open source / open data project listings and resources - Discussion on Gosling

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

The following is a conversation that took place on the Gosling list between Jenn and Glenn.  I thought it to be relevant here as well, and asked for their permission to post here and they both agreed.  Please note the Disclaimer from Glenn here:

These are the personal views of Glen Newton and do not reflect or
represent in any way the policies or views of the National Research
Council Canada or the Government of Canada"

The content is rich in resources, and what struck me is the diversity of groups who are thinking about access to data but in very different ways.

Cheers
t
***********************

  2.  open source / open data project listings and resources
     (Glen Newton - NRC/CNRC CISTI/ICIST Research)
  3. Re:  open source / open data project listings and resources
     (Jennifer Bell)
  4.  query re: 24062-080278/A (Michael Richardson)


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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:46:58 -0500
From: Glen Newton - NRC/CNRC CISTI/ICIST Research
       <[hidden email]>
Subject: [OTT-GOSLING] open source / open data project listings and
       resources
To: [hidden email], GOSLING members in Ottawa
       <[hidden email]>
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I've pulled some of my relevant personal blog postings on this topic.
I'll take this discussion off-list unless there are any more on-list
questions.

-Glen


Australian innovation report recommends Open Access to research outputs, Creative Commons for government documents, open standards for publishing
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/09/australian-innovation-report-recommends.html

"Big Data" Nature special issue
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/09/big-data-nature-special-issue.html

"Benefits of Data Sharing for Academic Health Centers"
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/09/benefits-of-data-sharing-for-academic.html

Research Data Archiving = Volumes of data? Conference...
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/09/research-data-archiving-volumes-of-data.html

Open Access / Data release discussion at Genome Canada Conference
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/08/open-access-data-release-discussion-at.html

"Creative Commons / FLOSS-style licensing too restrictive for scientific data"
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/07/creative-commons-floss-style-licensing.html

Data Freedom paper
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/07/data-freedom-paper.html

Sharing Data, Information and Knowledge
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/07/sharing-data-information-and-knowledge.html

Scientific and Statistical Database Management
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/07/scientific-and-statistical-database.html

CIHR Health Summit: "Data Data Everywhere: Access and Accountability"
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/07/cihr-health-summit-data-data-everywhere.html

"Wikipedia for Data"
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/04/wikipedia-for-data.html

"Libraries in the Converging Worlds of Open Data, E-Research, and Web 2.0"
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/04/libraries-in-converging-worlds-of-open.html

Extremely Large Databases
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/03/extremely-large-databases.html

Data-publication linkage report
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/01/data-publication-linkage-report_17.html

AAAS Meeting: "Managing and Preserving Scientific Data: Emerging Perspectives on a Global Basis"
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/01/aaas-meeting-managing-and-preserving.html

Proposed Standard for Citing Quantitative Research Data
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2008/01/citing-quantitative-research-data.html

CSIRO research program takes data leadership
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2007/11/csiro-research-program-takes-data.html

New JISC Data Sharing Documents
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2007/10/new-jisc-data-sharing-documents-as-part.html

Open Data for Global Science
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2007/09/open-data-for-global-science-codata.html

New Zealand Science and Open Access
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2007/09/new-zealand-science-and-open-access-in.html

Australia Talks about Research Data Archiving
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2007/08/australia-talks-about-research-data.html

Stewardship of digital research data: a framework of principles and guidelines
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2007/06/stewardship-of-digital-research-data.html

Geist: Open Data and Open Access
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2007/05/geist-open-data-and-open-access-in.html

Data Archiving of Publicly Funded Research in Canada
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2007/08/data-archiving-of-publicly-funded.html

Data Curation Report
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/2007/07/data-curation-report-liz-lyon-ukoln-and.html


From: Glen Newton - NRC/CNRC CISTI/ICIST Research <[hidden email]>
Sender: [hidden email]
To: GOSLING members in Ottawa <[hidden email]>
Subject: [OTT-GOSLING] open source / open data project listings and resources
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:11:49 -0500

For question #2 "looking for articles explaining how to publish
data in order to ensure best re-use in an open environment.", there is
a national committee called CODATA[1,5] which involves itself with open
data issues. I have been an observer on the committee since 1999.
>CODATA Objectives
>    * The improvement of the quality and accessibility of data, as
>    well as the methods by which data are acquired, managed, analysed
>    and evaluated, with a particular emphasis on developing countries
>    * The facilitation of international cooperation among those collecting, organizing and using data
>    * The promotion of an increased awareness in the scientific and technical community of the importance of these activities
>    * The consideration of data access and intellectual property issues

Statistics Canada and NRCan (I believe) have the most data published,
with NRCan seeming to take a more open data approach (StatsCan data is
still costly).

