Data reseller would benefit from Free - no cost Access for citizens to Public Data
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Data reseller would benefit from Free - no cost Access for citizens to Public Data
 
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I have been attending the Geomatics Indudstry of Association of Canada
meetings for the past two days. And like any industry association their job is to ensure their industry grows and their members thrive. There was however some great conversations about access to data and licensing. I had a wonderful conversation with one of Canada's largest public data resellers. She was very clear that data resellers would not loose business nor suffer if public data would be given away freely. She explained that their company has to dedicate significant human resources just towards calculating the royalties to be paid to Statistics Canada. Her company is finding this to be quite expensive and is costing so much that they are reducing the kind of services they used to provide around that data. She also said that if the data were available freely, they could get to the business they do best, which are data services and analysis. I of course spoke to her about civicaccess.ca and she is willing to be interviewed for our blog should we get one. This is really exciting, as the rhetoric from government is normally that they would put data resellers and related industries out of business a if they gave the data away! There will also be a new best practices study released shortly that will discuss Licensing models, and it seems that the model adopted by Statistics Canada was not included as they are on the margins with their practices! The study will be version 2 of the following: * THE DISSEMINATION OF GOVERNMENT GEOGRAPHIC DATA IN CANADA GUIDE TO BEST PRACTICES - http://www.geoconnections.org/publications/Best_practices_guide/html/summary_e.html. * As i was looking about i found this document - Licensing Geographic Data and Services (2004) Board on Earth Sciences and Resources (BESR <http://www7.nationalacademies.org/besr/>) - http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309092671 And on a final note, our govermnent with its division of powers between federal, provincial and municipal is a blessing and a curse. For the Feds to push for a spatial data infrastructure, they needed to have an accord with the provinces to share data. It took a great many years to get that accord signed and this accord has resulted in the freeing up of much data but also in the creation of cohesive data layers such as the geobase data layers. Collaboration is key! Check out the accord - http://www.geoconnections.org/publications/Key_documents/GeomaticsAccord-010816_revisedxSA040413_E.pdf |
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Tracey P. Lauriault wrote: > I of course spoke to her about civicaccess.ca and she is willing to be > interviewed for our blog should we get one. I suggest that in the interim that the WIKI be closed so that the existing site won't harm the reputation of our movement. I've removed previous references to http://civicaccess.ca/wiki/PostalCodes as it, like most pages on the site, are just SPAM. The site should either require passwords for editing or be closed. I understand that there isn't volunteer resources at this point, which is why I'm recommending it be closed. -- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition! http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/ "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or portable media player from my cold dead hands!" |
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we've had 2 different responses to "have a blog" -mike lenczner says: it should not be directly related to civicaccess.ca (ie it should have a different domain) -others say we should set one up for the project... in any case the wiki is clearly not a useful tool anymore - whatever good content was there has long since been turned into spam. On Jun 14, 2007, at 1:39 PM, Russell McOrmond wrote:
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Re: Data reseller would benefit from Free - no cost Access for citizens to Public Data
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In reply to this post by Tracey P. Lauriault-2
Thank you Tracey,
for keeping us up to date with the work being done to disseminate information so that people can be well informed and consented rather than kept uninformed and easily led. There is no doubt that it is cheaper for statscan and the provinces(and less error prone and less time consuming) to post data directly into databases that can be accessed over the internet. Once the data has been processed to ensure that individual identities are protected it takes about one minute to up load the database and make it available over the internet via a dynamic queriable webpage with table outputs as well as labelled charts and maps (with the proper components). Step by step....the technology is there but people have to be educated in the use of data so that we can be well informed. We can make better decisions and refine our understanding of important community issues if we are working with up to date, well qualified data. For example, citizens can be consented on whether to open or close health care and education facilities if we are working with sound information instead of closing facilities based on unreliable out of date information. This is an opportunity for refinement in decision making that can save time and money. Warren -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Tracey P. Lauriault Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 6:00 AM To: civicaccess discuss Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] Data reseller would benefit from Free - no cost Access for citizens to Public Data I have been attending the Geomatics Indudstry of Association of Canada meetings for the past two days. And like any industry association their job is to ensure their industry grows and their members thrive. There was however some great conversations about access to data and licensing. I had a wonderful conversation with one of Canada's largest public data resellers. She was very clear that data resellers would not loose business nor