Posts in The Open Government Ninjas
The clickwrap agreement also has these statements:
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accept no liability from any use of the data provided.
4. Users are therefore cautioned in the use of this data for decisions of
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and/or the conduct of business that involves substantial monetary or
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5. Data may not be sold to any third party in an unmodified form without
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businesses.
It would be nice to be able to add specific license data to individual layers.
It would also be great if the licenses chosen where one of the NZGOAL licenses
specifically allowing free reuse (including commercial).
JOHN: Any chance of someone looking into the licensing of some of these
datasets? There are quite a few inconsistencies between some of the local
councils and it would be good to see Auckland take a bit more of a lead in
supplying open and free data.
In a similar vein, a couple of years ago we went through a process before publishing images of mokomokai (preserved heads). A report on our consultation can be found at: http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-MokoDiscussionPaper.html There is a similar set of issues relating to the publishing of whakapapa Maori (genealogy), which I understand is currently a challenge for some government units.
Hi John, On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 2:19 PM, John Holley <email obscured>> wrote: > > As an aside, the ARC maps site, > http://maps.auckland.govt.nz/aucklandregionviewer provides access to our > Cultural and Heritage Index at no cost - you just need to add the layers via > the Map Content widget. You can use REST APIs to programmatically get the > info. We don't all charge for info! > For everyone's info, the root of the API is available at http://maps.auckland.govt.nz/ArcGIS/rest/services and an example query: http://maps.auckland.govt.nz/ArcGIS/rest/services/LiveMaps/CulturalHeritageInventory(Public)/MapServer/1/query?text=&geometry=&geometryType=esriGeometryEnvelope&inSR=&spatialRel=esriSpatialRelIntersects&where=1%3D1&returnGeometry=true&outSR=&outFields=&f=html My concern is the licensing/free-ness though. If you go to http://maps.auckland.govt.nz/ you end up at ALGGI which is definitely not-open and not-free. Considering the two sites share a domain, use the same web service, and share data (eg. ALGGI aerial photos are one dataset available in the AucklandRegionViewer) - is it possible to clarify exactly which data layers are available through the API under an open licenses? Kind regards, Rob :)
The good news is there seems to be consensus, and it seems that I was being
overly conservative.
I guess thus highlights the difference between central and local government. In local govt we operate under LGOIMA which provides for a much higher degree of transparency. If stuff is contentious then it is normally, as far as responses go, pushed up to the appropriate senior manager who is, in theory, laid to take the heat. I know that every email I send as the CIO of Auckland Regional Council, whether internally or externally, is subject to disclosure so I write my emails in that knowledge. As an aside, the ARC maps site, http://maps.auckland.govt.nz/aucklandregionviewer provides access to our Cultural and Heritage Index at no cost - you just need to add the layers via the Map Content widget. You can use REST APIs to programmatically get the info. We don't all charge for info! John Holley <email obscured> <email obscured> +64 275 952 625 Sent from my iPad On 30/07/2010, at 1:32 PM, Matt Lane <email obscured>> wrote: > Something that I have just started thinking about in the last few days is > our choice to publish the names of public servants without their explicit > consent. > > Examples: > > - > http://fyi.org.nz/requests/12-a_copy_of_the_historic_places_tr#comment-6 > - > http://fyi.org.nz/requests/12/response/1178/attach/html/3/20100625171125416.pdf.html
Matt, See the FAQ's of WhatDoTheyKnow.com - the model for fyi.org http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/about#officers On that page, MySociety state: Why do you publish the names of civil servants and the text of emails? We consider what officers or servants do in the course of their employment to be public information. You might also want to look at guidance produced by the UK Information Commissioner (who is responsible for both the equivalents of the OIA and Privacy Act) http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/detailed_specialist_guides/public_authority_staff_info_v2.0_final.pdf http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/freedom_of_information/practical_application/whenshouldnamesbedisclosed.pdf and http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/freedom_of_information/detailed_specialist_guides/personal_information.pdf Hope this helps,
Yes except that this quickly becomes an argument not to publish any author's name. What is it about either the authors of "public" data or public servants that makes them different from anyone else? If I publish a document that contains information which is (known to be) used in formulating a decision about some issue that a nutter objects to, then what stops that nutter from taking things out on me? The answer is that it is our agreed societal mores (sometimes translated into laws) that (generally) stop the nutter from doing this, not the with-holding of the author's name. Of course, some nutters are so nutty that this fails to constrain them but that is a completely different problem. Regards Doug Hunt On 30 July 2010 13:32, Matt Lane <email obscured>> wrote: > Something that I have just started thinking about in the last few days is > our choice to publish the names of public servants without their explicit > consent. > > Examples: > > - > http://fyi.org.nz/requests/12-a_copy_of_the_historic_places_tr#comment-6 > - > > http://fyi.org.nz/requests/12/response/1178/attach/html/3/20100625171125416.pdf.html
