Stats on articles and posts for #Groggate

Some people know that I've been tracking the posts and articles published online discussing the outing of the author of the Grog's Gamut blog by The Australian.

EDIT - due to updates to the spreadsheet below the figures presented in this section of the post are only valid at the original time of publication. Please refer to the spreadsheet for the latest figures.

So far I have listed 112 posts and articles on the topic (including this one) - although a few only touch on it peripherally.

I have also been mapping these articles into a Google spreadsheet to look at some of the interesting statistics behind the debate.

For instance, News Limited is responsible for 12.5% of the articles on the topic, Crikey for 8.9%, the ABC for 5.4% and Fairfax for 3.6% (excluding any duplication across publications). In fact a total of 32.1% of the articles have been written by commercial news sources.

It also appears that very few authors were anonymous, despite certain claims in mainstream media articles about a prevailing culture of anonymous blogging online.

57.1% of authors were named outright in their articles and posts. Another 29.5% used partial names or pseudonyms, but provided various pieces of personal information. In most cases their names could be uncovered without much research or effort.

The remaining 13.4% were indeed anonymous - totally unnamed in their articles and posts.

However of this group 4 articles, or 3.6%, were in mainstream and online commercial media publications (such as The Australian and Crikey) where no author name was provided. These are sometimes termed 'editorials', but are anonymous all the same.

Here's a few examples:

• The Australian - A storm on the internet: Why should web writers escape scrutiny and responsibility? (and yes I see the irony) 
•  Crikey - The Oz’s Bolt loose … science of pop-news …

Only the remaining 11 articles or 9.8%, were totally anonymous. This includes two articles from Mumbrella, which I only excluded from being a commercial publication as it is industry specific and doesn't charge subscribers as Crikey does (sorry Tim!)

On that basis,

• Of the 36 commercial articles and posts, 4 were anonymous - 11% of the total
• Of the 76 professional and personal articles and posts 11 were anonymous - 14.5% of the total.

That's a very small statistical difference in the scheme of things.

I recommend having a play with the data - any interesting insights please share via comments below.

The link to the public spreadsheet is here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ap1exl80wB8OdE96TkhYT2U2UDNCUV9KaXVRS1FoNnc&output=html

Use the tabs at top to navigate to the statistics and legend (explaining the terms I've used)

Or simply look at the figures below:

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LobbyLens seeking funding - open government outside the public sector

I believe that one of the major shortcomings in Australia is the lack of financial support outside the public sector for open government initiatives.

The UK has the Hansard Society, the US has the Sunlight Foundation - but what does Australia have?

Granted there is the embryonic OpenAustralia Foundation, a registered charity devoted to open government. However overall it appears to me that Australia doesn't provide the level of financial support that we see for organisations with similar transparency goals in other mature democracies.

LobbyLens, one of the applications developed for the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's Mashup Australia Competition last year, is seeking $148,000 in funding to turn it into a full-blown, maintained service supporting open government in Australia.

In Club Troppo, the post Life for LobbyLens? says that Margaret Simons, freelance journalist, board member of Crikey and driving force behind the Swinburne University Public Interest Journalism Foundation has taken on revamping LobbyLens and making it publicly available through the Public Interest Journalism Foundation.

LobbyLens, which was built in less than 24 hours during Govhack in 2009, uses 12 separate publicly available databases to provide a picture of the connections between lobbyists, ministers, departments and successful tenderers. It offers a unique view on the lobbying of Australian government that is useful for both journalists and interested citizens.

The tool is also of interest to public servants who need to understand the connections between organisations for their decision-making processes.

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Redefining public goods - by Nicholas Gruen

If you followed the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington earlier this month, you may have seen Nicholas Gruen's presentation on redefining public goods.

If you haven't, it is well worth reviewing (see below) - as are many of the other presentations from the event.

These presentations are available online, together with slides, from the event's website.



His slides are embedded below.

Redefining Public_Private Partnerships Presentation

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Complete the ANZSOG survey on the economic value of open government

The South Australian government has commissioned ANZSOG to conduct a research study on the topic of

"Economic value of open access to government-held data and information"

ANZSOG is seeking respondents who can provide information about the approach of their organisations to the collection and dissemination of data and/or information, as well as their personal views on this topic.

They are particularly interested in hearing stories about experiences with open access to government data and/or information (be they positive, negative or neutral).

