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In the last 24 hours, over 30 US Federal agencies have released their Open Government plans in a strategic outpouring that demonstrates some of the best whole-of-government Gove 2.0 leadership in the world.
Govloop has published a complete list of these Open Government plans via the free online public database service Socrata (a 3rd party provider of data.government sites), so you can review all the plans in a single location.
Reading through some of these plans I am very impressed at the level of strategic thought and time that has gone into their development. They are a fantastic reference for Governments around the world seeking ideas and structure in their own strategic planning for openness and transparency.
To me this release also brings home one of the major challenges that I see in Australian government - we don't consistently resource for online strategy.
In my experience Australian Government Departments are funded for the bare minimum level of effort on web - maintaining existing websites to some level of currency, accessibility and quality. Often online teams are fully occupied with content changes, and as 50% or more of the content of a Government website is likely to change each year this a big task in its own right.
Departments receive occasional bursts of funding for new technology, usability and content reviews or for the launch of new websites. However ongoing funding for strategic planning to craft and shape Departmental online channels over time or lead continual innovation is, to my knowledge, uncommon.
Many Departments employ ongoing IT Architects to lead the strategy and ongoing development of Departmental IT infrastructure (a critical task). Few Departments employ strategists for leading the strategy and ongoing development of their online channel from a business perspective.
In my opinion this is a business role, not a technical one as it is not about the 'plumbing' but about how the overall 'building' (online presence) is structured and presented.
Also it doesn't simply involve Communications-type areas for outbound messaging via the web or intranets. HR, Procurement, Legal, Policy, ICT and other business areas also have major stakes in online channels for a variety of business needs, both outbound and inbound. An online presence enables virtually everyone in an organisation.
Existing website maintenance remains a very important task and needs to continue to be appropriately funded and maintained.
Equally critical is funding strategic online planning. The ongoing development, implementation and adjustment of comprehensive Departmental online strategies, particularly for Departments with large families of purpose-driven websites that need to meet changing audience needs.
Friday, April 09, 2010
Open Gov Day - 30+ US Federal agencies release their Open Government strategic plans | Tweet |
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Innovative government use of Twitter highlighted in case study | Tweet |
The GovTwit blog has put me on to the latest case study in Twitter 101 (where they showcase how organisations are using Twitter in innovative ways).
It's on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), who are using Twitter to monitor earthquakes as they occur - an early detection system that is proving to be much faster than seismic instruments (at least in populated areas).
The case study, Science for a changing world, reflects some of the discussions I had with Geosciences Australia last year. Geosciences Australia were looking at how they could use social media to detect the human impact of natural disasters and perhaps even identify small earth tremors in populated areas where there are no seismic instruments nearby.
In the USGS's case they are simply listening for mentions of earthquake related words and using them to map the extent of human-felt earth tremors. They also say that,
In sparsely instrumented regions, they can be our first indication that an earthquake may have occurred.
There are many other examples out there of ways that government agencies are using social media in innovative ways to serve the public good.
I just wish I saw more examples of Australian governments putting these uses into practice rather than largely finding them used by overseas jurisdictions.
Many Australians tell me that we are early adopters of technology, highly creative and innovative. Those statements only become true if we prove them every day.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Report: Real (political and government) Leaders Tweet | Tweet |
The Digital Policy Council at Digital Daya has released a thought-provoking report on the incidence of social media use by government leadership around the world, characterised through the use of Twitter, entitled Real Leaders Tweet (PDF)
Considering the 163 countries recognised by the United Nations, the report indicates that 24 (15%) already have leaders or government-sanctioned agencies using Twitter. Of those 21 are considered amongst the most stable regimes in the world - which means their political and governance systems are highly entrenched and self-sustaining, not that they are necessarily democracies.
The report argues that
... democracy is not necessarily a pre-requisite for active use of Twitter. Many leaders heading governments labelled as "non-democratic" employ Twitter to good effect - to engage the people of their countries.
One of the key findings of the report is that "Good Leaders Twitter". This means that in stable societies social media use by government to engage, listen and respond to their citizenry is a positive way to reinforce their state's integrity and ongoing success.
