Centre for Internet and Society

Open Government Platform: An Open Source Solution to Democratizing Access to Information and Energizing Civic Engagement

Neeta Verma, Alka Mishra and D.P. Mishra — 2012-11-19T03:15:01Z

If government could release these datasets in open format for people to use & reuse, a whole lot of new innovative apps could be built around these datasets to provide better, customized services to citizens.

This article by Neeta Verma, Alka Mishra and D.P. Mishra was published as a lead story in the July 2012 edition of Informatics Magazine, printed by the National Informatics Centre.

Online publishing of Government data in open format shall play an important role in enhancing transparency and accountability of the government. It shall enable new forms of citizen engagement & innovation in citizen service delivery. More customized & personalized services could be offered to citizens. When implemented at large scale it shall bring a paradigm shift in development of e-governance applications. At NIC we have recently developed an Open Government Platform (OGPL) to enable government ministries & departments to launch their open data initiative.

Conceptual Overview

OGPL as a product caters to two sets of users - the government and the citizen/civil societies. It facilitates government departments to contribute their datasets, Apps, tools, documents, services etc., which gets validated and published, after passing through a predefined workflow to the citizen interfacing data portal. The single-point citizen interface is designed in such a way that catalogs can be searched with ease and datasets can be accessed/downloaded in various open formats. It also provides a platform for citizens and civil societies to engage with government on various aspects of socio economic development.

OGPL also facilitates building of subject specific communities through Citizen engagement modules. Communities shall discuss online the kind of datasets, government should release and also what kind of apps should be developed around these datasets. This shall provide first hand information to government as well as developer communities on public demand and prioritize their schedules accordingly.

OGPL Components

OGPL essentially consists of three major modules:

Dataset Management System
Data Portal
Monitoring and Management
Dashboard

Dataset Management System

Dataset Management system or DMS shall be used by all contributing ministries, departments as well as organisations using which, authorized officers of the departments can contribute datasets, documents, services, tools and apps which shall then be processed through a predefined workflow of moderation & approval to ensure that datasets being released in public domain are in compliance with existing acts & policies of the government
concerning privacy, security etc.

Through DMS each Ministry/Department can contribute their datasets in the form containing a set of Standard Metadata elements. After passing through various stages of moderation and approvals, these datasets gets published on the data portal viz. data.gov.in

Data Portal

Data Portal is the citizen facing frontend of the OGPL which shall provide single point access to all the datasets, apps as well as services. Portal has a strong component of search, discovery as well as citizen engagement. The development of the data portal is in compliance with the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW).

This Citizen interfacing Data Portal would also have a Communities component built into the system. This component facilitates Forums/Discussions around various datasets, apps available on the portal as well as platform to express and discuss the kind of datasets & apps they would like to have. This shall give first hand input to development community for building new components, apps. It shall also give input to departments as what kind of datasets are more useful and accordingly can raise the priority of their release.

Monitoring and Management Dashboard

Monitoring and management dashboard of OGPL helps government monitor & manage its Open Data Programme through three dimensions

Metrics, analytics & feedback from citizens: Metrics help understand amount of datasets uploaded, updated by different Departments. Frequency of upload is also available on a single dashboard.
Analytics module gives use perspective in terms of their usage of datasets, Number of downloads, aggregated ratings provided to datasets determine their value and to some extent quality of data released by government.
Feedback from citizens provide government with first hand input from citizens on quality, relevance of datasets, new datasets needed, kind of apps need to be developed, etc.

Open government platform can be used in multiple ways. One can directly publish their datasets after one time registration & authentication. Departments could build their subject specific catalogues through a cloud based services of OGPL. One can also ask for independent installation of OGPL with customized look & feel. OGPL can be used by any central or state government department, organisations as well as district and panchayat administrations. It can also be used by private organisations as well as non government organization and civil societies to bring in more
transparency in their functioning.

OGPL isn't simply about setting up a new web platform, moving to cloud computing or adopting open standards but it's about establishing a platform to enhance transparency, accountability & foster development of Innovative applications to better serve the citizens & other stakeholders. Open government data is gaining a lot of popularity & acceptance with governments across the world. Its led by government themselves, development communities, international organisations. OGPL is a perfect platform for them to launch their open data initiative.

