[LINK] The Open Data Movement

[Marghanita da Cruz]

FWIW, my view is that Government information (and listed companies 
continuous disclosure information) should be provided in an accessible way 
and routinely be made public in accordance with

> Principle 1: Open access to information - a default position
> 
> Information held by Australian Government agencies is a valuable national resource. If there is no legal need to protect the information it should be open to public access. Information publication enhances public access. Agencies should use information technology to disseminate public sector information, applying a presumption of openness and adopting a proactive publication stance. 
<http://www.oaic.gov.au/publications/agency_resources/principles_on_psi_short.html>

When it comes to historical information, I am  a big fan of Trove and its 
crowd sourcing...<http://trove.nla.gov.au/>

However, I do see some value in enabling third parties to provide 
perspectives, context and to illuminate and aggregate information.
eg.
<http://ramin.com.au/annandale/annandale-to-sydney.shtml>
<http://ramin.com.au/annandale/story-annandale-post-office.shtml>

Over the weekend, the following was posted to SLUG:
> tl;dr - The OpenAustralia Foundation (Australia's open data, open
> government and civic hacking charity that produces and uses free
> software extensively) is running a hackfest this weekend, sign up at
> https://oa-hackfest.eventbrite.com/
> 
> ~~~~
> 
> Come and join Henare, Tim and Matthew in their basement, er.. we mean
> Google Sydney, for an awesome weekend of hacking.
> 
> It's all a bit last minute. What's the worst that happens? Nobody
> turns up and the three of us spend the weekend hacking. That's okay
> too.
> 
> However, it would be much more fun if you came too!
> 
> We've got a couple of quick talks lined up to warm you up and give you
> some inspiration, then a full weekend dedicated to hacking on
> everything OpenAustralia. Come along and learn, share and build
> interesting things in and around open data, open government and civic
> hacking.
> 
> Want to reboot OpenAustralia.org by fixing the scraper? How about some
> finishing touches to Election Leaflets to monitor future Australian
> elections? Or do you want to learn how to help tens of thousands of
> people get PlanningAlerts by writing a simple scraper (anyone can do
> it!)? Then register here:
> 
> https://oa-hackfest.eventbrite.com/
> 
> This event will be hosted at Google Sydney this weekend the 10th and
> 11th of September, here's our plan for the weekend:
> 
> Saturday
> --------
> 11:30 -- Doors open
> 12:00 -- Introduction and housekeeping
> 12:15 -- The Gears That Power the Tubes of OpenAustralia -- Matthew Landauer
> 12:30 -- An Introduction to Guerrilla Data Liberation with ScraperWiki
> -- Henare Degan
> 12:45 -- Let the hacking begin
> 18:00 -- We'll order pizzas with anyone interested
> 22:00 -- Doors close
> 
> Sunday
> ------
> 11:30 -- Doors open / Let the hacking begin
> 16:00 -- Stop hacking, start presentations -- show us what you've build,
> fixed or learnt!
> 18:00 -- Doors close, optional beers at the pub
> 
> Google are kindly supplying the venue, power and WiFi so all you need
> to do is bring along your notebook, some snacks to keep you hacking
> through the day and pizza money if you're a hungry hacker come
> Saturday evening.
> 
> Sign up to the OpenAustralia Community mailing list if you have any
> questions and don't forget to tag your tweets, photos, etc. #oahack
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Henare, Matthew and Tim
> OpenAustralia Foundation volunteers
> -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html 




stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
> #Opendata: digital-era governance thoroughbred, or new public management 
> trojan horse?
> 
> Justin Longo, Public Policy and Governance Review 
> <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1856120_code1529875.pdf?
> abstractid=1856120&mirid=1>
> 
> 01 September 2011
> 
> The open data movement - in which advocates have called for governments 
> to provide open, easy-to-use and largely free-of-charge access to public 
> data - has generated significant momentum in a short period of time. 
> 
> Justin Longo review the benefits - to both governments and the public - 
> that many open data advocates agree are achievable from making digitized 
> government data more open. 
> 
> Following this, he focuses on one of these purported benefits and 
> proposes an alternative interpretation that identifies a potential 
> downside to open data as currently framed: that an alternative reading of 
> some elements of the open data advocacy coalition originate in the New 
> Public Management reform agenda and seek to revive it.
> --
> 
> Cheers,
> Stephen
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
> 


-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://ramin.com.au
Tel: 0414-869202