Some thoughts... Within Local Government others beside CEOs formally sign official government documents and are identified on Council web sites. This suggests that their public face is part of their job and therefore they can be named. Of course this does not mean that their private address or other private details should be distributed if people happen across them. On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Matt Lane <email obscured>> wrote: > Something that I have just started thinking about in the last few days is > our choice to publish the names of public servants without their explicit > consent. > > Examples: > > - > http://fyi.org.nz/requests/12-a_copy_of_the_historic_places_tr#comment-6 > - > > http://fyi.org.nz/requests/12/response/1178/attach/html/3/20100625171125416.pdf.html
Something that I have just started thinking about in the last few days is our choice to publish the names of public servants without their explicit consent. Examples: - http://fyi.org.nz/requests/12-a_copy_of_the_historic_places_tr#comment-6 - http://fyi.org.nz/requests/12/response/1178/attach/html/3/20100625171125416.pdf.html These two examples are not hugely contentious (except that I wouldn't be surprised if neither individual knew that their name has been published online) so serve as good first examples to examine. <hypothetical> Imagine in a parallel world, that these public servants, as a part of their jobs, responded to inquiries regarding topics that were being hotly debated under volatile circumstances. Without there knowledge or consent, as a part of "open government" we publish their names at the bottom of documents. Subsequently, a member of the public with less sense and scruples than any Open Government Ninja take some kind of action against the named public servants based on the actions/decisions/policies of the public servant's organisation. </hypothetical> - Do we think the above hypothetical is a possibility? - Are we completely happy with our current approach (because we have carefully reflected on this issue already)? - How much weight do we give to some public servants preference to *not *have their names published online (public servants are quite used to being anonymous)? - Does the publishing of their name add any value? My tentative conclusion is that in most cases, we should not publish the name of the author, unless they are the chief executive. There may well be additional privacy issues that others will think of. It will be interesting if we collectively have varying views on this. See also http://www.gould.com.au/Commonwealth-Public-Service-List-1904-p/au0102-1904.htm(NZ had a stud book once upon a time too)
Hello All As you may be aware, MoRST launched the Environmental Data Management Policy Statement at the "Data Matters" workshop on 15 July. It is on our website at www.morst.govt.nz/edm . The statement is the product of a significant effort over the last two years, to which many people have contributed. MoRST gratefully acknowledges their willingness to dedicate time and insight to the creation of the Policy Statement, and we are eager to build on this achievement. MoRST is working with the research, science and technology sector and its stakeholders to get real progress on data management in New Zealand. As presented in Part 1 of the Policy Statement, we are working to build encouragements for better data management into New Zealand’s RS&T system. We are investigating the opportunities offered by the changes taking place in the science system, including the changes to CRIs, the National e-Research Infrastructure Strategy, and the Large-Scale Research Infrastructure strategy. The implementation of the Environmental Data Management Policy Statement over the coming months will be a prototype that will provide valuable experiences to all players, informing MoRST's future data management work with other science sectors. In the near term, MoRST and the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology will co-host an environmental data management practitioners’ workshop in late August / early September this year. Its focus will be determined soon, but it is likely to be about creating a practical framework that empowers players – particularly the practitioner community - to take collective leadership on environmental data management. We will be making best use of technology so that key participants can be involved with the minimum expense. This will be an invitation-only workshop; if you are interested in taking part or wish to suggest invitees, please reply to me at this email address. Please contact me if you have other questions about the Environmental Data Management Policy Statement, and see MoRST's website for information on our related work. http://www.morst.govt.nz/current-work/Science-Infrastructure-and-Data-Management/ We look forward to working with you on lifting New Zealand’s science data management.
http://plone.e.govt.nz/services/authentication/futureservices Sent from my iPhone
Hi
The DIA has something called "GOAMMS" which is about government meta
data and exchange, I think. Does anyone know anything about it?
If so, could you point me to relevant web pages and any other
descriptions?
