology Services, New Zealand Government Department of Internal Affairs, 20 November 2010.

Open Government - the State of Play - 2010

This paper seeks to explain the genesis and evolution of the concept of "open" government within the context of changing forms of government within the web-driven world, a world where emerging web technologies are empowering the citizen as never before, providing access to vast quantities of information which, despite being presented out of context and often in a complex format, is nonetheless available and freely open to use and reuse.

Open Government: A progress Report to the American People - December 2009

The Obama Administration has published its progress report on open government initiatives within the US federal government. The report offers a snapshot of work in progress to date, highlights of the new open government directive and a roadmap for what is coming next.

Review of Recent Studies on PSI Re-use and Related Market Developments

Governments also have basic commitments that citizens can access public information and national cultural heritage such as paintings, monuments and books, and to ensure social inclusion. New communication tools, such as social networks, interactive Web sites and games may facilitate the diffusion of public sector information by reaching groups of people previously unlikely to directly access PSI or PSI-related services. This literature review looks at PSI market size and impacts following the widely cited estimates in the MEPSIR study (2006). MEPSIR concluded that the PSI re-use market in 2006 for the EU25 plus Norway was worth EUR 27 billion.

Semantic Technology Solutions For Gov 2 0 Citizen-Friendly Recovery.Gov and Data.Gov With Transparency, Openness, and Collaboration

Presentation by Mills Davis, Project10X May 13, 2009, Washington Semantic Meet-up, George Mason University. The presentation covers the following: Where are semantic technologies and the next internet taking us? What is the Obama administration's directive for transparency, openness, and collaboration? How can we exploit cloud computing, web 2.0, and web 3.0 semantic technologies to build citizen-friendly recovery.gov and data.gov? Demo: Using Cambridge Semantics' Anzio in support of recovery.gov Call to action: demonstrate citizen-friendly semantic solutions for recovery.gov and data.gov, with transparency, openness & collaboration!

The Norwegian Approach to increasing Public Sector Open Data

Paper presented by Heather Broomfield, Erlend Klakegg Bergheim at the Open Government Data Camp 2011.

Tim Berners-Lee - Open, Linked Data for a Global Community

Paper presented by Tim Berners-Lee at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC on Wednesday 26 May 2010.

Transparency - seeing it through - speech by the UK Information Commissioner

Marking International Right to Know Day 2011, the UK Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham offers a view on the state of information rights in the United Kingdom: the right to know and the right to privacy.

US Open Government Directive

On December 8, 2009, the Office of Management and Budget published a Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies called the "Open Government Directive". This memorandum directs US federal government departments and agencies to implement principles of transparency, participation and collaboration across their organizations.

Victorian App My State winners announced

The Victorian Government's App My State, the world's biggest government apps competition has announced its awards. The competition received 170 entries including 74 application entries and 96 application ideas.

Open Government - Canada

Provided by the Government of Canada - currently as of 14 December 2011 there are three initiatives: Open Data, which is about offering government data in a more useful format to enable citizens, the private sector and non-government organizations to leverage it in innovative and value-added ways. Open Information, which is about proactively releasing information, including on government activities, to Canadians on an ongoing basis. By proactively making government information available it will be easier to find and more accessible for Canadians. Open Dialogue, which is about giving Canadians a stronger say in government policies and priorities, and expanding engagement through Web 2.0 technologies.

Open Data User Group

UK Cabinet Office. "The Cabinet Office is setting up an Open Data User Group (ODUG) to support the work of the new Data Strategy Board (DSB). The ODUG will advise the DSB on public sector data that should be prioritised for release as open data, to the benefit of the UK..."

The cost of open data: A Canadian lawyer's analysis

By Lou Milrad. IT World Canada, 14 May 2012. "Cities across the country are moving to new models of information access, but a recent U.S. court case could give them pause. What you should know about Orange County... A RECENT US COURT DECISION in Orange County, California, has threatened to derail the movement toward greater public access to a particular category of data, namely geographic information systems data. The case, currently under appeal by the Sierra Club to the California Supreme Court with amicus curiae support from over 182 GIS professionals, including 14 GIS organizations, supporting open access to government geodata, is garnering much attention from open data advocates, land surveyors, GIS and other professionals, law firms as well as environmentalists and homeowners..."

Open Data and The New Divide

by Andrea Di Maio. Gartner, May 14, 2012. "Over the last four years open government and open data have been at the forefront of the debate on how governments can become more transparent, participative and efficient. The theory is well known: rather than (or alongside) providing the government's interpretation or packaging of public data, this data should be made available in raw, open format for people to build their own views and applications..."

