Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - Open Government Partnership
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Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - Open Government Partnership
 
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(I've changed the subject line to indicate the swerve in topic.)
That's a great question, Mike. It's definitely apparent from this discussion that there is currently diffuse leadership in this area in Canada. IMHO, my view of it is that David (Eaves) has been a wonderful pioneer, advocate and educator for/about open data and that he's served as a great go-to-person for the issue in Canada, but because of his status as an unaffiliated individual, can not serve as an adequate representative or even point of concentration for this issue. There are other players who are traditional civil society groups, one of whom is the CCSD, who do wonderful work around data, but who don't seem to engage at all in the "open" dialogue and who don't know much about the web technology that is the principle reason why there is interest and energy in the area of government data since 2001. With the creation of Visible Government in 2008 we were en route to having a civil society group that was the center for this issue, but for different reasons, one of which was lack of evident funders, it wasn't able to build up enough momentum to continue to exist except as an online space. And now James McKinney (and Jonathan Brun) have created Open North , who will focus on open data, but this is a new group and therefore has to build credibility and it appears that they will be using their technical abilities to move this issue forward, as opposed to primarily using advocacy or public education. Throw the creation of Civic Access in there in 2007 and AFAIK, that's been the history of organizing around this space at a national level so far in Canada. I'm curious if I've missed out any other attempts / spaces of organizing. Obviously the above is my analysis on what's been going on since I started paying attention in 2005. I don't claim to be right and I'm happy for others to correct and improve my this attempt at a brief history and understanding of what's gone on. Mike - That's my response to your question. I do not think we have discussed the issue in this forum, and I do not recollect it being discussed anywhere that I've seen. I do believe that we would be better suited by a more organized structure representing this issue in Canada, but I do not have any comments on whether we should focus on creating that as a network of individuals and organizations or whether we should simply continue to let the vaccum pull someone(s) into that space. Michael Lenczner CEO, Ajah http://www.ajah.ca 514-400-4500 1-888-406-2524 (AJAH) http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellenczner On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 3:08 PM, michael gurstein <[hidden email]> wrote: > Tracey and all, I meant to comment on this earlier... > > Clearly the OGP (and the OG Charter as well) has an expectation for a rather > more developed civil society sector in this area than is I believe, > currently found in Canada (something similar holds in the overall Internet > Governance area as well... > > I'm wondering if this has been discussed in this forum and whether there are > any initiatives afoot to develop a more formalized civil society framework > in the O(G)D area in Canada? > > M |
Re: Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - Open Government Partnership
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"David (Eaves) has been a wonderful
pioneer, advocate and educator for/about open data and that he's served as a great go-to-person for the issue in Canada, but because of his status as an unaffiliated individual, can not serve as an adequate representative..." I just want to make it clear that the above comment is not meant to indicate that I think that David would not be the person most suited to attend the upcoming conference as a representative of Canada's open data movement to and bring back to the community what he learns. I think he would do a great job. On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote: > (I've changed the subject line to indicate the swerve in topic.) > > That's a great question, Mike. It's definitely apparent from this > discussion that there is currently diffuse leadership in this area in > Canada. > > IMHO, my view of it is that David (Eaves) has been a wonderful > pioneer, advocate and educator for/about open data and that he's > served as a great go-to-person for the issue in Canada, but because of > his status as an unaffiliated individual, can not serve as an adequate > representative or even point of concentration for this issue. There > are other players who are traditional civil society groups, one of > whom is the CCSD, who do wonderful work around data, but who don't > seem to engage at all in the "open" dialogue and who don't know much > about the web technology that is the principle reason why there is > interest and energy in the area of government data since 2001. With > the creation