Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework released |
Today the State Services Commission is releasing the draft New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL). This document provides guidance for State Services agencies on:
- open access to non-copyright information; and
- open licensing of copyright works,
in both cases with a view to allowing their re-use by others. (It does not apply to information or works containing personal or other sensitive information.) |
The draft NZGOAL sets out a series of policy principles which embrace, among other things, the notions of open access, open licensing, creativity, authenticity, non-discrimination and open formats. It describes the drivers behind this work, the departmental consultation process that has taken place, the Creative Commons New Zealand law licences and sets out a review and release process which agencies can use to determine the basis on which information and copyright works may be released. |
So far as copyright works are concerned, NZGOAL proposes that agencies apply the most liberal of the New Zealand Creative Commons law licences to those of their copyright works that are appropriate for release, unless there is a restriction which would prevent this. The most liberal Creative Commons licence is the Attribution (BY) licence. So far as non-copyright information is concerned, NZGOAL recommends the use of clear “no-known rights” statements, to provide certainty for people wishing to re-use that information. Read more at blog.e.govt.nz |
Spatial information not being exploited
|
New Zealand is losing $1.3 million in productivity a day because it is failing to exploit the benefits of spatial information, a report shows.
The Government should give the public access to basic spatial data to help reverse the loss of $500m a year, it said. |
Barriers included “problems in accessing data, inconsistency in data standards and a general lack of skills and knowledge relating to modern spatial information technology”. |
Local Government New Zealand development and infrastructure manager Geoffrey Swain said it had been working with government agencies to share spatial information, but talks had foundered on issues such as who would own the intellectual property and bear the data collection costs. Read more at www.stuff.co.nz |
San Francisco’s DataSF.org Won’t be a D.C. Copycat, CIO Says |
“There’s also somewhat a feeling in the community that [the Apps for Democracy contest] has been done — that actually what the open source community wants is more recognition than some small amount of money,” Vein said. “What we’re thinking about doing is having an ‘apps store,’ if we can legally do this. It would be showing on the portal Web site those solutions that are created, and highlighting the names and the work of the people that did it.” |
“I think this is really part of a broader strategy, and it’s not just about the data sets,” Vein said. “It’s about how we can use Web 2.0 technologies as well, because what we’re playing with here — as we did with RecoverySF [economic Web site] — is this ability for the public to begin a dialog with government and with each other.” Read more at www.govtech.com |
There is increasing publicity and awareness about ownership/rights of transit data. Commuters on public transit want to know two fundamental things: when can I expect the bus or train to pick me up? And when will it drop me off at my destination? |
How likely is it that the arrival and departure information will be available on a site or service other than the official one? That depends on how open your local agency is. In some metro areas, transit agencies make data–routes, schedules, and even real-time vehicle location feeds–available to developers to mash into whatever applications they wish. In others, the agencies lock down their information, claiming it may not be reused without permission or fee.
|
Hughes says, “Agencies that lock up the data have less control over the accuracy of what’s out there. It’s also a false economy to charge for the data. If you put it out for free, you get great apps and more riders.”
Read more at news.cnet.com |
Stamen demonstrates new trends and tools in online mapping visualisation
Food safety breaches are listed for 12 months on the NSW government website. If a restaurant remedies the situation, should they be penalised for that long? Dirty Aussie restaurants? There’s an app for that
|
| A new iPhone app will tell you if a Sydney restaurant has been fined for breach of food safety standards.
|
The application, FoodWatch NSW, brings the Food Authority’s name-and-shame list to your fingertips by using the iPhone’s GPS to show you a list of restaurants near your location that have been added to the list. |
The software was developed by mogeneration and sources the data from the NSW Food Authority list on its website. |
Applications developed for the iPhone that use government website information have attracted controversy in recent months. |
In March this year, RailCorp threatened legal action against a software developer, Alvin Singh after he developed an iPhone application allowing users to view Sydney train and ferry timetables. |
US companies are starting to explore business models for the use of government open data. Companies offer services to crunch gov’t raw data |
The business models differ, but some companies are using the raw data released on Data.gov and elsewhere to demonstrate the power of their data-publishing and number-crunching services. |
Socrata calls its service of reorganizing the data into easy-to-read, interactive charts and graphs “social data discovery.” |
“The data is valuable, but the social data is valuable as well,” said Merritt, a former Microsoft executive. “It’s one thing to put the data online, but it’s another thing to actually get some civic feedback loop.” |
As the data is released, many U.S. residents are spotting trends that government workers hadn’t seen before, he added. For example, based on data on which airline flights are typically late, fliers are starting to avoid flights from some airlines at certain times of the day, he said. Read more at www.computerworld.com |
Web inventor to help Downing Street open up government data |
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, will help the British government to make its data more easily available online, Gordon Brown said today. |
Sir Tim has been an eager proponent of better access to all forms of government and other data. In a talk to the TED conference in March, shown below, he said: “What you find if you deal with people in government departments is that they hug their database, hold it really close, so that they can build a beautiful website to present it. |
“I would like to suggest: sure, make a beautiful website, but first, give us – all of us – the unadulterated data. We have to ask for raw data now.” Read more at www.guardian.co.uk |
What impact will open data have on journalism? Journalism Needs Data in 21st Century |
| Journalism has always been about reporting facts and assertions and making sense of world affairs. No news there. But as we move further into the 21st century, we will have to increasingly rely on “data” to feed our stories, to the point that “data-driven reporting” becomes second nature to journalists. |
On May 21, the Obama administration launched Data.gov, a web site that provides access to raw data from federal government agencies. Access to this raw data is useful, but to unleash the power of the data, you need tools for visualizing it. Today, we’re going to show you how to use Google Fusion Tables to visualize and analyze data from Data.gov. Fusion Tables, which we launched in Google Labs in June, is a system for managing data in the cloud, combining powerful features of desktop database systems with easy-to-use collaboration tools. You can read more about it on the Google Research Blog. |
|
NZ govt releases open access framework for govt information