The report also commented that 'fragile' nations - those with a high degree of political instability - are likely to consider social media as a threat to the continued survival of the regimes in question. In these situations social media can become a destabilising force for groups in power as it allows opponents to self-organise and have a greater public voice (for example during the recent Iran election).
From these findings Digital Daya has concluded that social media is a significant means of change for nations, but not a significant means of control. Stable governments of all types that adopt social media will find that their use helps reinforce their legitimacy and improve citizen engagement, whereas fragile states will often discover that the opposite is true.
While it could be debatable whether Twitter is the appropriate social media tool to use for this type of analysis, the report still raises intriguing questions for government decision-makers across the globe.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Victoria launching $100,000 'Apps my state' competition to create open data applications | Tweet |
Following the lead of the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's MashupAustralia and NSW's Apps4nsw competition (which runs until 24 March), Victoria's Minister for Information and Communications Technology, John Lenders, has announced the 'Apps my state' competition.
In his media release, Minister Lenders said that,
"App My State is a competition to encourage software developers and members of the public to create web or mobile applications using Victorian Government data.Victoria already has range of data available that would be usable in the competition, hopefully with more to come.
"We’re looking for the cream of Victoria’s innovative and hi-tech communities to come up with new and helpful ways to use this information – an added incentive for local talent to develop their ideas for fellow Victorians.
"Applications will be judged for their innovation, design and development, usefulness, accessibility and general excellence."
The competition will launch in late February at the Victorian Premier's website.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Documentary: the US Open Government initiative - one year on | Tweet |
January 21 was the one year anniversary of the US Government's open government initiative, measured from when President Obama released his first memorandum in office, committing the US government to an approach involving openness, transparency and collaboration.
In recognition of this anniversary, Delib, a UK Open Government consultancy, has released a short documentary about the progress of the initiative.
Speaking with public servants and independent commentators, including Beth Noveck (White House Head of Open Gov), Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media) and Jeffrey Levy (EPA), the documentary provides an insight into the level of leadership and the depth of commitment from the top of the US government, and how the initiative has take shape.
Delib's website contains more information on the video.
"Open Gov the Movie" - from Delib from Delib on Vimeo.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Australian Gov 2.0 Taskforce publicly releases final report - and most project reports | Tweet |
On Tuesday afternoon the Gov 2.0 Taskforce released its final report, Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0.
As stated in their blog post, the Taskforce handed the report to the responsible Ministers who immediately authorised its public release - a sign of great confidence in the report!
The report generally followed the recommendations and included the content from the draft, released for public comment two weeks ago, with some reorganisation and clarification to improve readability. If you read the draft there are no surprises, however it is worth re-reading for the tighter and clearer language and structure to ensure you understood the original context.
Alongside the report, the Taskforce has publicly released the reports for most of the 19 projects it has contracted out over the last 6 months. This adds up to a lot of reading, which I expect to be wading through over the next few weeks.
As currently the Taskforce site requires people to visit multiple web pages to individually download the project reports, I've provided quick links to download the RTFs and reports below. I also included links to the project pages as they all contain a brief on the project from the authors and allow public comments and feedback on the project reports.
I strongly recommend reading and commenting on the reports that resonate with you.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Catch me on Gov 2.0 radio next week. | Tweet |
I'll be chatting with Adriel Hampton on Gov 2.0 radio early next week to give US Gov 2.0 people some operational insights into Gov 2.0 happenings in Australia.
Gov 2.0 radio is a weekly podcast on collaborative and transparent government hosted by Adriel, a noted US-based Gov 2.0 and new media strategist.
I expect the discussion will cover topics ranging from current Gov 2.0 initiatives in Australia, the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's report, National Broadband Network and mandatory internet filtering.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Dealing with a social media backlash in government | Tweet |
In the last week there's been several Australian government activities or announcements which have lead to large community responses via social media - both good and bad.
Gov 2.0 Taskforce draft report
On 7 December the Gov 2.0 Taskforce released their draft report 'Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0' for public comment.
Over the course of the last week the blog post announcing the release has received 48 comments, including from Andrew McLaughlin the Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer.
There were at least several hundred tweets about the report, 12 other Australian blog posts about the release and five articles in major online sites. The report was also covered on several radio programs and extensively discussed overseas in the US, UK and New Zealand.
Overwhelmingly the view has been that it's a good report and the government (and the independent Taskforce) have received a great deal of positive social media feedback, largely through viral promotion of the report.
Realising our Broadband Future Forum
On the 10th and 11th December the Realising our Broadband Future Forum was held by the Department of Broadband Communication and the Digital Economy, hosted by the Prime Minister and Senator Conroy.
As I've discussed in a previous post, this involved roughly 300-350 physical participants, 120 taking part in remote locations ('nodes') and roughly 380 tweeters, plus other online participants.
The forum made extensive use of online video, twitter and wikis to distribute and collect information from participants in order to build the conversation.
There were over 3,800 tweets using the event's hashtag (#bbfuture) over the two day event and 10,000 words were added to the wiki during the event. A Google Wave was set up with over 20 participants and at least four blogs covered the event.
Internet filter
On Tuesday 15 December Senator Conroy stimulated even more social media discussion with a media announcement that the government intended to proceed to legislate for all ISPs to filter content on a ACMA blacklist (which is to remain secret). A mandatory filter on all Australian internet users, the release indicated that the enabling legislation would be introduced into the parliament before the next election.
Released to the media at approximately 5pm on Tuesday, within five hours there had been over 8,100 tweets on the topic by almost 3,000 people using the hashtag #nocleanfeed - used by those opposed to a mandatory filter based on a secret blacklist.
The level of tweeting has led to it becoming an internationally trending twitter topic, further increasing the level of public and media interest and further increasing online discussion - generating a negative feedback loop.
Over two dozen blogs have posted about the topic (none that I've yet seen supportive of a mandatory internet filter) and several organisations have moved to re-invigorate or establish websites to form the basis of a movement to oppose the plan.
So how should government departments address these different online reactions?
Firstly it is critical to monitor the conversations going on online. If your organisation is unaware of views expressed online you will be unprepared when they translate into other media and require a high level response. Many reactions now start online and tools like Twitter and Facebook have become effective early warning systems for potential media situations.
Secondly, whether the views being expressed are positive or negative, it is important to engage online through the appropriate channels (those through which the views are being expressed) to manage community sentiment.
As has been demonstrated through a series of corporate incidents in the US, UK and even in Australia, organisation who refuses to engage actively online in response to significant reactions or fast-spreading views are risking losing control of their message and brand. They also lose public credibility and trust in their senior management (or Minister in a public sector context). Essentially an organisation that refuses to engage online is actively 'disrespecting' its customers and the community will respond accordingly.
When an online reaction is positive and supportive, engaging online helps reinforce and build further positive perceptions, building up trust that can be drawn on should the organisation stumble in the future. it also allows an organisation to manage expectations and guard against incorrect perceptions that can lead to future issues.
When an online reaction is negative in tone it becomes even more important to engage to ensure the correct information is getting out to the community and counter any incorrect information with facts. Engagement also builds trust, so even when people agree to disagree, respectfully disagreeing with them online preserves reputations and can build a future positive relationship.
Finally, engaging online is important for building ongoing relationships with online communities. By cultivating working relationships with online 'stakeholder groups', just as they currently do with physical stakeholders, the department is better able to source quality feedback quickly on potential initiatives. This provides an ability to gauge public sentiment before a controversial decision is made and allows organisations to adjust their decisions or communications approach to help communicate the intent of the decision and cut-through any initial resistance.
Who is doing online engagement well?
In my view the Gov 2.0 Taskforce has gotten the online engagement approach right over the last six months and is a fantastic model for government departments to use.
Rather than shying away from conflict or falling back into bureaucratic heavy handiness the Taskforce has treated every comment - good or bad - with respect. They have empowered their community to self-manage while simultaneously stepping in when required to clarify, support or seek a deeper understanding of views expressed on their blog.
Monday, December 14, 2009
A watershed in Australian Gov 2.0 - Realising our Broadband Future Forum | Tweet |
Last Thursday and Friday I was fortunate enough to be invited to (and have the leave available to attend) the Realising our Broadband Future Forum in Sydney on a personal basis (not representing my Department).
You can see my liveblogs of the forum in the two posts below this one.
The forum targeted senior decision-makers across government, corporate, not-for-profit and academic sectors, bringing them together to discuss the potential benefits and barriers to the National Broadband Network. Attendees attempted to map some of the future services and opportunities for a super-fast broadband network across five streams, Smart infrastructure, Digital education, e-Community, e-Health and e-Business.
Both Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Senator Stephen Conroy spoke live at the forum, with Senator Conroy in particular spending a great deal of time interacting with attendees over the two days.
The event also featured a number of high profile local and international speakers including Vint Cerf, often called the "father of the internet"; Dr Nicholas Gruen, Chairman of the Australian Gov 2.0 Taskforce; Senator Kate Lundy, well known for her pioneering Gov 2.0 public sphere events; and Jeffrey Cole, one of the foremost global experts on media and communication technology policy issues.
At the close of the event Senator Conroy remarked how he had been uncertain whether they would attract sufficient interest in the forum to fill the 250 person venue at the John Niland Scientia Building, University of NSW.
However he said that it had attracted over 1,000 requests to attend, leading to a situation where they were unable to cater for the full demand, being forced to limit the main physical event to roughly 300-350 people (standing room only).
To support others who wished to participate, 'node' events were held simultaneously in Parramatta, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne (roughly another 120 attendees), connected to the main event via video, audio and web. These were organised with the support of Civictec and the office of Senator Lundy.
I regard the forum as a watershed for Gov 2.0 within Australia because it was the first senior leadership event that made extensive use of Web 2.0 tools to enable open and transparent community participation. Someone sitting in their home or office with a broadband connection was able to view, listen to and contribute to the forum and participate in discussions.
The forum was highly digitally enabled, with live streaming online video of the main auditorium and audio of the breakout rooms for the streams. A Google Moderator system was used to collect and vote on ideas before the event and screens at the event scrolled through live tweets from those participating online. Free wi-fi was available for delegates throughout the venue and, despite a few hiccups and outages, overall the network functioned well enough.
During the event wikis were in place to capture the views and opinions of participants- with Senator Conroy stating in his closing remarks that over 10,000 words had been added to the wiki during the event alone. The wikis remain open for a week for additional comments and scrutiny.
There were 395 Twitter participants over the two days - more than the number of people in the auditorium itself. Over the course of the forum 3,700 tweets (using #bbfuture) were sent, enough to see it trending as the top Australian topic on Twitter.
To get a taste of the forum and the approach it took, I commend to you this speech by Senator Conroy, which provides both a view of how it reached beyond the physical attendees to engage hundreds (if not thousands) of people across Australia and why high speed broadband is being regarded as so important for Australia's future.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Great read on Gov 2.0 in Australia - Upgrading Democracy (foreword by Minister Tanner) | Tweet |
The Centre for Policy Development, a non-partisan Australian think tank, has released the Upgrading Democracy Edition of Insight, their enewsletter.
With a foreword by Minister Lindsay Tanner and articles from Senator Kate Lundy and Gov 2.0 Taskforce member Martin Stewart-Weeks - amongst a set of other fantastic essays, I recommend reading this Insight to gain a clearer picture of the Australian Government's vision for Gov 2.0 and how it can be put into practice.
It is jam-packed with Gov 2.0 information that's both useful for experienced practitioners and for newcomers, as well as for senior agency leadership.
It is free to read and has been released under a Creative Commons license to make it easy to share.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Embracing serendipity in government - we now serve citizens best by collaborating with them | Tweet |
Government runs on rules. Policies, processes and procedures designed to address every contingency and plan for every possible risk in order to provide equity, stability and certainty.
However, as experience has shown time and time again, we cannot predict the future.
While we continually attempt to plan ahead, largely these plans are based on extrapolating past trends and experiences.
This has served us well in times of relatively stable and slow-changing societies and provides enormous capability to mobilise and focus resources towards a few large and separate goals.
However it doesn't work as effectively during rapidly changing conditions where there are a myriad of interlocking issues. The approach can also neglect large and important changes, which are often discontinuous and almost totally unpredictable.
History is littered with enormous societal, economic and cultural shifts brought on by unpredictable innovations; gunpowder, the printing press, steam-power, radio, television and, most recently, the internet.
Each of these - and other - innovations profoundly changed how societies operated, destroying industries and creating a stream of new inventions, professions and both political and cultural challenges in their wake.
In hindsight we can often see very clearly how these changes unfolded and they can appear historically as an evolutionary process. However when living just before or during these enormous shifts it is virtually impossible for most individuals or organisations to predict outcomes ten, five, two or even a single year ahead.
I believe we are living in this type of time right now. The invention of the internet, progress in nano and bio technologies and in alternative - hopefully sustainable - sources of energy is in the process of increasingly rapidly reshaping our world. At the same time we are facing the consequences of previous disruptive innovations - most notably climate change, fuelled by enormous levels of fossil fuel use over two hundred years and population growth, fuelled by improvements in food technology and medicine.
This becomes a time of enormous challenge for governments. How do we extrapolate trends, develop policies, acknowledge and address risks which didn't exist a few years ago?
How do we continue to serve the public appropriately when the time required to plan, develop and implement national infrastructure is greater than the effective lifespan of that infrastructure?
How do we let go of faltering systems to embrace new ways of developing and implementing policy without losing continuity of governance?
And how long can we continue to govern incrementally when living in an exponential world?
We're in a place where there are many more questions than answers. Issues are ever more complex and multi-faceted and can no longer be in silos. Our organisations need to be more flexible and adaptive in response to an increasingly assertive community who often have better tools and information than the government departments servicing them.
Fortunately the disruptive technologies we are developing also allow us to approach many of these challenges collectively on a national and international scale.
We have the means to mobilise the brainpower of a nation - or many nations - using the internet and simple crowdsourcing tools.
We've already seen communities emerge online where companies ask their insolvable questions publicly, allowing scientists, academics and the general public to discuss and provide suggestions.
We've also seen governments willing to ask questions of their constituents, rather than rely on traditional stakeholders, academics and bureaucrats to have all the answers.
I hope over the coming years we see Australian governments embrace serendipity rather than attempt unsuccessfully to chain it. I hope we see bureaucrats and citizens working collaboratively to address major issues, working in adaptive and flexible configurations rather than rigid silos, stepping beyond 'consultation' towards participatory policy development and evolution.
This will require courage on the part of elected officials and senior public servants alike. It will require different types of leadership and thinking, better communications and a broader focus on connecting people over managing fixed resources.
Can we achieve this step from where we are today?
I'm optimistic that we can, but it will take significant work and pain to achieve.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
NSW trialing video Hansards and auto-translation - looking for comments | Tweet |
As discussed in NSW MLC Penny Sharpe's blog last week, the NSW government is trialling video Hansard for proceedings in both NSW houses.
Videos are tagged via the Hansard transcripts to improve searchability - though at present the search system implemented finds the video clip, but not the precise time within the video.
In addition to the video, NSW is also trialling auto-translation of Hansard transcripts into Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish (though unfortunately not Klingon). This offers the exciting prospect of being able to provide the discussions in parliament in the languages of some of the different cultural groups across Australia. In my view this is even more significant for supporting Australia's multi-cultural democracy than watching parliament in action.
To trial the system, go to www.visionbytes.tv and login using nswparl as both the username and password.
If you have feedback, please comment on MLC Penny Sharpe's blog.
What's your view on collaborative legislation? - US Congressman piloting collaboration on Health Care Bill | Tweet |
Collaborative legislation is one of the potential outcomes for Gov 2.0 - a process whereby those affected by legislation can be directly involved in the process of developing it, or even write their own legislation as a 'community bill' for government to consider.
We've seen some work around the edges of this space over the last few years, with the New Zealand Wiki Police Act and even with the Gov 2.0 Taskforce in Australia, who made their beta issues paper available online for comments before finalisation.
Now one of the US Government's best know Gov 2.0 advocates, Republican Congressman John Culberson, has take a further step, making the proposed US Health Care Bill available online for comments and annotations by his constituents.
I'm very interested in whether a collaborative legislation approach could work in Australia and what could be the barriers to it being successful. Anyone have views on this?
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Defining success for web projects | Tweet |
Not all projects completely succeed. For a variety of factors some do not meet some or all of the original goals laid out for them.
There is a tendency to label these projects as failures, to totally write them off and be more cautious when initiating similar projects in the future.
In the web space, which is changing fast, many projects are firsts of their kind. This can make it harder for organisations to allocate appropriate resourcing, time or constraints, or to set appropriate success criteria. There may also be unanticipated side effects which can distract from the project's focus.
This can lead to failures in otherwise reasonable projects, failures which could be prevented through a better understanding of project needs.
When web projects are considered failures, organisations can become more cautious and less willing to attempt similar projects or place additional constraints on how projects are run. These can reduce the likelihood of subsequent successes and lead to dininishing returns and greater reluctance.
So how do we, as web professionals, help organisations engineer for greater success in web projects?
Firstly it's important to speak up during the initial planning stages. To provide honest views of what resourcing and time is required to achieve the project's goals. There's no point in beginning a project with inadequate resourcing - it doesn't serve the government, the agency or yourself.
Where time and resourcing isn't flexible, it is important to negotiate and clarify the criteria for success. Make sure all the stakeholders have a common understanding of what success looks like and how probable it is given the constraints.
It is also possible in some organisations to define certain non-critical projects as experimental, with an underlying goal of increasing knowledge within the organisation. In this case you can define success as identifying approaches that do not work. While this may sound like a cop-out, defining success as failure, remember how Thomas Edison invented the light bulb - he 'failed' many times, allowing him to learn what did not work in order to focus on an approach that would.
It is also important to record all the unintended impacts of a web project. Sometimes a project can be successful in areas important to the organisation but outside its defined goals. An example of this is the post-it note, which resulted from experiments by a 3M employee, Spencer Silver, to develop a strong new adhesive. The adhesive was a failure - it was super-weak - however Silver kept the formula. Four years later another 3M employee, Arthur Fry, discovered that the adhesive could be added to the back of paper notes and stuck to things and removed without causing damage. After another six years convincing 3M of the commercial value (which he eventually did by providing prototype post-it notes to the executive assistants of senior managers) it finally was released in the market as post-it notes.
Most important of all, it's important to help organisations understand that a partial success isn't necessarily a total failure.
In most projects, even those that are regarded as catastrophic failures, there are components that succeeded. These successes can sometimes be just as important as the failures for educating future projects - there's even a saying for it, "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".
Particularly in large web project, or where web forms part of a larger project, it is important to differentiate between the parts that failed and those that succeeded - to acknowledge the successes even where the project is rated as an overall failure.
While this approach holds for all aspects of projects it is particularly important in the web space. As the internet is reasonably new for most organisations, some people can be more sensitive towards perceived failure in the area and more willing to use it as an excuse to kill or restrict future projects.
This is simply human nature - we fear the unknown and attempt to limit its impact on us through controls or avoidance. This is mirrored in project management strategies which define and minimise the potential impact of what we don't know through risk mitigation techniques and project controls.
So if you find yourself in the midst of a project hurtling towards failure, make sure that you spend time identifying what is going right as well as what is going wrong.
If the web component (or any other component) is meeting its goals - or at least providing key insights and tools that will enable future projects - make sure these are highlighted to the organisation and that these learnings are shared outside the project team.
Even where you cannot save the project, you can at least add to corporate knowledge and prevent the organisation from mistakenly throwing out that baby with the dirty water.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
What does the internet believe about you? | Tweet |
MIT have developed an interesting visualisation tool which can be used to map various online statements about an individual and present a chart which provides a view on what is known or believed about them.
While it's really a toy at this stage, it shows the potential for mapping the view of the public towards individuals or organisations in a more holistic fashion, based on online commentary.
Why not see what the internet believes about you at MIT Personas.
Here's what it believes about me:
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Melbourne OpenAustralia HackFest coming up on 26 September - sign-up now | Tweet |
OpenAustralia is holding its second HackFest in Melbourne on Saturday 26 September and is inviting programmers, designers and interested people to attend.
Details of the event are over at Anyvite.
If you're interested in going along, RSVP by 23 September as they are limited to 30 spots.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework released | Tweet |
Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre, I've become aware of the New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework that was release late last month.
Structured as a discussion paper, it sets out guidelines for the use of 'no copyright' and Creative Commons use across the NZ government to support the release and appropriate re-use of government generated data and materials.
One of the issues it aims to address is,
current confusion, uncertainty and criticism on the part of members of the public around Crown copyright and licensing, including difficulties being experienced through the various and inconsistent licensing practices across the State Services.
I believe this would resonate with organisations such as OpenAustralia who are attempting to reuse government data in Australia (and recently had their request rejected by Queensland).
The document provides a thorough guide to Creative Commons copyright in New Zealand.
It also includes a handy review and release decision tre to make it easy for government departments to select the licensing most appropriate for their data and documents. On first glance this tree looks jurisdictionally agnostic - meaning it could as easily be applied in Australia as it could in New Zealand.
The entire document has been released in a blog-style format, supporting comments on each page (though there are none visible to-date).
I don't expect Australia to be that far behind.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Finalists of Apps for America 2 announced | Tweet |
The Sunlight Foundation has announced the three finalists for the Apps for America 2 competition.
These finalists represent the best online social innovation sites developed by Americans to make the US government more transparent.
I'm hoping that we'll soon see a similar competition held here in Australia.
Monday, August 10, 2009
OpenAustralia barred from republishing QLD's Hansard | Tweet |
It appears that the the Clerk of Queensland’s Parliament has barred OpenAustralia from republishing the state's Hansard on a series of grounds, in a blow to OpenAustralia's goal of making all of Australia's parliamentary Hansard records available online in a searchable format.
OpenAustralia has blogged about the matter, in the post, Queensland bars OpenAustralia from republishing its Hansard, republishing the email from the Clerk of the Parliament in full.
This is a good example of some of the challenges to government transparency and openness. There can be control issues arising from laws and policies which limit government openness which will need to be reconsidered at parliamentary levels.
There can also be education, responsibility, accountability, process and risk considerations around online openness. Who can approve the release of information, what are the foreseeable risks in doing so and how can they be mitigated?
Without a thorough understanding of the online medium, clear responsibilities and effective processes it can be hard in some instances to identify who has the right to approve government information being released.
OpenAustralia is speaking to other state jurisdictions about Hansard records (and has been for a number of months). It will be interesting to see whether the decision taken by the Clerk of the Parliament in QLD will become a precedent or an anomaly.
By the way, this is how Queensland's Hansard website looks.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
How should transparency in government be enforced? | Tweet |
While open government advocates are calling for governments around the world to be more transparent and accountable, one of the issues that has to be worked through is how to ensure that the data made publicly available is complete and accurate.
Generally transparency costs dollars - even online. Therefore there needs to be suitable commitment to 'watching the watchmen' to support data transparency.
Since the US government has already mandated more open and transparent government - a process in mid-stream in Australia - they are now considering the appropriate governance for accuracy and other issues in making transparency 'stick' in a culture where secrecy has been a defining trait for many years.
A few weeks ago NextGov interviewed Earl Devaney, head of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board in the US. This panel is responsible for placing details of the $787 billion economic stimulus spending online via a revamped Recovery.gov site and preventing waste, fraud and abuse of the money.
As the article's headline states, Transparency will be embarrassing.
This potential for embarrassment can lead into the potential for incomplete or fraudulent reporting, which is why Devaney's Board will be using 40 inspectors to monitor US agencies and ensure that they provide accurate and timely data for public view.
The rest of the interview is an interesting discussion around how the Board will be enforcing transparency and the tools it will have at its disposal to manage any data accuracy issues.
I think Australia has a tremendous opportunity to monitor how successful the US is in this transparency initiative, then learn from and legislate appropriately to mitigate any holes that appear.