Note by BK Gairola In India, National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) has been recently notified by the Government. According to this policy, all government departments shall release their datasets in open format for citizens and other stakeholders to freely use & reuse. To make these datasets easily accessible by citizens, policy has also mandated NIC to provide technology solution for establishing an Open Data Portal (http://data.gov.in) for Departments, Subordinate Offices and Organizations. OGPL implementation in India is being executed by NIC, DeitY in close coordination with DST. OGPL is an open source product with generic architecture, which would easily facilitate other organizations and institutions to adopt for their open data initiatives. Communities could also contribute further by developing innovative apps around datasets and also enhancing the product in terms of features & functionalities. The purpose of the platform is to enhance access and use of government data to foster innovation, promote transparency, accountability and public participation. I am sure it shall go a long way in democratizing the government information.

Indo-US Collaboration Open Government Platform (OGPL) was developed jointly by India & US government as a result of announcement made by President Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the Indo-US Open Government Dialogue in 2010. OGPL leverages on the best practices & features of the India’s “India.gov.in” and the “Data.gov” of United States.National Informatics Centre (NIC) from Government of India and General Services Administration (GSA) of United States executed the development of OGPL. Open Government Platform, developed to promote access to government data and information and energize citizen engagement was launched by Hon’ble Minister of Communications & IT and HRD, Govt. of India during a press conference held on 30th March 2012 in New Delhi in presence of Dr. Sam Pitroda, Advisor to Prime Minister of India. Secretary(DEITY), DG(NIC) & Joint Secretary, MEA also participated in the press conference, Senior officers from US Government & US Embassy were also present along with GSA team in India. CIO, US Government along with Deputy CTO also addressed the event over video conference.

OGPL - An Open Source Solution Open Government Platform is completely developed using Open Source Stack. In fact complete management of the collaborative development of OGPL by two teams stationed in two continents of the world was also handled using open source tools.It complies with the best practices of open source development, which helps in leveraging the strengths of future versions of the open source base products used in development of OGPL. OGPL being an open source initiative not only facilitates cost saving in terms of software and licenses but also facilitates community participation in terms of further development of product with additional components and innovative apps around the published datasets. This shall define a paradigm shift in the manner electronic government applications shall be developed in future. The entire source code is made available to public for review, feedback and participation for further development and enhancement.

Citizen Engagement OGPL has a strong component of Citizen engagement. Citizens can view, download datasets as well express their opinion on the quality of datasets, they can rate the datasets on a scale of 1 to 5. One can embed a dataset in their blog or web site as well as contact the owner of the datasets for any query or clarification. One can also publish or connect the datasets on their social media pages such as facebook, twitter etc. for wider reach. Ratings given by citizen are transparently shared on the portal in terms of number of views, current star rating which help new visitor understand quality of data sets, its popularity. Portal also enables visitors to submit their ideas, feedbacks and as well suggest datasets they would like government to release in open domain. These ideas are further rated by citizens to help government allocate priority in release of data sets.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/informatics-nic-in-neeta-verma-alka-mishra-d-p-mishra-july-2012-open-government-platform

Technology Evangelists and Religious Evangelists — A Talk by Katherine Sydenham

praskrishna — 2012-09-04T10:44:34Z

Katherine Sydenham from the University of Michigan School of Information will deliver a lecture at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bangalore on August 10, 2012, from 5.00 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Abstract

The current investigation explores the possibility of comparison of techniques used by technology evangelists and religious evangelists. The study sought informants from three major categories: proprietary software evangelists, proponents of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and religious evangelists of several religious traditions. A preliminary analysis of qualitative data indicates that there are enough similarities in strategies used by members from each group to make the inquiry relevant. Early data also reveal significant differences in each group´s strategy that may inform and shape future efforts on behalf of technology evangelists to reach a wider audience for their products.

Katherine Sydenham

Katherine is a doctoral student at the University of Michigan School of Information. Her research in the Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD) field focuses on technology adoption by marginalized communities. Her background is in Religious Studies and Library and Information Science. Her summer internship at Microsoft Research is exploring the strategic similarities between technology evangelism and religious evangelism.