The survey can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/govinfosurvey

The survey should take approximately 20 minutes, depending on how much
detail you go into and is divided into the following sections:

1. Introduction
2. Access to data
3. Cost recovery
4. Characteristics of data
5. Benefits of access to data
6. Barriers to sharing data
7. Health questions (for those working in the health industry only)
8. Mining industry questions (for those working in the mining industry only)
9. Conclusion

The survey deadline is Friday 24 September. Any information in addition to the survey can be sent to helen.moreland@transport.vic.gov.au

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Disaster management using open source and social media

Some of you may be aware of the Mercury 10 national counter-terrorism exercise currently being held in Australia, involving a variety of government bodies.

While this type of scenario is only one of potentially many different types of crises or disasters that could occur, natural disasters, pandemics, rocks from space, and so on, it does raise the question for me, how is Australia using social media and open source technologies in crisis management.

We've seen quite intensive use of social media in situations such as the Haiti earthquake, Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Mumbai terrorist attacks and the swine flu pandemic last year.

Across the world authorities are realising how valuable social media can be to help them quickly get information out to the public, to collect information on the extent of a disaster and help prioritise relief efforts.

They are also beginning to realise how dangerous it can be to not engage online, leaving rumours and misinformation to spread even faster and more virulently than was previously possible. A good example was during the Mumbai terrorist attacks when a rumour that the Indian government was asking for all live tweeting from Mumbai to stop in order to avoid giving the terrorists information about police movements.

However the really interesting developments in disaster management are happening outside of government. Software engineers and disaster management specialists have spent the last few years developing better tools for addressing crisis situations - often without any support from the authorities responsible for managing emergencies.

Two of these platforms are Ushahidi and Sahana.

Both of these platforms are open source, free-to-use web-based platforms designed to be highly resilient during disaster situations and flexible to the needs of both developing and developed nations.

Ushahidi, developed to report on violence during the 2008 Kenya election, has been deployed more than 20 times around the world to address situations such as violence in Gaza, the impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Chile and Haiti's emergency responses to their respective earthquake, track crime levels in Atlanta, medical supply levels in pharmacies across Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia and track the swine flu pandemic.

The system allows reports by mobile phone SMS and MMS and via the internet to be aggregated into a real-time map, then used to identify priority areas for relief efforts or activities. While the system can be deployed simply for reporting by authorities, it has proven to be strongest where citizens have been able to report incidents directly, allowing emergency authorities to respond with a more complete picture of events.

Ushahidi is entirely free to reuse and can be deployed within a few hours.

The group behind the service are currently working on a second service, Swift River, designed to help manage the flood of online information about a disaster in the first few hours and help both emergency services and the public distinguish between rumour and fact. While Swift River won't be launched until the end of August, a video discussing how it will work is available online.

Sahana is another free open source system developed to assist in disaster management. A a web based collaboration tool, it is designed to help manage common coordination problems, such as locating missing persons, managing volunteers and aid and coordinating efforts between a variety of aid groups, government and those impacted by the disaster.

It was originally developed in 2004 by Sri Lankan developers to support the response to the December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and was deployed by the Sri Lanka government to support disaster recovery efforts. A second phase, funded through Sweden, saw Sahana expanded into a more generic disaster management tool with global application.

Sahana was designed to cope with many of the infrastructure issues that frequently occur during disasters, such as intermittent power, loss of network connectivity and the need to deploy the service on low-end hardware and systems. In fact Sahana can be transported on and operated from a USB stick and is extremely flexible and easy to customise, reflecting the need to adapt quickly to the individual nature of every disaster.

Sahana is in use for the Pakistan floods at the moment and it was also used for the Haiti earthquake - discussed in this case study (PDF). It has also been used in the Phillipines, the US, Peru, China, Indonesia and Pakistan for a range of disaster management needs.

There are other open source tools available for disaster management purposes. It is also possible to rapidly build a custom system for a specific need using free and low cost tools such as Wordpress (for content management), Google Maps (for geospatial representations), YouTube (for video), Flickr (for images), Slideshare and Scribd (for presentations and documents), Twitter (for real-time updates), WidgetBox (for embeddable widgets), Facebook (for group coordination), Wufoo (for forms) and services such as Yahoo Pipes to integrate and process information and news feeds.

