We talk with John McMillan, the Australian Government’s Information Commissioner, about what the OGP might mean for a nation well-known for its early adoption of Gov 2.0 and other forms of connected government.

Professor McMillan is a long-time advocate of the principles and practices of open government. His model for open government balances freedom of information with privacy protection and the promotion of information policy, and he offers some thoughts about the practical challenges facing Australia and other governments in the pursuit of greater openness, and the opportunities that OGP membership presents for collaboration.

One of the strong themes in information policy reform has been the need for a better framework to enable information sharing within government, between governments, and between government and the community, and that involves a commitment to open data, it involves a commitment to proper privacy and security protection – so governments need to be cooperative and [the OGP] is another platform for them to do that..

About Professor John McMillan

Prof John McMillan AO was appointed Australian Information Commissioner in November 2010 to head a new office responsible for freedom of information, privacy protection and advice to government on information management policy.

John was formerly the Commonwealth Ombudsman from 2003–2010 and the Integrity Commissioner (Acting) for the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity in 2007. He is an Emeritus Professor of the Australian National University. He is co-author of a leading student text, Control of Government Action.

In the 1970s, John was a founding member of the Freedom of Information Campaign Committee, which led the public campaign for enactment of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 . He is a National Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and former President of the Australian Institute of Administrative Law.

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Episode links and resources

• Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) website and on Facebook
• Open Government Partnership
• OAIC Report: Open public sector information: from principles to practice
• Govhack
• My School website
• US Government’s OGP Action Plan

60-second snapshots

On the role of all tiers of government:

On the economic impetus of open government:

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In Europe, the culture is not so much a start-up culture, but more like a co-creation culture with different parts of society – cities, developers, organisations and civil society in general.  And things may look… and maybe are!… a little bit slower as a result of this approach, but it’s a different way.”

About Esteve Almirall

Esteve Almirall serves as Associate Professor in Esade Business Schoool and UPF (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) focusing his research on Innovation and Innovation Management where he has more than 30 publications on the field. His work has been referenced in HBR and he is a frequent speaker in conferences around Innovation, Smart Cities, Living Labs and Open Data/Gov.

His background is a mix of Management Science (PhD) and Computer Science (MSc, MRes). Esteve is also highly involved in European Projects and EU organizations being Council Member of the ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs) and coordinating/participating in some EU projects on Innovation and Smart Cities, such as Open Cities and Commons for Europe.

About Carles Ferreiro

Carles is the CEO of dotopen, a digital enterprise focused on open innovation particularly within cities.

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Episode links and resources

• Commons4EU website
• ESADE
• dotopen

60-second snapshots

On a co-creation approach:

On the entrepreneur as a change agent for civic innovation:

Commons4EU – explaining Code for Europe and BuB for Europe initiatives through their fellows

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As the deadline for submissions approaches for the News Challenge on Open Government, John Bracken, the Knight Foundation’s Director of Media Innovation shares his observations on the journey so far and provides some insights for making project submissions, as well as how everyone can contribute to this timely Challenge to accelerate better ways that government and citizens can interact.

By putting a focus on and valuing the conversation and engagement around the ideas, our hope and expectation is that… even if you aren’t among the winners… even if you’re coming in and sketching out on a cocktail napkin a tool you would hope to see – the spotlight that we can help to put on the community that we’ve brought together around this contest… will leave your idea better off even if it’s not funded.

About John Bracken

John Bracken is director of media innovation for the Knight Foundation. He oversees the Knight News Challenge, Knight’s prototype fund, its journalism and technology investments. Bracken has over 10 years experience as a philanthropic investor in digital media, media policy, innovation and global internet freedom, having previously worked at the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.

Bracken is a frequent presenter at media and technology conferences and serves as an adviser to 1871, a co-working resource for digital startups in Chicago.  A 2009 fellow of Leadership Greater Chicago, Bracken has a masters degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He writes @jsb, johnbracken.net and at the Knight Foundation blog.

