A directory for open data projects

Open (government) data as it is understood nowadays can still be considered a new concept. It started to gain traction worldwide since the Obama memo in early 2009 and the launch of data.gov a few months later. Following successful leading examples of the US and UK governments we have seen open data flourishing all over the world over the last three years. About three hundred open data catalogues have been identified so far.

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Default to open data: an Executive Order

Last week, The White House published an Executive Order by which the default method for government data collection and dissemination must now be:

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Open data: Meaningful, visual information

One of the keys to a successful open data portal is to make it useful for the end user. Citizens and developers should be able to understand data sets without needing a PhD. I've been following the progress of Raleigh, North Carolina's open data initiative, which launched a beta of their data.raleighnc.gov portal in March 2013.

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Open source Python-based Freedom of Information platform

I’m happy to announce the Version 3 release of Froide, the open source, Python-based platform for running Freedom of Information portals: allowing you to make requests to public entities by email and track responses, as well as, customize your instance to fit your campaign for government transparency.

Froide has been in development for nearly two years. It has powered the FOI portal in Germany for over a year and a half and has recently been used to launch an Austrian FoI site.

Full instructions for getting started with Froide can be found here, and the source code is on Github here. This latest release comes with the latest version of the Python web framework Django 1.5 and Bootstrap 2.3. All other dependencies have also been upgraded.

Some of the major features include:

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Open Source, Open Standards 2013 conference report

Last week Open Source, Open Standards 2013 took place in London, an event focused on the public sector. Naturally these being two topics we’re very keen on here at OSS Watch I went along too.

Overall the key message to take away from the event was just how central to public sector IT strategy these two themes have become, and also how policy is being rapidly turned into practice, everywhere from the NHS to local government.

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