In most cases the time required to put together these types of custom systems is significantly less than that required to have systems developed within high-end content management systems - as are normally deployed for normal business needs by government agencies.

In most cases these third party services are also cheaper, more scalable and have greater network resilience and peak usage capability - reflecting their need to cater for millions of simultaneous users, more than most government sites are engineered to handle.

So while some governments appear to be relying on traditional means of communications in disasters - brochures or media releases at carefully timed intervals - it is inevitable that communities will self-organise, create their own tools and deploy them with great speed.

Today's challenge for governments is to use social media and online tools to improve their own disaster management capability, organise the flood of information and provide better outcomes - deploying disaster management systems or throwing together custom solutions in a matter of hours rather than months.

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Does Gov 2.0 require government leadership or participation?

This post is in reflection to a post by Nicholas Gruen over at Club Troppo entitled, What Coalition Politicians ‘get’ Government 2.0?

For me the post triggered a broader question - does Gov 2.0 require government leadership or participation?

I think examples from both Australia and overseas demonstrate that the mass enablement of societies via the internet can - and does - proceed without government leadership, encouragement, involvement and even in face of significant political and public sector resistance.

The Government 2.0 movement did not begin as a government policy or program. The concept was not created by politicians or public servants. Instead it arose from the application of Web 2.0 techniques and technologies to the process of governance.

Long before any 'Gov 2.0' websites or applications existed, the public in many countries had already begun using the internet's capability to give every citizen a town hall platform, printing press and television station to discuss matters related to government.

Online content was generated, followed by robust discussions, on areas related to national and state governance - party political policies, the interpretation of laws and the conduct of politicians, government agencies and public servants.

This rise of citizen content creation, participation and online discourse around the world has prompted greater public awareness and engagement with governments of all persuasions, from robust democracies to totalitarian dictatorships.

Examples of this in action already abound - the role of Twitter in Iranian Presidential election, the political impact of blogging across the Middle-East, the use of mobile phones to expose election fraud in Nigeria, the backlash against a Chinese government proposal to force online forum participants to use their real identities, the rise of independent tools to monitor parliamentary discussions in the UK and Australia and the role of social media in the 2008 US Presidential election.

This Gov 2.0 activity has begun forcing governments to (willingly or not) adapt their own processes to cater for more educated, publicly visible and active citizenry.

Australia, with a robust democracy and high average incomes, is if anything in less need of Government 2.0 than many other nations.  We already have strong and stable institutions, the rule of law, low levels of corruption, an independent media and citizens who, for the most part, lead comfortable 'middle-class' lifestyles.

Even so we have seen Gov 2.0 sites outside of government agencies flourish in the last two years. I personally count at least 50 independent websites involved with aspects of Gov 2.0 engagement (for example OpenAustralia, Open Forum, OurSay, Australia2, Planning Alerts, BuzzElection, TweetMP, The National Forum, Club Troppo and this list (in comments) of Australian political blogs - most of which allow community comment).

It has also become accepted internationally that freeing up access to a range of public sector information provides a massive boost to the bottom line economy of nations, with New Zealand being the latest nation to begin making its data more usable online.


Therefore, in my view, Gov 2.0 does not need government leadership - or even a level of support or participation - to continue growing, in Australia or around the world.

Instead we need to ask a few more specific questions related to the cost and risks where governments do not actively encourage, support or actually oppose Gov 2.0 adoption.

• What will be the economic cost of inactivity on the Gov 2.0 front?
• What will be the political and reputational costs of failing to upskill either or both public services and political arms of governments in the effective application of Gov 2.0 techniques?
• How will Gov 2.0 inactivity impact on international competitiveness, where other nations embed Gov 2.0 in their governance systems?

These questions have, as yet, not been explored extensively in Australia - or really elsewhere in the world. As the Gov 2.0 movement is still young it is difficult to find evidence of long-term value - increased public engagement in democratic institutions, public value or cost savings.

However the growth in Gov 2.0 around the world demonstrates, at least to me, that there has been significant public value created, even if governments currently lack the tools and techniques to accurately measure it.

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New Zealand government moves to encourage use of Creative Commons licensing for public sector data

New Zealand's government has just launched a Creative Commons-based approach for the standardisation of the licensing of government copyright works for re-use.

Named the New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL), the approach outlines the licensing government agencies should use when releasing copyright works and non-copyright material for re-use by third parties (preferablt 'no restriction').

