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.

Google Trends - eGovernment, e-Government, Open Government, Government Data, Government 2.0

Google Trends and Google Insights for Search are now one service. Below is a comparison of the interest in egovernment, e-government, open government, government data and government 2.0 as depicted in searches on Google from 1 January 2007 until September 2012.

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.

Government Data Websites in Australia - who uses them and what are they looking at?

Source: Experian Hitwise - Data updated monthly. Sites currently available are from the Federal, Victorian, New South Wales, Queensland and Australian Capital Territory Governments.

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 Data - New Reality and Community Benefits

Presentation by Jury Konga, Principal eGovFutures, October 31, 2012. Contents include: Overview; Open Data – defined with context; Current State; Open Data Framework; Moving forward.

Open Data Open Innovation Open Cloud

Presentation by Mark Gayler on July 26, 2012. Examples of open government projects from around the world exploiting the benefits of cloud computing. Includes examples from Canada, Colombia,UK and EU. As presented at Major Cities of Europe Conference in Vienna, June 2012.

Open Data: Key to the Future

Report to the Governor and the State Legislature, December 2012 State of New York, Department of State, Committee on Open Government. Not long ago, the term "E-Government" meant "electronic" government and referred tothe use of new technologies to increase government transparency. It encompassed primarily theadoption of e-mail and other electronic means to facilitate government's response to publicinquiries. Today the term has a new, far broader meaning. "E-Government" now represents the proactive use of technologies to make the vast amounts of valuable government-held informationmore widely available, and to facilitate its ready use by policy makers and the public alike.Understood in this sense, E-Government transforms the foundations of open government:transparency, participation and collaboration.

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 progress in Australia

Presentation given by Craig Thomler at the eGovernment Summit, April 19, 2013. Citizens have a right to access government documents and proceedings to support effective public oversight. Citizens have a right to have their views considered during government decision making. Citizens have a right to access, repurpose and reuse government open data (PSI)

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.

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.

There Is More To The US Open Data Policy Than Meets The Eye

by Andrea Di Maio. Gartner, May 10, 2013. "On May 9, after a longer-than-expected preparation, the Open Data Policy announced as part of the US Digital Government Strategy has been issued together with an executive order signed by President Obama about Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information. As one reads the order, browses through the first few pages of the policy or watches the short video that CIO Steve Van Roekel and CTO Todd Park released to explain the policy, the first impression is that this is just the reinforcement of prior open government policies..."

Project Open Data: Open Data Policy - Managing Information as an Asset

"... The ultimate value of data can often not be predicted. That’s why the U.S. Government released a policy that instructs agencies to manage their data, and information more generally, as an asset from the start and, wherever possible, release it to the public in a way that makes it open, discoverable, and usable. The White House developed Project Open Data – this collection of code, tools, and case studies – to help agencies adopt the Open Data Policy and unlock the potential of government data. Project Open Data will evolve over time as a community resource to facilitate broader adoption of open data practices in government. Anyone – government employees, contractors, developers, the general public – can view and contribute. So dive right in and help to build a better world through the power of open data..."

Introducing: Project Open Data

Posted by Todd Park and Steven VanRoekel. The White House, Office of Science and Technology Blog, May 16, 2013. "Technology evolves rapidly, and it can be challenging for policy and its implementation to evolve at the same pace. Last week, President Obama launched the Administration’s new Open Data Policy and Executive Order aimed at ensuring that data released by the government will be as accessible and useful as possible. To make sure this tech-focused policy can keep up with the speed of innovation, we created Project Open Data. Project Open Data is an online, public repository intended to foster collaboration and promote the continual improvement of the Open Data Policy. We wanted to foster a culture change in government where we embrace collaboration and where anyone can help us make open data work better. The project is published on GitHub, an open source platform that allows communities of developers to collaboratively share and enhance code..."

A new goldmine: Making official data public could spur lots of innovation

The Economist, May 18th 2013. "After a Soviet missile shot down a South Korean airliner that strayed into Russian airspace in 1983, President Ronald Reagan made America’s military satellite-navigation system, GPS, available to the world. Entrepreneurs pounced. Car-navigation, precision farming and 3m American jobs now depend on GPS. Official weather data are also public and avidly used by everyone from insurers to ice-cream sellers. But this is not enough. On May 9th Barack Obama ordered that all data created or collected by America’s federal government must be made available free to the public, unless this would violate privacy, confidentiality or security. “Open and machine-readable”, the president said, is “the new default for government information.” This is a big bang for big data, and will spur a frenzy of activity..."