of Visible Government in 2008 we were en route to having > a civil society group that was the center for this issue, but for > different reasons, one of which was lack of evident funders, it wasn't > able to build up enough momentum to continue to exist except as an > online space. And now James McKinney (and Jonathan Brun) have created > Open North , who will focus on open data, but this is a new group and > therefore has to build credibility and it appears that they will be > using their technical abilities to move this issue forward, as opposed > to primarily using advocacy or public education. > > Throw the creation of Civic Access in there in 2007 and AFAIK, that's > been the history of organizing around this space at a national level > so far in Canada. > > I'm curious if I've missed out any other attempts / spaces of > organizing. Obviously the above is my analysis on what's been going on > since I started paying attention in 2005. I don't claim to be right > and I'm happy for others to correct and improve my this attempt at a > brief history and understanding of what's gone on. > > Mike - That's my response to your question. I do not think we have > discussed the issue in this forum, and I do not recollect it being > discussed anywhere that I've seen. I do believe that we would be > better suited by a more organized structure representing this issue in > Canada, but I do not have any comments on whether we should focus on > creating that as a network of individuals and organizations or whether > we should simply continue to let the vaccum pull someone(s) into that > space. > > > Michael Lenczner > CEO, Ajah > http://www.ajah.ca > 514-400-4500 > 1-888-406-2524 (AJAH) > http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellenczner > > > > On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 3:08 PM, michael gurstein <[hidden email]> wrote: >> Tracey and all, I meant to comment on this earlier... >> >> Clearly the OGP (and the OG Charter as well) has an expectation for a rather >> more developed civil society sector in this area than is I believe, >> currently found in Canada (something similar holds in the overall Internet >> Governance area as well... >> >> I'm wondering if this has been discussed in this forum and whether there are >> any initiatives afoot to develop a more formalized civil society framework >> in the O(G)D area in Canada? >> >> M |
Re: Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - Open Government Partnership
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Michael L's list includes the new discourse on access to public data framed as open data and open government parlayed by hacktivists, social media users, CIOs and CTOs, and apps developers. And that movement if it can be called that, in Canada starts with:
a) civicaccess.ca 2005
b) datalibre.ca 2005
c) visiblegovernment 2008
d) open gov camps / changecamps & transit camps - 2008-9ish? (coming from bar camps & Open source groups)
e) w2p meetups in ottawa - feds working with social media 2010?
e) open data cities starting with Nanaimo 2008? Followed by others and BC and then Feds.
f) open data hacktivits/hackfests 2010?
In there somewhere the creative commons folks, CIPPIC, M. Geist & L. Lessing on the legal and licensing side of cultural products (e.g., mashups , remixing, etc.) who later but to a lesser extent got involved with data; made a significant contribution to this NEW discourse, and in many cases I think inspired the contemporary discourse and the mostly young men (few women involved) engaged in this space today. This is of course mixed with the advent of new media technologies/phenomena google maps, blogs, vlogs, you tube, my delicious etc. which start sometime in 2004-5? - only a few years ago really! And then of course grew with the intro of new mobile hardware such as iphones / ipads and young entrepreneurs.
Prior to that and still ongoing, are groups, associations, initiatives and ad-hoc committees of experts along with government programs (e.g. GeoConnections 1999) involved in this space. They did not frame their actions as open data and open government as those concepts did not exist at least not framed in that way, I think prior to the UK Guardian Campaign (but I would have to do some genealogical analysis to confirm that!).
These earlier groups were concerned with access to public sector information, the creation of scientific data portals, standards, interoperability, digital repositories, preservation, and archiving. Their communities comprise librarians, geomaticians, scientists, engineers, IT professionals, archivists, data users and special academic associations such as sociologist, demographers, public health, statisticians, economists, Geomatics, etc. These folks sometimes formed associations that crossed their disciplinary boundaries and here are a few:
a) Association of Canadian Map Libraries and Archives (ACMLA) (1967)
b) Canadian Council on Geomatics (CCOG) (1972)
c) Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) (1972)
d) International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology (IASSIST) (1992)
e) Canadian National Committee for CODATA (1993?)
f) Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) 1996
g) Community Data Program (CDP) (1996)
h) Social Planning Network of Ontario, GANIS (1991?)
i) Canadian Association of Public Data Users (CAPDU) 1998?
j) National Data Archive Consultations (2000) http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/about-au_sujet/publications/da_finalreport_e.pdf
k) CODATA Access to Data Seminar (2003) (http://www.codata.org/canada/documents/report20030526.shtml)
l) National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data (NCASRD) (2004)
m) OGC Interoperability Institute (2005?) -
n) Library and Archives Canada Canadian Digital Information Strategy (2005-2008) http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/digital-initiatives/012018-3000-e.html
0) Research Data Strategy (2010?) http://rds-sdr.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/
p) Community Data Canada (2010)
There are also entities who access data to inform their members and to advance agendas, such as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities who put together data intensive reports such as their Quality of Life Reporting Systems. And of course government has been talking about this for quite some time, most notably Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, National Research Council, Library and Archives Canada. The TBS are the new kids on the block.
The main difference, I can discern at the moment, between the NEW discourse and the founders, beyond what was already mentioned, is the politics, the founders were getting interested in making data available, were developing data access and use policies, were building infrastructure and trying to consolidate gov. money and programming to that end, but were not framing what they did politically around the idea of transparency It was and still is data for research and reporting, and evidence-based decision making. The census issue has changed that drastically, and in my mind, this was one of the first times where we saw research and scientific data users and associations come out politically on issues pertaining to data. And you can see a pretty good cross section of them here - http://datalibre.ca/census-watch/.
Again much earlier, we have the scientists internationally in the World Data Centres (1957) who were collaborating on the sharing and preservation of data and UN Agenda 21 Earth Summit Report in Rio - see 40.1 Information for Decision making - http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_40.shtml which put data on the map beyond the scientists and as part of good governance. And during all of this governments were developing geospatial data infrastructures, and this is where the real grand poobah’s of access to public data are, their work is cross disciplinary and thinking beyond the dataset but the entire policy, technical, applications, thematic, standards, longevity and services component of data collection, delivery, discovery, dissemination, management and now they are considering preservation. NRCan is our hero here and that is why they have so much data in the TBS portal.
The OECD March 2003 final report on Promoting Access to Public Research Data for Scientific, Economic and Social Development - http://dataaccess.ucsd.edu/Final_Report_2003.pdf was another, and of course many academics have been involved in this space, and previous civicaccess posts have listed them including a number of books.
Now this is not comprehensive list, and it is only starts with the 2nd have of the 20th century but it provides some context into the issue in Canada and what I think some of the key influences were. I think this process, of nominating an organization to the OGP has demonstrated, at least to me and some on the list, that some bridging of communities might be useful. I have been involved in both, as has Glenn Newton (science) on the list, and maybe a few others have, but to date there has been not gathering of although there has been the overlap of some individuals:
community based - science - geomatics - open data new discourse practitioners - open dialogue brokers - transparency enthusiasts - academics
These groups of people do similar things in very different ways and with different agendas and foci, and there is much to be gained from acknowledging each other, listening and learning, collaborating and bridging. That will however take much work. The licensing work in open data cities was a start, as is the new discussions spearheaded in Ottawa on metadata and portals, the GCPedia government collaborations, the Census got some sparks flying, and this OGP process is getting people thinking. But we have a long way to go.
Finally, in terms of talking about this, Michael and I, along with Catherine Roy and Jen from Visible Government (2008?) talked of organizing a conference to bring people from these different areas together. We had the support of Apathy is Boring to help with fundraising. We chose to not go forward as we did not really have the financial and organizational resources to pull it off at the time, but we did have a pretty good list of confirmed speakers and topics planned. Maybe that is something to consider again.
So let’s see where we go next! and thanks Michael & Michael for starting this thread!
t
>
> On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> (I've changed the subject line to indicate the swerve in topic.)