The licensing approach does not apply for content containing personal or in-confidence information and various restrictions may be applied to content by using one of the variant Creative Commons licenses, though the government has specified that most public sector information should be released without restriction.

The launch announcement states that re-use of government material by individuals and organisations may have significant creative and economic benefit for New Zealand, a position that has been reflected by the UK, US and other governments.

While use of the licensing approach is not mandatory, the NZGoal document states that hoped that the NZ government hopes that agencies will embrace NZGOAL; license more of their copyright works on open terms; and open up access to more of their non-copyright material that may be of interest to the public, bearing in mind the potential benefits of doing so for both the public and agencies alike.

The Australian Government is also beginning to release material under Creative Commons licensing, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Geosciences Australia and the Department of Finance and Deregulation leading the way.

However at this stage no whole-of-government framework exists to provide guidance on how and when to release material in this fashion at federal level - although the Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF) is in place in Queensland.

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View 100 Australian Governments' twitter feeds in one page

It's all well and good to say there's over 200 Twitter feeds from Australian federal, state and local governments - but to get a picture of the level of activity, and see what they're saying, look at eGovAU's Twitter feed here (note that it is a free service and occasionally down for maintenance).

This page displays 100 of the accounts based on those with most recent tweets, a useful way to view the most current tweets.

You can also follow the Australian-gov tweets list to view them.

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Engaging with and trusting citizens to participate in the democratic process leads to great rewards for the state

The title of this post reflects the key statement that stood out for me in the London.gov.uk blog's post Economic benefits of data release

This article puts some solid numbers behind the value of open data initiatives in government, from the US's Apps for Democracy mash-up competition (50 entries in 30 days, valued at $2.5m for a $50,000 prize outlay) to Canada's exposure of a $3.2 billion tax evasion fraud when public financial data was released in machine-readable form.

We've already had several examples of open government initiatives in Australia. Both the ABS and Geosciences Australia release significant amounts of data under Creative Commons licenses, and a number of state agencies do the same. We've also had three mash-up competitions, the first by the Gov 2.0 Taskforce last year, the others through the NSW and Victorian governments.

I've not yet seen any modeling of the value of these Australian public data releases, which is a shame as I'm sure they would demonstrate value for money, however the international experience is quite clear,

Actively engaging citizens and empowering them through machine-readable data adds value to government processes and initiatives.

Now how do we share that message clearly with senior decision-makers?

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Australian Government makes Open Government Declaration

In one of his final acts before retirement, Minister Lindsay Tanner has released the Open Government Declaration - one of the recommendations of the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's Final Report.

Released at the AGIMO blog, the Declaration states that the Australian Government is:

committed to open government based on a culture of engagement, built on better access to and use of government held information, and sustained by the innovative use of technology.

Three key principles were outlined,

• Informing: strengthening citizen’s rights of access to information, establishing a pro-disclosure culture across Australian Government agencies including through online innovation, and making government information more accessible and usable;
  
• Engaging: collaborating with citizens on policy and service delivery to enhance the processes of government and improve the outcomes sought; and
  
• Participating: making government more consultative and participative.

I'm very pleased to see this step, albeit released by a senior cabinet Minister rather than the Prime Minister.

However I am disappointed that Minister Tanner is leaving politics and will not be able to lead the ongoing implementation of the Open Government agenda.

With Minister Faulkner, who spearheaded the recent Freedom of Information reforms, also stepping down from a Ministerial role, there is a great deal of interest in understanding who will be advocating for and leading the Gov 2.0 agenda in the Australian Government.

While Senator Kate Lundy is a leader in the Gov 2.0 space, she does not currently hold a Ministerial position and it is unclear whether she would in a future Labor government.

If the Liberals win the upcoming election it is very unclear who would take the lead on Government 2.0

Significant cultural change is required across the public sector to embed Government 2.0 in standard practice and to carry out many of the other recommended reforms in the Australian Public Service.

Given it is very early days as yet, senior political leadership is required to drive the necessary reforms.

My question is who, after this Federal election, will provide the political leadership and support for these reforms (particularly those related to Gov 2.0)?

Or will they be placed on the backburner ahead of more immediate political issues, leaving the Australian Public Service progressively unable to deliver community services or factual, frank and fearless advice to its government masters?