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Episode links and resources

• Knight Foundation News Challenge site and FAQs
• Knight Foundation website
• Challenge Blog posts
  • What you need to know as #newschallenge deadline nears
  • Answers to the 7 most common News Challenge questions

60-second snapshots

On sparking conversations about Open Government:

On how Open Government fits the Knight Foundation’s communication focus:

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Ahead of taking formal applications, an “inspiration phase” has been launched for the 2013 Knight News Challenge. Some $5 million of Knight Foundation funding will be announced in June for innovative projects around Open Government. Amid much talk (and much tech) focused on more open, transparent, connected governments – as well as the emergence of the 58-nation Open Government Partnership – this Challenge program aims to enable projects that in the broadest sense foster better communication in support of the Open Gov movement.

We hear from Chris Sopher, Project Manager for the 2013 Knight News Challenge, about the Challenge goals and how the inspiration phase will help potential participants to shape their submission ideas through a new online space developed with OpenIDEO.

What are the ideas in Open Government that can help build the field, can help explore new ideas, new approaches to trying to engage people in Government or inform them about what’s happening in their community in a new way?

The Knight News Challenge is international and open to submissions from governments and public sector agencies as well as civic innovators, private sector and non-profit organisations. If you’re considering a pitch, don’t miss this episode!

About Chris Sopher

Chris Sopher is project manager on Knight Foundation’s Journalism and Media Innovation team. He has written and spoken around the world about young people’s engagement with news and civic life through his project Younger Thinking.

Prior to Knight, Chris researched digital media and public policy at the Emerging Media Research Council and helped found the national college mentoring nonprofit Strive for College. He earned a bachelor’s in public policy analysis from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a Morehead-Cain and Truman Scholar.

Feature image courtesy Joichi Ito

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Episode links and resources

• Knight Foundation News Challenge site and FAQs
• Knight Foundation website
• Blog post about why Knight is doing the Open Government challenge
• Blog post: An opportunity for massive reinvention
• News Challenge winners from each of the three rounds in 2012: Networks, Data, Mobile

60-second snapshots

On framing Open Government:

On what the Knight Foundation is hoping to achieve from the Challenge:

On making public information useful as a key focus area:

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Jean-François Gauthier and Mario Asselin from Démocratie Ouverte discuss how they have been working with the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) as well as their colleagues across the French speaking world to support Governments to broaden and deepen the opengov and open democracy movement.

About Jean-François Gauthier

Government relations expert, Jean-François Gauthier has worked in the strategic ICT support field since 2004. Passionate about public affairs and technology, Jean-François is an advocate of leveraging of technology for more efficient public service.

Until recently a strategic advisor to the Office of the Chief of Information, he is now working on initiatives to support innovation in the public service. Jean-François has also worked in several political offices and in public administration

About Mario Asselin

Strategic Advisor at le Groupe Loran, Mario Asselin started out one of the most successful experimentations in integrated computer-assisted training at school: Cyberportfolio at Institut St-Joseph in Quebec City. At that time, after teaching Elementary and High School level and leading activities, he was appointed Head of School, a position which he held for 15 years at Elementary and High School level. He advises institutions, business, Canadian Government departments and Ministries of French Government in order to support best practices and initiate the emergence of vast learning and open organizations. Member of Démocratie Ouverte, he also teaches organisational communication at Université de Montréal.

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Episode links and resources

• Kinshasa Summit announcement
• Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF)
• Démocratie Ouverte

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With the emergence of new trends like open government and open data, there is a perception by many that eGovernment is yesterday’s news, and has largely been completed.

In a candid conversation, Barbara-Chiara Ubaldi, head of the OECD’s eGovernment unit, explains that there is much work still to be done to bring eGovernment into the daily work of the public sector.

In the real world, policymakers responsible for individual areas still don’t talk to each other, don’t work together – so, we still haven’t reached that level of interoperability, integration and coordination which is indeed essential for the implementation of larger interests like open government, for instance.

Barbara also highlights the ways in which the OECD is starting to connect the dots between national eGovernment policymaking and practical implementation by both the public sector and civil society.

About Barbara-Chiara Ubaldi

Since October 2010, Barbara-Chiara Ubaldi has led the OECD E-Government Project within the Division for Public Sector Reform at the Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate.