Click here to read more about Katherine

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/technology-evangelists-religious-evangelists

Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy & Open Government — Talk at CIS

pranesh — 2012-07-31T06:08:55Z

The Open Knowledge Foundation and the Centre for Internet and Society invite you to an informal talk by Lucy Chambers and Laura Newman on 'Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy, and Open Government'.

The Government of India recently passed a policy that requires all departments to start opening up data to the public, and NIC is working towards consolidating this on a single website. This workshop would focus on exchanging information on how such data are used by journalists elsewhere, and what can be done in India to drive journalism using data.

Details

The Open Knowledge Foundation is an international not-for-profit with a mission to open up the world's data, build data-literacy and promote evidence-based policy making. Working in 3 broad fields open-government, open research and open cultural heritage the activities of the foundation are focused around projects, working groups and local meetups.

The talk will be very informal, and focus on Data Journalism (datajournalismhandbook.org), but will also touch on data management for governments (ckan.org), the teaching of data literacy (schoolofdata.org) and explaining the meaning of the numbers behind government expenditure (openspending.org).

More Details

The Data Journalism Handbook was born at a 48-hour workshop at MozFest 2011 in London. It subsequently spilled over into an international, collaborative effort involving dozens of data journalism's leading advocates and best practitioners including from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, the Chicago Tribune, Deutsche Welle, the Guardian, the Financial Times, Helsingin Sanomat, La Nacion, the New York Times, ProPublica, the Washington Post, the Texas Tribune, Verdens Gang, Wales Online, Zeit Online and many others. Ms. Chambers was one of the
editors of the book.

Additional Links

Data Journalism Handbook - Online Version:http://bit.ly/Istv8c

Examples of data-driven journalism:http://bit.ly/8KwHR

Data-Driven Journalism mailing list: http://bit.ly/hUOQX3

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/data-driven-journalism-data-literacy-and-open-govt

Water Data Consultation

praskrishna — 2012-04-04T06:24:33Z

Pranesh Prakash spoke on Policy Issues and Developments around Open Data at an event organized by Arghyam in Bangalore on March 23, 2012.

Agenda

10:00 a.m.	Welcome Address
10:05 a.m.	Introduction by participants about themselves and their organizations
10:45 a.m.	Context Setting and Data Project Pranesh/ Nisha *
11:30 a.m.	Tea Break
11:45 to 1:15 p.m.	Planning Commission Report Presentation and Q&A
1:15-2:00 p.m.	Lunch
2:00-4:00 p.m.	Discussion: Role of Civil Society Actors for Data
4:00-5:00 p.m.	Road Ahead ( including 15 minute consensus of Summary )
5:00 p.m.	Vote of Thanks
5:05 p.m.	High Tea

Venue: Evoma Hotel, # 14, Bhattarahalli, Near Garden City College, Old Madras Road, K.R Puram, Bangalore
Date: March 23, 2012

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/water-data-consultation

Open DataCamp — 2012

praskrishna — 2012-03-30T14:49:14Z

A one-day unconference for people working with data from various sectors to come together and share their projects and ideas was organised in Bangalore on March 24, 2012. It was organised by the DataMeet group. Pranesh Prakash participated in the event.

Sessions

9:00am - 10:00am	Registration
10:00am - 10:10am	Introduction to OpenDataCamp Team DataMeet
10:15am - 10.55am	Panel Discussion: State of Open Data in India Data in India in general is in a state for much improvement. What does that mean for open data? How can open data help improve the data situation? What are the drawbacks of opening up data? Anand S (Gramener), Zainab Bawa (HasGeek), Nithya Raman (Transparent Chennai), Moderator Nisha Thompson
11:00am - 11.25am	Pictures through numbers Anand, Chief Data Scientist, Gramener
11.25am - 11.40pm	Tea
11:45pm - 12.10pm	Karnataka Guarantee of Services to Citizens Sridhar Pabbisetty, COO, Centre for Public Policy
12:15pm - 12.40pm	Open Data & Free Maps Shekhar Krishnan
12.45am - 1.10pm	Introduction Aadhaar(UID) Data Pramod Varma & Sanjay Jain
1.10am - 2.15pm	Lunch

