en.europa-eu-audience

Using tablets

Sources: 

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/data-points-how-we-use-our-mobiles-139448

http://blog.citizen.apps.gov/howtomobile/2012/04/17/trends-on-tuesdays-using-tablets/

 

Not all device use is the same. People use their tablet devices differently than their smartphones.  As reported in AdWeek:

Canada's Action Plan on Open Government

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• The Evolution of Canada's Open Government Strategy
• Canada's Action Plan on Open Government
• Our Commitments
• Foundational Commitments
• Activity Stream 1 – Open Information
• Activity Stream 2 – Open Data
• Activity Stream 3 – Open Dialogue
• Conclusion

Source: http://open.gc.ca/open-ouvert/ap-patb-eng.asp

Irish Government launches eGovernment Plan with Open Data actions

 

Yesterday the Irish Government published its new eGovernment plan for 2012-2015 - http://egovstrategy.gov.ie/

 

The plan includes a number of commitments to data release and data sharing including a section on re-use of data - http://egovstrategy.gov.ie/ensure-that-public-service-data-is-available-for-re-use/

 

Create Voice-enabled RSS News Feeds

With the proliferation of RSS feeds in state and local governments, a unique opportunity is developing to expand the delivery of the critical information contained in these feeds by leveraging the most ubiquitous personal communications device in the world -– the telephone. Governments that use RSS to deliver information to citizens using RSS feeds can also leverage VoiceXML, an open standard for developing telephony applications, to expose RSS content via cellular and traditional telephones.

VoiceXML is a web technology that can turn any telephone, even a rotary phone, into an Internet device. VoiceXML is a non-proprietary, web-based markup language for creating vocal dialogues between humans and computers. VoiceXML is similar to another common markup language -- HTML, the basic language of visual web pages. Just as a web browser renders HTML documents visually, a VoiceXML interpreter renders VoiceXML documents audibly. In this respect, one can think of the VoiceXML interpreter as a telephone-based, voice browser. As with HTML documents, VoiceXML documents have web URIs and can be located on any web server. However, instead of pointing a client-side web browser at a specific URI, citizens can access a VoiceXML application by calling a toll free telephone number from any ordinary telephone - cellular or traditional, touch-tone or rotary.

 

Source: http://www.rssgov.com/archives/000139.html

Web archiving: an overview

Abstract

This overview is a study of the methods used at a variety of universities, and international government libraries and archives, to select, acquire, describe and access web resources for their archives. Creating a web archive presents many challenges, and library and information schools should ensure that instruction in web archiving methods and skills is made part of their curricula, to help future practitioners meet those challenges. In preparation for developing a web archiving course, the author conducted a comprehensive literature review. The findings are reported in this paper, along with the author's views on some of the methods in use, such as how traditional archive management concepts and theories can be applied to the organization and description of archived web resources. 

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march12/niu/03niu1.html

see also

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march12/niu/03niu2.html

and

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march12/03contents.html

 

 

From open data to useful data

Source: http://egovau.blogspot.com/2012/03/from-open-data-to-useful-data.html

At BarCamp Canberra on Saturday I led a discussion asking how we can help governments take the step from open data (releasing raw datasets - not always in an easily reusable format) towards usable and useful data (releasing raw datasets in easily reusable formats plus tools that can be used to visualise it)....

12th Law Via the Internet Conference

Open submission of abstracts, panel proposals for the 12th Law Via the Internet Conference (LVI 2012), Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Open Access and Free Law.

"In 2012, we mark the the 20th Anniversary of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School, the first legal website on the Internet and the birthplace of the free law, open access movement. This year also marks the 10th Anniversary of the Declaration on Free Access to Law, a document crafted and signed by delegates from more than a dozen countries assembled at the Law Via the Internet (LVI) conference in 2002. To mark this achievement and to strategize for the next 20 years, the 2012 LVI conference will be held in the United States for the first time, at the birthplace of the open access, free law movement, Cornell Law School in Ithaca, NY. Please join us!"

For more information: http://www.lvi2012.org/

Sessions will feature presentations in five thematic tracks:
Track 1: The Promise and Reality of e-Participation
Track 2: The Business of (Open) Legal Publishing
Track 3: Free Law and Government Policy
Track 4: Application Development for Open Access and Engagement
Track 5: Data Organization and Legal Informatics     

Using Freedom of Information for good

Source: http://egovau.blogspot.com/2012/03/challenge-of-using-freedom-of.html

Extract

I'm a big supporter of Freedom of Information (FOI) laws and the rights of citizens to access information from their government to better understand the processes and data considered around how decisions are made and policies formed.

I am also a big supporter of FOI as a tool for public good - including for sharing information that is useful within government and for businesses seeking to engage government agencies on a commercial basis.

As such, I put in an FOI request yesterday to the full list of FOI contacts for the Australian Government I collated for the following information:

Announcing the Open Data Handbook version 1.0

Source: http://blog.okfn.org/2012/02/22/announcing-the-open-data-handbook-version-1-0/

Extract

The Handbook discusses the ‘why, what and how’ of open data – why to go open, what open is, how to make data open and how to do useful things with it.

Read on to find out more about what’s in the Handbook, who it’s for, and how you can get involved – for example by adding to and improving the Handbook, or by translating it into more languages.

 

Australia: Creative Commons and Government

"Creative Commons and Government", along with its various simplified fact sheets and flow charts which provide practical assistance in approaching copyright and licensing questions.  

See http://eprints.qut.edu.au/38364/  This guide deals with the current ported version of the Australian CC licences (version 3.0).  (For more general information about CC in the government sector, see http://creativecommons.org.au/sectors/government.)

See also http://eprints.qut.edu.au/14923/1/Microsoft_Word_-_Practical_Data_Management_-_A_Legal_and_Policy_Guide_doc.pdf