No joke: Open data fuels transparency, civic utility and economic activity

by Alex Howard, Gov20.Govfresh, May 2, 2012. "... There's little doubt that smart entrepreneurs, big and small, are going to mashup data from the rapidly expanding new sources — social data, geolocation data, mobile data, financial data, transit data, health data, etc — and build new businesses on it or improve their existing services, like Zillow or Google Maps or Consumer Reports or Bloomberg Government. In a time when job creation is critical, using public sector information to create jobs isn't an aim to dismiss lightly, although the terms and conditions under which such activity occurs must be clear to all actors involved, to avoid the creation of new monopolies based upon artificial scarcity..."

Why Employees Are The Missing Link for Successful Open Government

by Andrea Di Maio. Gartner, May 3, 2012. "Open government initiatives are either aimed at providing greater transparency, usually as a reaction to an accusation or perception of excessive secrecy, or at engaging citizens in specific problem solution as well as service delivery. It is probably fair to say that the US federal initiatives are closer to the former, while UK initiatives are closer to the latter..."

UK audit confirms progress in open govt agenda

By Rahul Joshi. FutureGov, 9 May 2012. "A new report from UK's National Audit Office (NAO) says that the progress in UK's open government agenda has been good. It has achieved some noteworthy results; for instance, by end of last year the police crime map web site had recorded 47 million visits, and the Department of Education had seen a 84 increase in annual use of comparative schools data..."

GovHack 2012

GovHack is an Australian initiative by Web Directions to be held onFriday, Saturday and Sunday the 1-3 June 2012 - $30,000 in prize money. The competition goals will be announced on Friday the 1st June.

Agencies to integrate GovHacks into apps

By Brett Winterford. IT News, May 8, 2012. "Government offers $30,000 in developer prizes. The organisers of the annual GovHack are hoping to take the data mash-up event to the next level in 2012, upping prize money to $30,000 and hoping that code generated at the event will find its way into agency applications. The three-day event, to be held from June 1-3, invites programmers to use newly released government data in apps, mash-ups and data visualisations to improve delivery of government services to citizens..."

GovHack offers up $30,000 in return for data delivery innovation

By Michelle Hammond. StartUpSmart, Monday, 7 May 2012. "Programmers and designers are being invited to participate in GovHack 2012, charged with the task of delivering government data to the Australian public for the chance to share in $30,000. GovHack is a non-profit run by the Government 2.0 Taskforce and the eGovernment Technology Cluster, with support from the University of Canberra’s INSPIRE Centre and Rewired State..."

A Primer on Big Data in State and Local Government

By Kapil Bakshi. Government Technology, April 30, 2012. "Editor's Note: Kapil Bakshi works for Cisco Public Sector, leading and setting strategic direction of solution spaces like Big Data and cloud computing. Data is a critical asset for state and local government, and it has been for decades. The questions today are what happens when you have too much data, and how do you make sense of it when, according McKinsey Global Institute, data volume is growing 40 percent per year? How can you keep up with that much data? It’s important in today’s digital age to not only store large data sets, but also use the data to make mission-critical decisions. This emerging field of data analytics is being called Big Data..."

Philadelphia shows brotherly love to open data with new executive order

by Alex Howard. Gov20.Govfresh, April 26, 2012. "As TechnicallyPhilly reported this morning, the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has joined the ranks of municipalities putting more public data onto the Internet. “Transparency is a cornerstone of good governance, and it is vital for the City to be open and available to our citizens,” said Mayor Michael Nutter in a statement posted to the city of Philadelphia's Facebook page. 'Philadelphia was recently named at the seventh most social media savvy city in the nation. The Open Data policy furthers many of the policies and initiatives already put in place by the City.'..."

Eight open government recommendations for Canada

by Alex Howard. Gov20.Govfresh, May 2, 2012. "Earlier this year, I accepted an invitation from Canadian Minister of Parliament Tony Clement, the president of Canada’s Treasury Board, to be a member of Canada's advisory panel on open government, joining others from Canada’s tech industry, the academy and civil society. The first — and only — meeting to date was held via telepresence on February 28th, 2012... Here are the recommendations I made when I had an opportunity to speak..."

Developer.Data.gov

"Here you can participate, collaborate, and compete with the best developers to drive the publishing and use of government data. Ask for what you need, share what you’ve learned, and brag about your successes. This is your space!..."

Data.gov launches developer community

By FCW Staff. Federal Computer Week, May 1, 2012. "Data.gov has launched a new community for software developers to share ideas, collaborate or compete on projects and request new datasets. Developer.data.gov joins a growing list of communities and portals tapping into Data.gov's datasets, including those for health, energy, education, law, oceans and the Semantic Web..."