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Still on the Internet Explorer 6 web browser? Microsoft tells organisations to ditch it

Microsoft has just released a beta version of Internet Explorer 9, however is still having to ask organisations to stop using Internet Explorer 6 (IE6).

Despite lacking the ability to fully view the modern web IE6, released nine years ago, is still used by a number of Australian organisations, including some government agencies.

The Sydney Morning Herald, in the article Microsoft begs users to ditch IE6 quotes Microsoft Australia's chief security officer, Stuart Strathdee as saying “IE6 has a lifecycle. We’re well beyond its expiry date”.

The article also stated that,

Strathdee said corporate users who haven’t yet upgraded to IE8 fearing the loss of customised ERP and CRM systems were probably running outdated versions of those and should look to upgrade them all. He said the company would be happy to help customers do so.

“It’s only a very small number of queries on those systems that would be locked to IE6,” he said.

“For us security and privacy are closely related. We’re really pleading with people to upgrade.”

Is your agency still using IE6?

If so the question becomes, are your senior management aware of the security and reputation risks they are taking by doing so?

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The street as a platform, what's government's role?

An extremely thought-provoking post about The street as platform written by Dan Hill in February 2008 has been brought to my attention by Darren Sharp.

The post explores the virtual life of a city street, all the digital data exchanging hands between systems, infrastructure, vehicles and people in the street unseen to human eyes.

While condensed into a single street, the post is based entirely on current technologies and practices. It could easily represent a real street in any major city anywhere in the world today.

The question for me is what is government's role in building the infrastructure, managing and effectively using the data collected?

Streets are generally infrastructure created and maintained by governments and the systems that 'power' a street are often installed and managed by public concerns (roads and pavements, water, sewage, electricity and telecommunications) or at least guided by government planning processes (the nature of the dwellings and commercial services provided on the street). So there's clearly a significant role for government in the virtual aspects of streets as well.

There has been some work done internationally on what precisely is the role of government (some articles and publications listed at the Victorian Government's eGovernment Resource Centre, but have we done enough here in Australia?

Given we have a national broadband network planned, and are already in the process of preparing for pilot roll outs, ensuring that this enables, rather than limits the vision of our digital streets in a managed and well-thought out manner is clearly moving its way up the priority list.

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Open government winners and losers

One of the trends with Government 2.0 is for jurisdictions to make more of their information available online in more readily accessible, machine readable and useful forms.

We've seen the rise of data.gov, data.gov.uk and a host of open data sites for nations and states around the world. The latest addition has been the World Bank, with data.worldbank.org. There's even organisations providing platforms for public data sites to make it simple for governments to implement these services, such as Socrata.

Creating a more open and transparent government in this way has some winners. The public and media gain greater access to useful information, allowing them to better study, critique, understand and compare government decisions and activities; companies are able to better access information about their markets and environments and improve their operations and services; and governments are themselves better able to collaborate internally and discover new insights and approaches from comparing disparate data sources.

However there are also some losers in the race to release government data publicly. These are often highly politically influential organisations and individuals that have significant resources to bring to bear to resist change.

Over the last few years we've seen a level of push-back around the world by groups seeking to slow or counter drives to make more government data public. The approach often plays to government concerns; the risk of being shown up when information is not completely accurate; the risk of people taking and reusing information out of context; the perceived loss of revenue through releasing information for free rather than for significant charges; economic damage to companies or industries that rely on exclusive access to government data; or concerns that the costs of releasing data will not be sustainable over time.

While these are often legitimate considerations, there's some less often discussed reasons that are also important to consider.

In some cases those who have most to lose from government openness are those who have previously had some form of commercial or political advantage due to strict government controls over data release.

This could include organisations that act as resale agents for government, buying data under license and reselling at a mark-up (the postcode boundaries list is an example). It could include groups and individuals who have developed 'special' access to senior government figures and wish to preserve their channels of influence. It could also include groups within government who are concerned about a potential public or media response if some complex and highly contextual data became public knowledge.

I often equate the groups with these concerns about government openness as being similar to traditional media organisations, those who could afford the high cost of entry into traditional media - establishing and maintaining large-scale distribution networks, whether television, radio or newsprint.

With the rise of the internet these traditional media organisations faced a highly competitive and many-headed rival - a cheap and ubiquitous distribution network where every consumer has also become a producer and distributor of content.