	Main Hall	Meeting Room (small)	Food Court
2:15pm - 2:40pm	Drawing By Numbers by Tactical Technology Collective Kaustubh Srikanth	Why Big data and why should you bother? Mohan S,CEO, TrendWise Analytics	Karnataka Learning Partnership Data Practices and a Call for collaboration. Megha Vishwanath
2:45pm - 3:10pm	ISB's visualisation of migration in India. ISB & Gramener	The State of Climate Data in India - Open and Closed. Pavan Srinath	Anatomy of NSSO Data sumandro
3.15pm - 3:40pm	Water Data Nisha Thompson, India Water Portal	Mobile as a Data Collection Device Thejesh GN	Open data API and the challenges Karthik B. R

3.40pm - 4.15pm

Tea

4.15pm - 4.40pm

Modelling car insurance pricing
Gaurav Vohra, Jigsaw Academy

Free slot

What is Data?
Mrinal Wadhwa

4.45pm - 6.00pm

Feedback, etc

The sponsors included Google, India Water Portal, Gramener, Microsoft Research, Akshara Foundation, DataMeet, HasGeek and the Centre for Internet & Society.

Venue:Google, 3rd, 4th and 5th floors,RMZ infinity, Tower ENo.3, Old Madras Road, Bennigana Halli, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560 016

For more info, click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/open-data-camp

Open access to government data on the cards

praskrishna — 2012-03-26T07:31:48Z

The way has been cleared for public access to the data collected by Union government ministries and departments, with official approval being accorded to the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP). T Ramachandran's article was published in the Hindu on March 25, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted in it.

Following its recent approval by the Union Cabinet, the policy has been notified and is in the process of being gazetted, said R. Siva Kumar, CEO of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, and head of the Natural Resources Data Management System, Department of Science and Technology.

The use of open data as a tool for promoting governmental transparency and efficiency has been gaining ground in some parts of the world. An Open Government Partnership was launched last year by the United States and seven other governments. Forty-three other governments have joined the partnership, which has endorsed an Open Government Declaration, expressing a commitment to better “efforts to systematically collect and publish data on government spending and performance for essential public services and activities.” It acknowledges the ‘right' of citizens to seek information on governmental activities.

India has not joined the partnership, but is collaborating with the U.S. in developing an open source version of software for a data portal.

The NDSAP states that at least five ‘high value' data sets should be uploaded to a newly created portal, data.gov.in, in three months of the notification of the policy. Uploading of the remaining data sets should be completed within a year.

The Department of Science and Technology will co-ordinate the effort and create the portal through the National Informatics Centre. The Department of Information Technology will work out the implementation guidelines, including those related to technology and data standards.

Welcoming the approval for the NDSAP, Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO, said the removal of “a few good aspects” in an earlier draft of the policy — such as linkage with Sections 8 and 9 of the Right to Information Act that specify the kinds of information exempt from disclosure by the authorities — had weakened it “even further.” “None of the criticisms the CIS had sent in as part of the feedback requested on the draft have been addressed,” he said.

The NDSAP seeks “to provide an enabling provision and platform for providing proactive and open access to the data generated through public funds available with various departments/organisations of the government of India.”

However, the Ministries and Departments can draw up, within six months of the notification of the policy, a negative list of data-sets that will not be shared, subject to periodic review by an ‘oversight committee.'

The policy envisages three types of access to data: open, registered and restricted. Access to data in the open category will be “easy, timely, user-friendly and web-based without any process of registration/authorisation.” But data in the registered access category will be accessible “only through a prescribed process of registration/authorisation by respective departments/organisations” and available to “recognised institutions/organisations/public users, through defined procedures.” Data categorised as restricted will be made available only “through and under authorisation.”

The policy also provides for pricing, with the Ministries and Departments being asked to formulate their norms for data in the registered and restricted access categories within three months of the notification of the policy.