>>
>> That's a great question, Mike. It's definitely apparent from this
>> discussion that there is currently diffuse leadership in this area in
>> Canada.
>>
>> IMHO, my view of it is that David (Eaves) has been a wonderful
>> pioneer, advocate and educator for/about open data and that he's
>> served as a great go-to-person for the issue in Canada, but because of
>> his status as an unaffiliated individual, can not serve as an adequate
>> representative or even point of concentration for this issue. There
>> are other players who are traditional civil society groups, one of
>> whom is the CCSD, who do wonderful work around data, but who don't
>> seem to engage at all in the "open" dialogue and who don't know much
>> about the web technology that is the principle reason why there is
>> interest and energy in the area of government data since 2001. With
>> the creation of Visible Government in 2008 we were en route to having
>> a civil society group that was the center for this issue, but for
>> different reasons, one of which was lack of evident funders, it wasn't
>> able to build up enough momentum to continue to exist except as an
>> online space. And now James McKinney (and Jonathan Brun) have created
>> Open North , who will focus on open data, but this is a new group and
>> therefore has to build credibility and it appears that they will be
>> using their technical abilities to move this issue forward, as opposed
>> to primarily using advocacy or public education.
>>
>> Throw the creation of Civic Access in there in 2007 and AFAIK, that's
>> been the history of organizing around this space at a national level
>> so far in Canada.
>>
>> I'm curious if I've missed out any other attempts / spaces of
>> organizing. Obviously the above is my analysis on what's been going on
>> since I started paying attention in 2005. I don't claim to be right
>> and I'm happy for others to correct and improve my this attempt at a
>> brief history and understanding of what's gone on.
>>
>> Mike - That's my response to your question. I do not think we have
>> discussed the issue in this forum, and I do not recollect it being
>> discussed anywhere that I've seen. I do believe that we would be
>> better suited by a more organized structure representing this issue in
>> Canada, but I do not have any comments on whether we should focus on
>> creating that as a network of individuals and organizations or whether
>> we should simply continue to let the vaccum pull someone(s) into that
>> space.
>>
>>
>> Michael Lenczner
>> CEO, Ajah
>> 514-400-4500
>> 1-888-406-2524 (AJAH)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 3:08 PM, michael gurstein <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> Tracey and all, I meant to comment on this earlier...
>>>
>>> Clearly the OGP (and the OG Charter as well) has an expectation for a rather
>>> more developed civil society sector in this area than is I believe,
>>> currently found in Canada (something similar holds in the overall Internet
>>> Governance area as well...
>>>
>>> I'm wondering if this has been discussed in this forum and whether there are
>>> any initiatives afoot to develop a more formalized civil society framework
>>> in the O(G)D area in Canada?
>>>
>>> M
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
"Every epoch dreams the one that follows it's the dream form of the future, not its reality" it is the "wish image of the collective".
Walter Benjamin, between 1927-1940, (http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/dossier_4/buck-morss.pdf)
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Re: Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - Open Government Partnership
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Hey All,
Interesting thread, though you guys lost me a while back. Just to pick up on Tracey's mention of a conference, I have been thinking along those lines lately. I think open data and open government is sufficiently large in Canada now to warrant a Canadian Open Data conference. That being said it would be a lot of work, but I think it is essential. My inclination is to organize one for Fall 2012. I think Open North could be heavily involved, but we have not discussed it yet. Those interested in contributing substantial time to organizing such an event, please raise your virtual hand! We can start a separate thread if need-be. Cheers, On 2012-02-04, at 6:29 PM, Tracey P. Lauriault wrote:
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Re: Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - Open Government Partnership
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In reply to this post by Tracey P. Lauriault
Wow!
Thanks very much for this Tracey.
A
couple of interesting things about the list is that while so many of the
concerns and broad social objectives were similar the community
networking/community access/community informatics world doesn't seem to have
impinged/overlapped with the open data world at all, which to my mind is truly
astonishing.
