In New York, Landmark Open Data Legislation Will Soon Be Up for a Vote
BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Tuesday, February 28 2012
The New York City Council is expected to vote on a far-reaching open data bill on Wednesday that would codify many of the principles articulated by open government advocates in recent years. If made law, the bill would go further than San Francisco's pioneering 2010 open data law in depth and scope, obliging agencies to provide data online in machine-readable format though a single, citywide portal. But perhaps in a nod to the amount of work involved in working through large volumes of existing data, city agencies won't have to make theirs available through the city's portal until the end of 2018. Read More
When Big Data Yields Disappointing Results
BY Nick Judd | Friday, February 24 2012
The Associated Press' Kelli Kennedy reports that an expensive and newfangled computer system designed to prevent fraudulent Medicare payments has yielded disappointing results.
The congressionally mandated, $77 million system was built by Northrum Grumman and a group of other companies, Kennedy reports, and has yielded a savings of $7,591 so far after flagging 2,500 leads and 600 suspicious cases.
Read MoreStrapped for Cash, Election Info-Providing Project Vote Smart Might Have To Sell The Ranch
BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Thursday, February 23 2012
Project Vote Smart's headquarters is located on a 160-acre Montana homestead and is largely powered by volunteers, pictured here
Project Vote Smart, a non-partisan voting information project whose volunteer-contributed research powers thousands of government, non-profit and commercial news web sites in the Web 2.0 age — including sites for the Federal Voting Assistance Program and CNN, among others — is struggling so much financially that its co-founder plans to suggest to his board that they literally sell the ranch. Read More
Oh Hi, Machine-Readable Federal Budget Data
BY Nick Judd | Monday, February 13 2012
Tucked off to one side in the "supplemental materials" section of the White House's just-released federal budget is something called the Public Budget Database, a collection of data tables in machine-readable formats. An accompanying users' guide explains:
The data files provide sufficient detail to produce: (a) outlay totals by agency, subfunction, and Budget Enforcement Act category that are consistent with the totals presented in the 2013 Budget; (b) receipt totals by source, as shown in various published tables in the Budget; and (c) the deficit (on-budget, off-budget, and unified budget basis).Read More
New Hampshire Legislature Passes Open-Source Software Bill
BY Raphael Majma | Friday, February 10 2012
The New Hampshire state legislature recently passed a bill that makes open data and open source software included by default in the state's procurement process.
The bill, HB 418, requires government officials to consider open-source products when making new technology acquisitions and only purchase products that comply with open data standards. Last year, Nick Judd covered how the New Hampshire legislature changed with the addition of several “geeks” to the House of Representatives and the passage of this new legislation shows a growing culture of friendliness to the tech concept of “open” in the statehouse. It is currently on its way to the governor's desk for signing.
Read MoreThe Europe Roundup: Introducing GOV.UK
BY Antonella Napolitano | Friday, February 3 2012
The UK government launched the beta version of GOV.UK
The UK government has recently launched the beta version of GOV.UK as a "first step towards a single government website.", in Italy the Parliament has rejected a SOPA-alike bill, in Ukraine a charity develops an interactive map to fight AIDS. And if you're getting confused with ACTA, here's a list of the most useful resources. Read More
Does a Google-World Bank Deal On Crowdsourcing Ask Too Much of the Crowd?
BY Nick Judd | Thursday, February 2 2012
A World Bank representative will meet with global transparency advocates and digital mapmakers to discuss a controversial geodata deal with Google it announced in mid-January, according to an official at the bank.
Read MoreHouse GOP Hosts Legislative Data and Transparency Conference
BY Nick Judd | Thursday, February 2 2012
Today, House Republicans are hosting a conference on legislative data and transparency. The goal, as it's been explained to me, is to set the table for a conversation between House leadership and open government/open data advocates about what the House could or should do next.
More information on the conference is here. It's being live streamed.
Read MoreThe Europe Roundup: A FixMyStreet Milestone for mySociety
BY Antonella Napolitano | Monday, January 30 2012
Another milestone for FixMyStreet, open data in Finland and privacy issues in Germany. And don't miss today's tweetchat with Commissioner for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes Read More
The Europe Roundup: Twitter to Hire a Team in Germany
BY Antonella Napolitano | Monday, January 23 2012
Twitter is about to hire a team in Germany, the third in Europe; in France a map shows open data initiatives happening at any level. Meanwhile, an historical town in Wales is about to have its own Wikipedia. Read More