Suddenly the high cost distribution networks owned by traditional media players have become vulnerable. Their revenues are falling while competition is growing, putting pressure on their owners to simultaneously increase their differentiation from the market whilst also cutting costs to suit the new world paradigm.

Similarly for groups such as government data resellers and lobbyists, the rise of the internet and growth of the open government push has reduced their ability to charge a price premium for exclusive access to data or senior figures.

In particular, making government data available free online, together with the host of free or cheap data visualisation and manipulation tools - from Manyeyes to Yahoo Pipes - severely damages the near monopoly of data intermediaries.

Some of these potential open government 'losers' have already realised that they can turn openness into a win. People will still pay for services which filter and present the range of public data in useful and meaningful ways. They are in a prime position to take on this role based on their expertise working with government data over many years.

However there may be others who still look on Gov 2.0 with some concern. They risk having their businesses become irrelevant and potentially could attempt to put roadblocks in place of government openness.

I hope that any organisations or individuals in this position realise that while they may be able to slow the train they'd gain more by getting on board. While their old business models might be less viable in the future, other opportunities will open up.

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Australian public servants told three times - open (reusable) government data is important.

The Australian Public Service (APS) has now been told three times by three different reports in the last year about the importance of releasing much of its information openly to the community.

This began with reforms to Freedom of Information which, once passed, will encourage a pro-disclosure environment within the APS and make it easier and cheaper for people to request information from government.

Second was the Gov 2.0 Taskforce Final Report: Engage, which recommended managing public sector information as a national resource, releasing most of it for free and in ways that promoted reuse in innovative ways.

Third is the report released yesterday by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration. The report recommended that Departments should create more open government, with one of the detailed sub-recommendations being,

Greater disclosure of public sector data and mechanisms to access the data so that citizens can use the data to create helpful information for all, in line with privacy and secrecy principles;

The last two reports are yet to be responded to by the Australian Government, however I hope that Australian public servants at all levels are taking note.

Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but three times is a strategy.

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Why not make your department's public presentations public?

Every years there are many conferences, forums and other publicly orientated events where public servants speak - providing views on their activities, successes and learnings across a wide-range of professional disciples.

The conference I have been at the last two days, FutureGov Hong Kong, is one example of these - where three Australian public servants spoke about our experiences and our presentations were distributed to delegates from approximately 10 countries.

Given that these events are public - anyone who registers (and pays a fee if one is charged) can attend, I have often wondered why more government departments do not make presentations given publicly by their staff - which do not contain sensitive or in confidence material - available online for the benefit of broader audiences.

Recently I found the State of Utah slideshare site, which does exactly this.

This is a great example of how to leverage government knowledge, sharing it across a department, a government, different governments and with the community.

Spreading this knowledge across the public sector increases its impact and value (and reduces the potential economic tax placed on its distribution by private sector conference organisers).

Are any Australian governments or departments doing this already?

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FutureGov Hong Kong - Day 1 LiveBlog

I'm attending FutureGov Hong Kong over the next two days and will be liveblogging and tweeting from the event as possible.

The event features speakers and attendees from countries across Asia-Pac, including Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China and should provide insights into Government IT and Gov 2.0 initiatives across the region.

We're just kicking off for the morning so I am opening up my liveblog below...

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Victoria launches App my State competition with $100,000 in prizes

The Gov 2.0 genie is well and truly out of its bottle in Victoria, with the Victorian Government recently advocating that the majority of Victorian public sector information be released for reuse under Creative Commons licensing.

Their latest initiative is the App my State competition, which builds on the (currently running) Apps4NSW competition and last year's Gov 2.0 Taskforce Mash-up Australia competition.

Victoria's competition is a little different from the others in that it doesn't require entrants to use Victorian public sector data (although around 100 datasets have been released for use) - entrants can use national and other publicly available data, produce applications without using this data that are useful to Victorians or even simply submit ideas, which broadens the competition beyond programmers (a very good thing I believe).

Also, unlike Apps4NSW, all the entrants are published online - a very good thing and in keeping with the entire approach to government transparency.

The one limitation I'm a little disappointed about is that everyone submitting an entry must be Victorian - which limits the scope of sourcing innovative ideas from around Australia and even around the world. I don't believe past Victorians can enter either - which leaves me out.

Regardless of this, it is great to see the Victorians getting behind innovation and I wish them all the best in this competition. Maybe it will become an annual event...

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What does the White Pages ruling mean for Australian government data?

There is a trend towards greater openness in the licensing of Australian government data. Queensland's government a few years ago put in place a framework (GILF) for Creative Commons licensing and Victoria's government recently committing to using Creative Commons as its default copyright licensing system.

Some steps have taken place at a federal level, with both the ABS and Geosciences (see their footer) moving in the same direction.

However the recent court case where Telstra sued the publishers of Local Directories over the republishing of Yellow and White pages information - and lost - marks a further step in the process.

In the case, Telstra Corporation Limited v Phone Directories Company Pty Ltd [2010] FCA 44 (8 February 2010), the judge found that Yellow and White Pages listings were not covered under copyright law as they were not original and that (requoting from the news.com.au article Telstra loses copyright case over Yellow Pages and White Pages,

"None of the people said to be authors of the Works exercised 'independent intellectual effort' or 'sufficient effort of a literary nature' in creating the (directories)."

"Further, if necessary, the creation of the Works did not involve some 'creative spark' or the exercise of the requisite 'skill and judgment'."

This case follows a related decision in the IceTV case in 2007, where Channel Nine claimed that its TV Guide was a literary work and IceTV could not create a copy of it through independent effort.

So what does this mean for similar forms of government information released under Crown Copyright such as transport timetables, budget accounts, lists of elected officials, statements of interests and other lists and statistics which did not require 'creative spark', 'independent intellectual effort' or 'sufficient effort of a literary nature'?

I am not a lawyer and don't trawl all the legal cases reported online on a regular basis, however to my knowledge no Australian state or federal government department has recently gone to court against individuals or corporations replicating and reusing statistical data of these types. So there is no actual ruling I am aware of to test whether this government data remains legally protectable under Crown Copyright.

In at lease one case, involving NSW RailCorp in early 2009, cease and desist letters were sent by RailCorp's lawyers (to three iPhone application developers). This didn't end up in court as the resulting publicity brought the situation to the attention of the then NSW Premier who ordered RailCorp to negotiate arrangements to share timetable data with less stringent copyright provisions.

I believe that a reasonable supposition at this time is that where publicly released government data does not meet the required tests in the copyright case, it would be difficult to prove why it should be protected under Crown Copyright.

This would make copyright over lists of names and figures very hard to justify.

I do appreciate that government departments have concerns over information being used in inaccurate or misleading ways, or that people may rely on out-of-date information through third party sources (a particular concern for transport networks). However Crown Copyright may not be the most appropriate tool to mitigate these risks anymore.

Maybe we need to look at other approaches, such as making it easier for third parties to use data in the way intended - such as providing data feeds at consistent URLs for reuse (which means third-party applications will be as accurate as the government figures), ensuring that data labels are human readable and clear (to reduce misinterpretations) and including date stamps in data so it is clear when it is current from and to.

In cases where data is used inappropriately, government still has recourse through Creative Commons type licensing and other aspects of Australia's legal system to restrain this usage while supporting appropriate use.

Further comments and legal views by lawyers and interested parties are heartily welcome!

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Sharing your photo library

Has your organisation ever considered sharing your photo library with other government organisations? With the costs of conducting new photo shoots, why not share your images with other organisations who might use them - and encourage them to share their images with you.

Some agencies may even wish the public to reuse their images.

Some departments councils and museums are already doing this via services such as the the National Library of Australia's Picture Australia site.

If your department has a library service, keeps a register of particular images of historic or national significance, or simply wishes to promote the reuse of specific images, this might be a way to encourage takeup.

Frankly it could be even more beneficial to have a cross-government photo and even video sharing library internally. With appropriate consents and licensing it would allow government to save significant funds by supporting reuse of images and snippets of visual media across departments and levels of government.

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Get your entry ready for the Australian Excellence in e-Government Awards (from AGIMO)

AGIMO's Excellence in e-Government Awards are on again for 2010, with nominations opening on 1 February (and closing 1 March).

This year the categories have been revised. There are now five project specific Awards plus a team or individual Award for outstanding achievement in an Information Technology area within the Australian Federal Public Service.

Details of the e-Awards are available at AGIMO's section in the Department of Finance's website.

While nomination forms are not yet available, if you're considering entering the awards you may wish to get a head start in understand the project specific criteria.

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