Ms. Ubaldi has been serving the OECD as Policy Analyst since February 2009. In this capacity, she managed a number of thematic reviews on e-government and participated in several Public Governance Reviews, which include Denmark, Greece, Mexico, Italy, Estonia, Egypt, Spain and France. Ms. Ubaldi has been co-ordinating for the past three years the OECD work on e-government indicators and the analysis on the use of new technologies – such as cloud computing and mobile technology – to enhance public sector’s agility and mobility, as well as open government.

Prior to joining the OECD she worked for more than seven years as Programme Officer at the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York where she was responsible for the full scale management of technical cooperation programmes targeting e-government and ICT use in the public sector, and for developing the content of online self-assessment and capacity building tools in the area of e-government and knowledge management.

Ms. Ubaldi is also a speaker at the ICEGOV 2012 conference – hear her sneak preview (5 mins) of the conference here.

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Episode links and resources

• OECD eGovernment Unit
• OECD report on M-Government
• OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation

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The US Data.Gov platform now features more than 470,000 datasets from 172 agencies, as well as thematic communities representing such diverse interests as health and education through to developers and consumers.  Jeanne Holm shares some of the lessons learned over the last 12 months of escalating the platform, reinforcing the importance of a focus on people rather than the data itself.

I think the most important aspect of Data.gov is not necessarily the data it provides but the voice that it gives to people across the country.

Jeanne also discusses the collaboration between the US Data.gov and Indian data.gov.in teams to develop the open source Open Government Platform, and give us an update on the activities of the W3C e-Government interest group.

About Jeanne Holm

Jeanne Holm is the Chief Knowledge Architect at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CalTech. She chairs NASA’s Knowledge Management Team, which facilitates access to and reuse of the knowledge to support future missions and drive innovation. Her team’s solutions help people manage space missions, learn virtually, and share lessons learned by transforming NASA into a learning organization through innovative techniques in developing communities of practice, harnessing the power of social media, and ensuring lessons are shared and embedded across the organization.

Jeanne was the manager for the award-winning NASA public and internal portals. She supports several DoD organizations in multi-generational learning, utilizing social media, creating collaborative structures, and identifying emergent technologies. Her activities range from social media, virtual worlds, gaming, ontologies, to collaborative systems. As a Fellow of the United Nations International Academy of Astronautics, she leads teams that set standards for how space missions should manage knowledge and share data in the future. She is the former chair of the Federal KM Working Group with 700 members across government, and serves on international standards and conference boards.

Jeanne is also a speaker at the ICEGOV 2012 conference – hear her sneak preview (5 mins) of the conference here.

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• Data.gov
• Data.gov communities
• Data.gov blog
• Open Government Platform
• Data.gov.in beta site
• Open Government platform on Facebook
• W3C eGov interest group
• W3C eGov LinkedIn group

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For instance, the decision by the Danish Government to open up their address register so anyone could use it had a ROI over its first 4 years of 2200% – that’s 22 times as much in benefits as in cost.

Andrew also highlights some of the key themes emerging from open government practitioners at the Open Knowledge Festival recently held in Helsinki, Finland.

About Andrew Stott

Andrew Stott was the UK’s first Director for Transparency and Digital Engagement and a former Deputy CIO for the UK Government.  He led the work to create “data.gov.uk” and the implementation of the UK Government’s commitments on Transparency of central and local government.  Following his retirement in December 2010 he was appointed to the UK Transparency Board to continue to advise UK Ministers on open data and e-government policy.  He also advises other governments on Open Data both bilaterally and through the World Bank and the World Wide Web Foundation, and he continues to contribute to the international development of the Open Data and Open Government agendas.

Episode feature background image courtesy FloApps

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Episode links and resources

• Manchester Open Data project
• Danish addressing data return on investment study
• EU POPSIS study (PDF)
• Open Government Partnership
• Open Knowledge Foundation
• Open Knowledge Festival

Andrew Stott – Implementing an Open Data programme within government at the Open Knowledge Foundation

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Open access to Government information is a key element of the open government discussion, both in policy and practice terms.

Baden Appleyard shares his experience in developing and applying the Australian Government’s Open Access and Licensing Framework, and highlights the opportunities and challenges faced in opening up information from Governments as well as public research bodies through licensing options such as Creative Commons.