But I see this (question #2) more as an open data question than a
government question. Using open standards like XML and RDF should be
obvious, open data licensing[2,3] has been well developed, and the
whole linked data[4] movement is relevant as well. Certainly on the
science side of things, the open data concept is well understood[7].

Organizations like the Alliance for Taxpayer Access[8] in the
U.S. advocate for broader access, and the Open Data Foundation[9] are
oriented around opening-up mostly national statistical data for the
social sciences.

Note that - while XML is an open standard - specific document
implementations of it - like the MS Office XML format - can
de facto be proprietary and closed. So care must still be taken when
deciding on a particular XML DTD or schema to use.

Tutorials on metadata creation and maintenance - fundamental to any
modern open data release - can be found online. Some good examples:
Workshop on Metadata Standards and Best Practices[10,11,12,13,14],
Scientific Data and Workflow Management[15], Introduction to Metadata[16].

Related: I am on a national committee called Research Data Canada[17]
which is addressing research data issues in Canada, and I have also
participated in the NRC's National Consultation on Access to
Scientific Research Data (NCASRD)[6], which dealt specifically with
publicly funded research data.

I would be willing to be a resource for the person in question.

Thanks,
-Glen

[1]http://www.codata.org/canada/about.shtml
[2]http://www.okfn.org/wiki/OpenDataLicensing
[3]http://events.linkeddata.org/ldow2008/papers/08-miller-styles-open-data-commons.pdf
[4]http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/pub/LinkedDataTutorial/
[5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data#Organisations_promoting_Open_Data
[6]http://data-donnees.gc.ca/eng/ncasrd/index.html
[7]http://sciencecommons.org/about/towards
[8]http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/
[9]http://www.opendatafoundation.org
[10]http://www.opendatafoundation.org/papers/IZA_200711_session1_Leveraging_Metadata.ppt
[11]http://www.opendatafoundation.org/papers/IZA_200711_session2_specifications_and_initiatives.ppt
[12]http://www.opendatafoundation.org/papers/IZA_200711_session3_metadata_in_RDC.ppt
[13]http://www.opendatafoundation.org/papers/IZA_200711_session4_Data_Documentation_Initiative.ppt
[14]http://www.opendatafoundation.org/papers/IZA_200711_session5_IHSN_Microdata_Management_Toolkit.ppt
[15]http://daks.ucdavis.edu/~ludaesch/Paper/edbt06.html
[16]http://marinemetadata.org/files/mmi/IntroductionToMetadata.pdf from http://marinemetadata.org/community/teams/workshops/oceans08training
[17]http://data-donnees.gc.ca/eng/index.html

-------------------------------------------------------
From: Jennifer Bell <[hidden email]>
Sender: [hidden email]
To: GOSLING members in Ottawa <[hidden email]>
Subject: [OTT-GOSLING] open source / open data project listings and resources
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:25:57 -0500

Hi,
I recently got an email someone who was starting a project within the
Canadian federal govt. who was looking for 1) recommendations for
using an open source base to implement a business intelligence
application, and 2) looking for articles explaining how to publish
data in order to ensure best re-use in an open environment.

In answer to 1) I recommended GOSLING, and forwarded Joseph's recent
email on his work for iteration. 

In answer to 2), I'm asking on the OpenGovernment google group
(http://groups.google.com/group/open-government), to see what they
say.  Does anyone have any made-in-Canada answers?

Also, is there a Canadian equivalent of this site?

http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/
http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/usability/accessibility/access_to_data.shtml

Jennifer

--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault