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I will be liveblogging as much as possible of BarCamp Canberra 2010, however note that I am also speaking and the other two rooms may not have wifi - so I will post my notes later.
This year BarCamp is standing room only, with around 90 attendees at the start of the day, and more likely to come - and go - through the day.
If you want to drop in yourself, we're at the Computer Science Building at the Australian National University in Canberra, or for the geeks, at GPS: 35° 16' 34" S 149° 7' 14" E.
Sessions are 20 minutes long with 10 minute changeovers between talks, with 5 minute lightening talks at the end of the day in the main room.
Audio is being recorded and many presentations will be put on SlideShare. Plus there is a video livestream in the main room at: www.livestream.com/barcampcanberra
A coffee van is outside, there's water, power and wifi inside, and lunch is on the way, so let's start....
Saturday, February 06, 2010
BarCamp Canberra 2010 - LiveBlog | Tweet |
Drop in at BarCamp Canberra - in person or online | Tweet |
BarCamp Canberra 2010 is on today, a free 'unconference' (meaning it is community organised and anyone can speak) focusing on internet and design related topics from technology through social media and edemocracy to culture (including Government 2.0).
If you're around the city today, why not drop in for a few sessions at the Computer Science building at the ANU.
More details are at the RSVP site.
Though be warned, we've had a huge level of interest this year and several rooms may be standing room only.
In case you wish to follow the event online, the hashtag for Twitter will be #bcc2010 and there will be numerous attendees liveblogging the event including, hopefully, myself.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Victoria launches VisualPlace pilot - demonstrating the value of sharing geospatial data | Tweet |
I was alerted to the release of VisualPlace at the start of this week, and have spent the last few days playing with the site to get a feel for its potential.
From the site, VisualPlace's purpose is to,
...show the value of an interactive GIS-enabled service for the visualisation of location-based government information.The site will test the appetite for online Graphical Information Systems (GIS) showing government data and both demonstrate what is possible and seek user feedback on what the public would like to see in such tools.
VisualPlace takes a wide variety of already publicly available data from sources such as the ABS and Vic Health and merges it into a layer-based view over a map of Victoria.
This makes the site highly versatile, you can search for services, transport links and health or educational information as well as check out population and economic data from across the state. These can be mapped as heat maps, 'vertical extrusions' or 'shaded icons' across local government areas or the entire state.
VisualPlace is also inviting people to submit ideas for additional data sets to model and is asking government agencies to make their data available to make the experience richer and more useful.
The site is built using Microsoft Silverlight - which may limit its reach due to Silverlight's low penetration rates. In fact it is possible that many large corporate and government offices do not yet include Silverlight as part of their standard desktop environment and it doesn't always work correctly across all major web browsers.
My only other concern is with the range of options available compared to the ease of use of the interface. There's simply so many selections - data to view, filters, visualisation techniques - that an average user may become confused or may simply not realise what is possible.
If the interface can be simplified I believe more people will find the application useful. For example by having three buttons for the different visualisation approaches that show pictures of what they do and can be easily clicked between rather than having them hidden in dropdowns without explanation of the end result.
Overall this is a very important experiment for government and hopefully will be widely promoted in order to gather as much intelligence as possible.
Victorian government commits to Creative Commons licensing for up to 85% of public sector information | Tweet |
It's going to be a Victorian Government day today in my blog, with the state launching a number of Gov 2.0 based initiatives, from their 'Apps my State' competition to VisualPlace (see my post Friday afternoon).
Significantly, Victoria's government has made a commitment this week to use Creative Commons as the default copyright licensing system for public sector information.
There's a good post about the decision over at the Creative Commons Australia website, Victorian Government commits to CC licensing.
Even more interesting reading, however is the actual statement by the Victorian government, which was in response to the Economic Development and Infrastructure Committee’s Inquiry into Improving Access to Victorian Public Sector Information and Data.
This provides some of the reasons for the move - and outlines the challenges the government believes they will face in implementing it.
One of the foremost benefits outlined was economic, with the Victorian Government expecting increased commercial activity. This reflects finding from other countries as well as within Australia where, for example, the ACIL Tasman report (PDF) found that another $0.5 billion could have been added to national GDP and consumption in 2006-07 if constraints on the reuse of spatial data were removed.
A second benefit was supporting scientific research. By allowing researchers to access primary data across disciplines, the government is helping them accelerate discoveries and insights.
The third major benefit outlined was government transparency - which is a pre-requisite for making governments more accountable to the people they serve.
The Victorian Government reckoned that up to 85% of public sector information could be licensed for re-use, and acknowledged that the Victorian public service has a large job ahead of it, with some fundamental changes in culture and processes required to change the default position from 'no reuse' to 'reuse permitted'.
The cultural aspect was highlighted very clearly, with the statement that,
These reforms will require much more than a change to process and procedures to be successful. It will require a fundamental shift in the attitude and thinking of Victoria’s public servants.Given that we have a more than a hundred year tradition of data protection this, in my view, is the biggest shift required to implement the Victorian Government's agenda and will take time and some pain to overcome.
It will be extremely interesting to watch what types of 'first mover advantage' is granted to Victoria if it makes a swift and clean transition to open licensing of public sector data - although we may not get the opportunity as some other states have been moving in a similar direction, at varying speeds. To be fair, Queensland was the first Australian state to mandate Creative Commons licenses and has done significant work in the area. However there wasn't a clear mandate from the Government and implementation has not, as yet, been widespread.
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.
