Nonprofits Should Share Their Data, Too
BY David Eaves | Thursday, January 24 2013
Whenever I'm at a hackathon — or any discussion about open data, really — I'm always disappointed to see that there are few people there from the non-profit sector. Obviously this is a sector with limited resources and capacity, but not without a history of effective open data use. For example, some nonprofits — particularly those that provide housing for the elderly, or engage in advocacy around homelessness — are big consumers of census data as it helps them either plan or spot longer term trends that impact their core issues. Such analysis can help ensure scarce resources are allocated more effectively, enhancing the organization's impact. But there's more that nonprofits could be doing. Rather than just use data others create, shouldn't more nonprofits be sharing their data for like-minded organizations to re-use? Read More
San Francisco Pilots Restaurant Inspections in Yelp Reviews
BY Nick Judd | Thursday, January 17 2013
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is expected to announce today that his city's restaurant inspection data will begin to appear on Yelp, the business listings service. Also included in the announcement, expected at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., is that Yelp, in conjunction with city technologists in San Francisco and New York, NY, have created what they hope will become a de-facto standard for restaurant inspection data. Called Local Inspector Value-Entry Specification, or LIVES, the hope is that this specification will make restaurant inspection information easy for developers to handle and, as a result, more ubiquitous on the web. Read More
When it Comes to Disclosure, New NY Gun Control Law is Shooting a Blank
BY Sam Roudman | Wednesday, January 16 2013
Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo laid out an ambitious open government agenda in his state of the state address, declaring his commitment to provide "easy, single-stop access to statewide and agency-level data, reports, statistics, compilations and information." This week he carved out his first exemption: gun owners. Read More
Democratic Promise: Aaron Swartz, 1986-2013
BY Micah L. Sifry | Saturday, January 12 2013
Aaron Swartz at a Boston Wikipedia Meetup, August 2009, By Sage Ross.
Aaron Swartz, a leading activist for open information, internet freedom, and democracy, died at his own hand Friday January 11. He was 26 years old. There is no single comprehensive list of his good works, but here are some of them: At the age of 14 he co-authored the RSS 1.0 spec--taking brilliant advantage of the fact that internet working groups didn't care if someone was 14, they only cared if their code worked. Then he met Larry Lessig and worked closely with him on the early architecting of Creative Commons, an immense gift to all kinds of sharing of culture. He also was the architect and first coder of the Internet Archive's OpenLibrary.org, which now has made more than one million books freely available to anyone with an internet connection. "We couldn't have come this far without his crucial expertise," Open Library says on its about page. He also co-founded Reddit.com, the social news site, and Demand Progress, an online progressive action group that played a vital role in the anti-SOPA/PIPA fight. He also contributed occasionally to Personal Democracy Forum, writing this article on why wikis work and this essay on "parpolity" or the idea that nested councils of elected representatives could be used to represent a whole country, for our 2008 book, Rebooting America. He was a fellow traveler. Read More
To Increase Corporate Transparency, Denmark is Making Companies' Tax Records Available Online
BY Julia Wetherell | Friday, January 11 2013
A new database will make corporate tax records available to the public in Denmark, the result of legislation passed this summer that called for greater transparency in the Danish business sector. The database is the latest in a series of online transparency practices implemented by the Danish government. Read More
A New Open Data Push from the Governor in New York State
BY Miranda Neubauer | Thursday, January 10 2013
In his State of the State speech Wednesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he would implement a comprehensive statewide open data portal as part of a renewed focus on transparency. Called Open New York and culled from his list of campaign promises, the initiative aims to "harness technology to show how taxpayer money is being spent, showcase the great resources of the state, and foster productive engagement with government," Cuomo promised in his prepared remarks. Read More
Communities in India, Fighting for Rights, Solve a First Problem: Proving They Exist
BY Lisa Goldman | Wednesday, January 9 2013
Chennai women demonstrating for land tenure (courtesy: Transparent Chennai)
Transparent Chennai works to empower city residents by providing them with data and information about the city, where at least 20 percent of the population lives in unrecognized slums. But while e-mapping brings the message home to outside observers, community workers find that other tools are more important for effecting change. Read More
Israeli Transparency NGO Shows Voters How to Cast Informed Ballots
BY Lisa Goldman | Thursday, January 3 2013
As Israelis prepare to cast their ballots in national elections on January 22, the country's only transparency NGO has launched a campaign to encourage voters to educate themselves by consulting their Open Knesset website, where they can find previously unavailable information about how their legislators are doing their jobs and whether they are representing their constituents as they would wish to be represented. Read More
Years In the Making, India Delivers an Open Data Portal
BY Julia Wetherell | Tuesday, December 18 2012
Screengrab of Data Portal India homepage
India has joined in on the open data movement with Data Portal India, an initiative to provide transparency across a diverse array of governmental agencies. The new site comes on the tails of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy, which was announced by the nation’s Department of Science and Technology earlier this year, and the 2005 Right to Information Act, a transformative piece of legislation that made government records accessible to ordinary citizens. Read More
Thawing Relations Between Transparency Activists and Government in Russia Yield Results
BY David Eaves | Monday, December 17 2012
The Russian transparency environment is not without both opportunities and innovations. Legally, there are requirements for government transparency encoded in Russian law — they are however infrequently adhered to. But this does give advocates some legal ground to stand on. And politically, there is opportunity as well. The government is talking more and more about fighting corruption, creating room for both advocates and government officials to talk about how transparency could play a role in addressing this issue. Read More