The thought of applying a logo to a document and a link to a plain English deed is a really big shift… it’s going to take some time… it’s a bit of a slow burn.

About Baden Appleyard

Baden is the National Programme Director of AusGOAL, the Australian Government’s Open Access and Licensing Framework, which provides support and guidance to all levels of government, government agencies and the research sector to facilitate open access to publicly funded information.

He holds degrees in law and commerce, in addition to tertiary qualifications in management, and is a Barrister of the Supreme Court of Queensland and of the High Court of Australia.

Baden was a Principal Research Fellow with the Faculty of Law at the Queensland University of Technology from 2007–2008. During this time, he managed Project 3.05, part of an Australia-wide initiative co-sponsored by the CRC for Spatial Information which provided assistance to underpin the legal and policy framework development of a Queensland Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF), the predecessor of AusGOAL. He currently has responsibility for the development and implementation of AusGOAL and related copyright, contractual and administrative law issues (e.g. FOI and Privacy).

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Episode links and resources

• AusGOAL website and blog
• AusGOAL open qualities of data
• Presentation: Implementing the Australian Government’s Open Access and Licensing Framework (PDF)
• Sister frameworks: NZGOAL and the UK Government Licensing Framework
• Australian National Data Service Costs and Benefits of Data Provision study

Baden’s ‘Cheat Sheet’

…of commonly-heard justifications / excuses to refuse to release or restrictively licence (environmental) data:

The following are numbered but are in no particular order.

1. I have a research paper that I am yet to write and publish, so I’m not releasing my data until then.

2. I have to collect more data before I can release the data

3. We are concerned about data quality

4. We don’t want a consultant (we have engaged) to take this data for free and use it for their other clients

5. We have legislative restrictions on the release of this data

6. This data carries privacy restrictions that mean we cannot release it (where it is more than arguable that no privacy restriction exists, or where they have failed to consider anonymising the data, which may still provide an important resource for some).

7. Its ours and nobody else’s

8. Our funding agreements prohibit release of the data

9. The IP is owned by someone else

10. It was not collected with distribution outside the department in mind.

11. We would release it but it has to go through our departmental process first (only to discover that there is no departmental process)

12. We cannot apply an open licence because open licences are not permitted in our government policy (where in that case the Auditor-General lamented that there was in fact no government policy on licensing and information management. That was put to the agency whom responded by saying that it still meant that an open licence wasn’t permitted)

13. We don’t want people to commercialise this data or re-distribute it because we are the point of truth.

14. We don’t want to release this data under an open licence (that permits commercial reuse) because we don’t want commercial operators to sell it, where we provide it for free.

15. We don’t want to release this data under an open licence because we might want charge for it. (despite the fact that the department was externally funded to collect it and the costs already recovered)

16. We don’t know whom owns the copyright

17. We don’t know what licence to choose / don’t want to apply a copyright licence because we don’t think copyright subsists in the data

18. We don’t want to release the data because we are building a new portal for this and related datasets (restrictively licensed) and we want people to be able to download it from our new portal (where the portal wasn’t launched for 12 months)

19. If we release the data it will embarrass our minister / director general / chief executive / secretary (under most amended FOI law in Australia, embarrassment to government is not a valid reason to refuse release)

20. The community wouldn’t understand the data/interpret it correctly if we released it, therefore we will only licence it restrictively to hydrologist/surveyor/scientist (insert profession)

21. We won’t release it because we don’t have a longer term budget to maintain updates to the data.

22. We won’t release it because it’s out of date

23. We won’t release it because the metadata is inaccurate

24. We won’t release it / only restrictively licence (to government, in the case of an NRM) because we have agreements with farmers that we won’t identify them. (where the data was collected with funding from government)

25. We can’t openly licence because we are restricted by nested IP belonging to the CSIRO

26. We don’t want to release because the data may be used to ground a patent application

27. You can have the data but you will have to make an FOI application. (subsequently, the applicant received the data under FOI but it was released without a licence, and accordingly defaulted to all rights reserved Crown copyright)

28. Before we release it / license it to you, we want to know what you want the data for.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

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