Apart
from Michael L. and Allison P. and their involvement in CRACIN I don't see any
points of overlap even though there could (and probably should) have been
many.
Anyway, again thanks for this and let's see if there can be some
mutual support from the two communties going forward.
M
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Re: Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - OpenGovernment Partnership
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In reply to this post by Michael Lenczner-2
Hi Michael, Thanks for this and I appreciate the analysis that you have provided below. The in's and out's here would make an interesting Master's or even Ph.D. thesis and particularly a comparison between the civic data/open data activities and the community networking/community access ones also how various social groupings (academics, social activists, community activists, techies etc.) have responded to the opportunities (and risks) and the evolving technology, funding, policy etc. environments. I'm not sure what lessons to draw from this but in the policy space I have a strong feeling that there is strength in numbers. One general observation that covers both communities is that historically we in Canada have looked to government and particularly the Feds to support our various initiatives including support for research/organizations/events etc. (at least that was certainly true for folks of my generation). The changes that have occurred over the last several years has meant that those old assumptions/expectations don't hold any more. It is hard to get one's head around those changes and the way forward from that isn't very clear but it does means I think that we all need to be rather more creative and "entrepreneurial" in how we conduct our affairs. M -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Michael Lenczner Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2012 12:48 PM To: civicaccess discuss Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - OpenGovernment Partnership (I've changed the subject line to indicate the swerve in topic.) That's a great question, Mike. It's definitely apparent from this discussion that there is currently diffuse leadership in this area in Canada. IMHO, my view of it is that David (Eaves) has been a wonderful pioneer, advocate and educator for/about open data and that he's served as a great go-to-person for the issue in Canada, but because of his status as an unaffiliated individual, can not serve as an adequate representative or even point of concentration for this issue. There are other players who are traditional civil society groups, one of whom is the CCSD, who do wonderful work around data, but who don't seem to engage at all in the "open" dialogue and who don't know much about the web technology that is the principle reason why there is interest and energy in the area of government data since 2001. With the creation of Visible Government in 2008 we were en route to having a civil society group that was the center for this issue, but for different reasons, one of which was lack of evident funders, it wasn't able to build up enough momentum to continue to exist except as an online space. And now James McKinney (and Jonathan Brun) have created Open North , who will focus on open data, but this is a new group and therefore has to build credibility and it appears that they will be using their technical abilities to move this issue forward, as opposed to primarily using advocacy or public education. Throw the creation of Civic Access in there in 2007 and AFAIK, that's been the history of organizing around this space at a national level so far in Canada. I'm curious if I've missed out any other attempts / spaces of organizing. Obviously the above is my analysis on what's been going on since I started paying attention in 2005. I don't claim to be right and I'm happy for others to correct and improve my this attempt at a brief history and understanding of what's gone on. Mike - That's my response to your question. I do not think we have discussed the issue in this forum, and I do not recollect it being discussed anywhere that I've seen. I do believe that we would be better suited by a more organized structure representing this issue in Canada, but I do not have any comments on whether we should focus on creating that as a network of individuals and organizations or whether we should simply continue to let the vaccum pull someone(s) into that space. Michael Lenczner CEO, Ajah http://www.ajah.ca 514-400-4500 1-888-406-2524 (AJAH) http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellenczner On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 3:08 PM, michael gurstein <[hidden email]> wrote: > Tracey and all, I meant to comment on this earlier... > > Clearly the OGP (and the OG Charter as well) has an expectation for a > rather more developed civil society sector in this area than is I > believe, currently found in Canada (something similar holds in the > overall Internet Governance area as well... > > I'm wondering if this has been discussed in this forum and whether > there are any initiatives afoot to develop a more formalized civil > society framework in the O(G)D area in Canada? > > M CivicAccess-discuss mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss |
Re: Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - Open Government Partnership
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In reply to this post by Tracey P. Lauriault
Le 4 févr. 2012 à 18:29, Tracey P. Lauriault a écrit : > a) civicaccess.ca 2005 > b) datalibre.ca 2005 2007 W3C starts work on eGovernment http://www.w3.org/blog/egov/2007/12/ http://www.w3.org/egov/findings > c) visiblegovernment 2008 > d) open gov camps / changecamps & transit camps - 2008-9ish? (coming from bar camps & Open source groups) > e) w2p meetups in ottawa - feds working with social media 2010? > e) open data cities starting with Nanaimo 2008? Followed by others and BC and then Feds. > f) open data hacktivits/hackfests 2010? -- Karl Dubost Montréal, QC, Canada http://www.la-grange.net/karl/ |
Re: Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - Open Government Partnership
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Nice! Merci Karl!