Hi, Not perfectly on-topic, but I think people here will be interested... Ed Summers (http://twitter.com/edsu) from the Library of Congress has a good write-up of changes to the Federal Register in the States: http://inkdroid.org/journal/2010/07/27/federal-register-embraces-the-web-and-opensource/
>A few questions: >a. How does this workshop relate to the suggestions >submitted to the >survey at http://data.govt.nz/ ? The survey on data.govt.nz was to help with the evaluation of the pilot site. The evaluation report has now been submitted to the Data and Information Re-Use Working Group, who will be making recommendations to the Steering Group in August. Suggestions for improvements to the site's functionality made via the survey and the discussion forum on data.govt.nz have been collated and, depending on recommendations made to the Steering Group, will go into a development plan for the site. Unfortunately, responses to both the survey and the on-site discussion forum have not yet yielded enough of a clue as to what datasets would be most useful, and/or how these might used. The “solving real-world problems using government data” workshop outcomes will go into the mix of determining what key data needs to be made available.
Hi Jonathan
We'll have to think about how to answer your first question about tomorrow's
workshop and how it relate to suggestions on data.govt.nz.
Your second second question about "Data Re-Use Work Programme" is something I
was going to find out about, but didn't get around. Hopefully we can find out
more information about this tomorrow from Trudy.
On Tue, July 27, 2010 12:42 pm, Tim McNamara wrote: > On 27 July 2010 12:23, <email obscured>> wrote: > >> But I am concerned about the process here. It's quite legitimate for >> private individuals to run invite-only events (Foo, for example), and >> for >> private companies to do so (Microsoft Open Govt), but IMHO it's a >> different ballgame when government is involved, especially (ironically) >> when the topic is open govt or open govt data. >> > I disagree with this statement. Officials should be given the discretion > to > seek input from outside their departments to advise their minister as they > see fit. If small interactive groups work well in the private sector, then > they should work well in the public sector. Of course it makes sense for public servants to seek advise from whoever they wish. But not in preference to public, open, *transparent* consultation. Just because a certain practice is typical in the private sector doesn't automatically make it suited to the public sector. > From the outside, it looks like this is a practical workshop about nuts & > bolts. For one, there's lots of bespoke software in government agencies. > I'm > sure many data management systems were not designed to have an API open to > the world. Those kinds of discussions don't need to be held in a fully > transparent manner. Umm, that's my point: "from the outside"... According to http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/users-sought-to-help-govt-with-open-data-use the workshop is to brainstorm ways in which New Zealand government data could be used to solve some real world problems" That's a pretty wide brief, to which a lot of people could usefully contribute. A few questions: a. How does this workshop relate to the suggestions submitted to the survey at http://data.govt.nz/ ? b. Where does one find out about the "Data and Information Re-Use Work Programme"? (A quick google returns a few mentions, but I couldn't find any detail.) I'll reiterate that my intent is not to "bag" anyone.
I tend to agree with Tim,
The output of these sessions can be beneficial to everyone if it is kept small
to start with. I've been advocating exactly these types of sessions to move
things along. Opening up the discussions to all and sundry just delays things.
I would much prefer that we get a minimum viable product out there based on
small groups of interested parties and then move to a wider audience.
As long as the end result is to have the data widely available then I don;t see
the problem.
On 27/07/2010, at 12:42 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
> Officials should be given the discretion to
> seek input from outside their departments to advise their minister as they
> see fit.
Tim's right in a point of fact here. Officials do have this discretion.
> From the outside, it looks like this is a practical workshop about nuts &
> bolts. For one, there's lots of bespoke software in government agencies. I'm
> sure many data management systems were not designed to have an API open to
> the world. Those kinds of discussions don't need to be held in a fully
> transparent manner.
I agree. The govt folk are trying stuff. Let them and support them where
necessary.
Let's not bag the people in government who have a clue - help them to work with
others, and validate their position to their superiors.
Disclaimer - I'm one of the invitees. I look at it as giving free consultancy.
On 27 July 2010 12:23, <email obscured>> wrote:
> But I am concerned about the process here. It's quite legitimate for
> private individuals to run invite-only events (Foo, for example), and for
> private companies to do so (Microsoft Open Govt), but IMHO it's a
> different ballgame when government is involved, especially (ironically)
> when the topic is open govt or open govt data.
>
>
I disagree with this statement. Officials should be given the discretion to
seek input from outside their departments to advise their minister as they
see fit. If small interactive groups work well in the private sector, then
they should work well in the public sector.
From the outside, it looks like this is a practical workshop about nuts &
bolts. For one, there's lots of bespoke software in government agencies. I'm
sure many data management systems were not designed to have an API open to
the world. Those kinds of discussions don't need to be held in a fully
transparent manner.
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