suffer if public data would be given away freely. She explained that their company has to dedicate significant human resources just towards calculating the royalties to be paid to Statistics Canada. Her company is finding this to be quite expensive and is costing so much that they are reducing the kind of services they used to provide around that data. She also said that if the data were available freely, they could get to the business they do best, which are data services and analysis. I of course spoke to her about civicaccess.ca and she is willing to be interviewed for our blog should we get one. This is really exciting, as the rhetoric from government is normally that they would put data resellers and related industries out of business a if they gave the data away! There will also be a new best practices study released shortly that will discuss Licensing models, and it seems that the model adopted by Statistics Canada was not included as they are on the margins with their practices! The study will be version 2 of the following: * THE DISSEMINATION OF GOVERNMENT GEOGRAPHIC DATA IN CANADA GUIDE TO BEST PRACTICES - http://www.geoconnections.org/publications/Best_practices_guide/html/summary _e.html. * As i was looking about i found this document - Licensing Geographic Data and Services (2004) Board on Earth Sciences and Resources (BESR <http://www7.nationalacademies.org/besr/>) - http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309092671 And on a final note, our govermnent with its division of powers between federal, provincial and municipal is a blessing and a curse. For the Feds to push for a spatial data infrastructure, they needed to have an accord with the provinces to share data. It took a great many years to get that accord signed and this accord has resulted in the freeing up of much data but also in the creation of cohesive data layers such as the geobase data layers. Collaboration is key! Check out the accord - http://www.geoconnections.org/publications/Key_documents/GeomaticsAccord-010 816_revisedxSA040413_E.pdf _______________________________________________ CivicAccess-discuss mailing list [hidden email] http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca |
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In reply to this post by Hugh McGuire
On 6/14/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > in any case the wiki is clearly not a useful tool anymore - whatever good > content was there has long since been turned into spam. Requiring a login doesn't stop the spam problem. Perhaps only allowing list-members that have posted to have accounts on the wiki would - even if that is somewhat limiting. |
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In reply to this post by Hugh McGuire
I agree that a wiki is more suited to civicaccess than a blog. (A blog is a good idea, but should perhaps go under a different name, for the reasons Mike listed.)
I am willing to install a captcha-enabled wiki software next week, either on the existing server, or host it on mine. If no one objects, and the person in control of the server and/or domain name can get in touch with me, it will be done. Gabe On 6/14/07,
Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote:
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In reply to this post by Russell McOrmond-2
May I offer our services to provide a webpage that allows users to query the postal codes and future databases. Warren -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russell McOrmond Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 10:39 AM To: civicaccess discuss Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] Website recommendation.. Tracey P. Lauriault wrote: > I of course spoke to her about civicaccess.ca and she is willing to be > interviewed for our blog should we get one. I suggest that in the interim that the WIKI be closed so that the existing site won't harm the reputation of our movement. I've removed previous references to http://civicaccess.ca/wiki/PostalCodes as it, like most pages on the site, are just SPAM. The site should either require passwords for editing or be closed. I understand that there isn't volunteer resources at this point, which is why I'm recommending it be closed. -- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition! http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/ "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or portable media player from my cold dead hands!" _______________________________________________ CivicAccess-discuss mailing list [hidden email] http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca |
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In reply to this post by gsawhney
I agree with the proposal for a two part web presence:
1) a blog, 'branded' as something other than civicaccess.ca, but linked to from it. 2) a captcha enabled, spam-proof wiki. (captchas being those slightly annoying, but less so than spam, 'tell us what word is in this image before you can edit' widgets you see all over the web now). For the reasons Gabe, Michael and others have mentioned. i.e. wikis and blogs serve quite different purposes, information repository for a wiki versus topical and largely transient news and views on a blog. And a blog under the civicaccess.ca umbrella would likely need some editorial policy, but outside the umbrella means it can be up and running quickly and relatively easily. I'm happy to offer assistance with setting up a new wiki, particularly moving some of the good (pre-spam) content over to the new wiki. The current civicaccess.ca site is hosted on the Community Bandwidth servers, space kindly donated by Phillip Smith. However Phillip is phasing out the hosting side of his business, so we need to find an alternate home. Where that home is I don't have any strong preference. Patrick On 6/14/07, Gabe Sawhney <[hidden email]> wrote: I agree that a wiki is more suited to civicaccess than a blog. (A blog is a good idea, but should perhaps go under a different name, for the reasons Mike listed.) -- --- Updated contact details ---- [hidden email] cell/work phone: 416-476-3788 Centre for Social Innovation 215 Spadina Avenue Suite 416 Toronto, ON M5T 2C7 |
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