Announcing Open Government Records

[Mark Weiler]

Announcing: Open Government Records
 
I've developed a website/software called Open Government Records (OGR). It's designed to support groups of people to share the text of freedom of information requests and responsive records.

OGR is a plugin for the Open Journal System (OJS; http://pkp.sfu.ca/) which is an open source academic journal publishing software. For OGR, the central metaphor is a FOI Journal and the idea is groups of people can make their own journal and publish FOI requests in them. A FOI Journal can associated to an organization (akin to WhatDoTheyKnow.com) or a theme that spans multiple public bodies (e.g., renewable energy).

It's designed as a research technology and intended for academic researchers, however, I'm sure it could be used by a range of groups and people. It's designed within the Canadian legal context and so there's things that OGR can't do that WhatDoTheyKnow.com can do (e.g., in Canada almost all correspondence between the applicant and public body is via mail -- although we can ask for the responsive records to be mailed in electronic format).

It's still in development, but if you did wanted to take a look, it's here:

http://opengovernmentrecords.net/ogr/

Feedback is welcome and would be appreciated. Much thanks to the PKP/OJS groups.

Mark Weiler

[Jennifer Bell]

Thanks Mark, that's a terrific initiative.

At VisibleGovernment.ca, we've been working on designs for an Access to Information Request Tracker, which allows people to file and track their Access to Information requests online.  To get around the issues you mentioned, we are partnering with a printing company to automate printing and mailing of the requests and cheques.  

The project was moth-balled a couple of months ago as we concentrated on other projects, but I hope to resurrect it in q1 2009, after the launch of our next project.

I would be very happy to work with your site on APIs for data-sharing.  

The user-group that's gathered for the project so far:
http://groups.google.com/group/visiblegovernment_atoi

Has several heavy-users of the AtoI process, but they are mostly journalists.   We could use more reprentation from the scientific community.  

Jennifer Bell
http://visiblegovernment.ca


--- On Mon, 12/8/08, Mark Weiler <[hidden email]> wrote:

> From: Mark Weiler <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] Announcing Open Government Records
> To: [hidden email]
> Received: Monday, December 8, 2008, 1:17 PM
> Announcing: Open Government Records
>  
> I've developed a website/software called Open
> Government Records (OGR). It's designed to support
> groups of people to share the text of freedom of information
> requests and responsive records.
>
> OGR is a plugin for the Open Journal System (OJS;
> http://pkp.sfu.ca/) which is an open source academic journal
> publishing software. For OGR, the central metaphor is a FOI
> Journal and the idea is groups of people can make their own
> journal and publish FOI requests in them. A FOI Journal can
> associated to an organization (akin to WhatDoTheyKnow.com)
> or a theme that spans multiple public bodies (e.g.,
> renewable energy).
>
> It's designed as a research technology and intended for
> academic researchers, however, I'm sure it could be used
> by a range of groups and people. It's designed within
> the Canadian legal context and so there's things that
> OGR can't do that WhatDoTheyKnow.com can do (e.g., in
> Canada almost all correspondence between the applicant and
> public body is via mail -- although we can ask for the
> responsive records to be mailed in electronic format).
>
> It's still in development, but if you did wanted to
> take a look, it's here:
>
> http://opengovernmentrecords.net/ogr/
>
> Feedback is welcome and would be appreciated. Much thanks
> to the PKP/OJS groups.
>
> Mark Weiler
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

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[David Akin]

Hey Mark --

Looks like a great project. Nice work.

Suggestion: An RSS feed or e-mail signup to alert users to new
submissions/content?



On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 1:17 PM, Mark Weiler <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Announcing: Open Government Records
>
> I've developed a website/software called Open Government Records (OGR). It's designed to support groups of people to share the text of freedom of information requests and responsive records.
---snipped
> Feedback is welcome and would be appreciated. Much thanks to the PKP/OJS groups.
>
> Mark Weiler
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>



--
David Akin
-------------------
http://www.davidakin.com