On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 12:42 PM, Karl Dubost <[hidden email]> wrote: > > Le 4 févr. 2012 à 18:29, Tracey P. Lauriault a écrit : >> a) civicaccess.ca 2005 >> b) datalibre.ca 2005 > > 2007 W3C starts work on eGovernment > http://www.w3.org/blog/egov/2007/12/ > http://www.w3.org/egov/findings > > >> c) visiblegovernment 2008 >> d) open gov camps / changecamps & transit camps - 2008-9ish? (coming from bar camps & Open source groups) >> e) w2p meetups in ottawa - feds working with social media 2010? >> e) open data cities starting with Nanaimo 2008? Followed by others and BC and then Feds. >> f) open data hacktivits/hackfests 2010? > > > -- > Karl Dubost > Montréal, QC, Canada > http://www.la-grange.net/karl/ > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss -- Tracey P. Lauriault 613-234-2805 "Every epoch dreams the one that follows it's the dream form of the future, not its reality" it is the "wish image of the collective". Walter Benjamin, between 1927-1940, (http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/dossier_4/buck-morss.pdf) |
Re: Organizing? [WAS] Re: Endorsements - Open Government Partnership
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In reply to this post by Michael Lenczner-2
David, Regarding FOI... let's step back for a sec ... As background, in 1966 only about 0.4% of the worlds population had a right to access government info. In 2010, that jumped up to almost 75% of the world's 7 billion population. In the 5 years since Twitter was launched, almost 30% of the worlds population gained this right. Canada was an early adopter passing the Access to Information Act in 1982 which then came into force in 1983. The Access to Information Act is like a first generation modem. It's been revised a couple of times, but nothing exciting. There is now a section that does allow people to state the format they want the materials in (section 4.(2.1)) and this might even require making PDFs searchable (sometimes they are). As James has said, some provincial FOI laws do give green lights to email. That's the way it is in BC. I've even ordered documents through TransLink's customer service feedback form. BC FOI law allows for that. And the United Kingdom's FOI law is broad enough to accept Tweets (yet to be tried in Canada as far as I know). I agree that scalability is an issue, perhaps the number one issue. Digitizing or automating some of the access procedures might help to scale. But it's not as easy as posting everything online by default; it requires understanding the process by which sensitive information is protected (i.e. severing or redacting), a thing called "discretionary exemptions", and requirements for third-party consultations. But maybe a way through that maze. A barrier to scale are customs within government. How many government employees pursue goals through custom while living without important, public information which
they have a right to access? The use of ATI/FOI needs to be framed as having the capacity to create a positive value for gov't bodies by circumventing those costly social conventions. The best way I can think of doing that is to find examples of government departments benefiting (e.g. increasing efficiency) from a culture where the use of access to info is a norm. An example of this might be found in the webtraffic to the Treasury Board of Canada pages of summaries of completed ATIs. Over half (54%) of the webtraffic to these pages comes from departments in the Government of Canada. The number one visiting department is Public Works and Government Services. If I could make one revision to the ATI Act it would be that every government department is required to use the ATI Act at least once per
year. There are movements in combining FOI and the Internet, as James mentioned. Mark |
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