Do governments need a chief data officer?

by Jennifer Belissent - Forrester Research, 15 May, 2013. "Having had several related discussions this past week while in Washington DC, it is obvious that the question of how to use and manage the growing wealth of data, and incorporate it into an existing information governance organisation and infrastructure (however mature or not), is top of mind in the public sector as well. These questions are particularly timely for the federal government with the publication of the new Executive Order on Open Data and accompanying Memorandum on Open Data Policy – Managing Information as an Asset. Do government agencies need a CDO in order to do this?..."

Opening public data boosts economy as well as transparency

EurActiv, Published 16 May 2013. "Updating the 2003 public information directive to increase the amount of public data that Europeans can access may be perceived as a transparency measure, but it is likely to bring real financial benefits and boost skills in a growing IT sector, writes Dinand Tinholt. Dinand Tinholt is global account director of the European Union at Capgemini Consulting, where he is involved in the EU's large-scale pilots in the field of pan-European interoperability, e-Government, standardisation, cross-border services and digital Infrastructures..."

Towards Open Access to Government Science: The Obama Administration Takes Some Important Steps

by Gretchen Goldman, analyst, Center for Science and Democracy, Union of Concerned Scientists, The Equation Blog, May 15, 2013. "This week, the National Research Council is holding public comment meetings on increasing public access to federally funded research—both access to the data and publications. We encouraged the UCS Science Network to weigh in with their own ideas on how the government can increase public access to its science. After all, this is the science that we all pay for through our tax dollars..."

Minister Clement Connects With Ottawa Open Data Expertise

Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Canada News Centre, May 9, 2013. "Ottawa – The Honourable Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board, today tapped into the expertise of Ottawa high tech innovators and municipal open data leaders during a roundtable consultation on the relaunch of the Government of Canada's Open Data Portal... The Ottawa roundtable is the fourth in a series of cross-country consultations being organized by the Government of Canada in anticipation of the next generation Open Data Portal that will be unveiled later this year. Canadians, tech innovators and the Open Data community are being asked what kinds of features and content they are looking for in order to best leverage the Portal's resources..."

What is a Civic Hacker?

by Lisa Nelson. Digital Gov - HowTo.Gov Blog, May 15, 2013. "The National Day of Civic Hacking is bringing together thousands of civic hackers on June 1st and 2nd. But what is a civic hacker, anyway? “Civic hackers” as we think about it for the National Day of Civic Hacking are technologists, civil servants, designers, entrepreneurs, engineers – anybody – who is willing to collaborate with others to create, build, and invent to address challenges relevant to our neighborhoods, our cities, our states and our country..."

APIs in Government - Howto.gov

Managed by the Federal Web Managers Council. HowTo.gov, Page Reviewed/Updated: April 30, 2013. "An Application Programming Interface, or API, is a set of software instructions and standards that allows machine to machine communication—like when a website uses a widget to share a link on Twitter or Facebook..." Covers: - Benefits of APIs - API Basics - How to Start an API Program - Resources and Tools for Building APIs - Common Questions About APIs

APIs help agencies say 'yes'

By Frank Konkel. Federal Computer Week, May 15, 2013. "The White House’s Digital Government Strategy calls on federal agencies to roll out two application programming interfaces (APIs) that make high-value data and content available to the masses by May 23, the strategy's one-year milestone..."

Economic effects of open data policy still 'anecdotal'

By Adam Mazmanian. Federal Computer Week, May 15, 2013. "A year after the launch of the government's digital strategy, there's no official tally of the economic activity generated by the release of government datasets for use in commercial applications..."

Singapore plans DaaS pilot to develop data industry

By Kevin Kwang. ZDNet, May 15, 2013. "Summary: The data-as-a-service program is meant to kickstart the development of a nationwide delivery platform of public and private sector datasets, which would in turn spur more innovative applications to be created. SINGAPORE--The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) is looking to introduce a data-as-a-service (DaaS) program some time in the next three months, and it hopes the initiative will help foster a dataset marketplace which will, in turn, spark off more innovative applications by third-party developers..."

Market Assessment of Public Sector Information - in pdf format (4870kb)

(This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). A report by Deloitte for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, May 2013. "This report has been produced by Deloitte between October 2012 and March 2013. The lead authors are Andrew Tong, Haris Irshad and Daniel Revell Ward... This is the first UK-wide market assessment of public sector information. It spans the use and reuse of public sector information at the UK-level, regionally and locally by a wide range of businesses, civil society groups, government and members of the general public. The aim of this market assessment is to establish a robust evidence base on its value and to highlight the policy implications flowing from an examination of how public sector information could be utilised further. The research has covered three broad thematic areas: - definitions of public sector information and its characteristics; - how public sector information is used and re-used inside and outside of government; and - barriers to fully exploiting the value of public sector information, including issues around competitiveness, funding and regulation..."