Read the original published in the Hindu

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/open-access-to-govt-data

Summary of the Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

praskrishna — 2012-01-30T16:24:40Z

The Western Ghats Portal team had organized a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state of biodiversity informatics as expressed in three spheres: technology behind biodiversity informatics, scientific commons and policy and biodiversity portals in India. It hoped to provide an opportunity to interact and learn from similar endeavors in this emerging discipline. The workshop was held at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore on 25 November 2011.

There were 5 speakers and 10 panelists representing as many portal initiatives, participating at the venue or via WebEx, addressing an audience of 75 comprising of students, researchers, representatives from governmental bodies and technological platforms.The entire day’s sessions were peppered with questions and discussions, directed to the presenters as also within the members of the audience.

The technology session presented an Indian initiative, Bhuvan, a geospatial data alternative to GoogleEarth that was pertinent to the India centric audience. The second presentation was the Atlas of Living Australia, an international endeavor that was able to give a broad overview of how government funding for the sharing of government data on a public platform was able to source large information and present it for open access on a portal. The project aims to serve a variety of users from scientists, citizen scientists to policy makers and activists in biodiversity and conservation. The WGP was presented by a discussion of architecture and design of participation interface for recording and accumulating biodiversity observation data. The scientific commons and policy session covered a wide range of topics: the interpretation of the Indian laws for portal developments across disciplines, the governmental policies that may hinder the development of Open source platforms, the creative commons licenses and how they work for scientific data, and whether developing a biodiversity commons would help the community at large.

Global initiatives in the area of scientific commons were presented. Views from the participants on various aspects and the practicality of a legal framework were discussed. There are plans to discuss and evolve a draft of a charter for scientific commons that would be relevant for biodiversity and conservation. A clearly articulated and agreed data policy is also one of the deliverables of the project.

The third session centred on the experience of India-centric biodiversity portals. Two of the panelists presented their portals and attended the session over WebEx from the United States. A spectrum of portals was presented. Some of them were focused on single taxa, or a theme focus from medicinal plants to thematic citizen science initiatives. The IBP and WGP were presented as broad based with large collections of spatial data and species data. Perspective plans of large biodiversity portal initiatives, like the GBIF node for India, INBIF, were outlines to showing the things that may come in the next few years.

The discussions revolved around scientific rigor versus citizen participation, large-scale projects v/s small-scale focused portals, and maintaining quality with crowd sourced data. Ideas about how peer recognition and scientific status could be achieved were discussed. Focused portals closely managed by experts to provide valuate biodiversity and species data were discussed, with methods of maintaining quality and curating data. The event concluded by discussions of how each portal can maintain its identity and focus but at the same time evolve mechanisms for interoperability and exchange of information. There were open discussions on whether we can network and provide easy toolkits for building focused participation sites.

Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

Objectives of the Workshop

Over the last few years, Biodiversity Informatics has emerged as a field to aggregate and consolidate biodiversity information across the world. With the increased penetration of the Internet into developing economies, and the widespread adoption of web technologies, biodiversity informatics has spawned an impressive variety of initiatives. These initiatives range from global knowledge bases and networks, national initiatives, eco-region based initiatives, as well as sharply focused initiatives which address a single species or event. There have been tangible advantages for stakeholders from these initiatives which has inspired many other endeavors. Success stories exist at both global and local level, and learning from these experiences can help one understand the multi-faceted nature of this discipline.

The Western Ghats Portal team organized a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state of biodiversity informatics as expressed in three spheres: i) technology behind biodiversity informatics, ii) scientific commons and policy and iii) biodiversity portals in India. The workshop was intended to bring together technologists, open data policy experts, leaders of portal initiatives and user groups and stakeholders to meet and discuss experiences and approaches to Biodiversity Informatics.

Seventy five participants attended the workshop covering governmental agencies, NGO’s, academic institutes, student groups, CEPF grantees and other relevant stakeholders. There were 5 speakers and 10 panelists representing as many portal initiatives, participating at the venue or via WebEx from the continents of Australia and North America.

Plenary I: Technology behind biodiversity informatics - 0930 - 1115 hrs

This session was introduced by Dr.B.Ramesh of the French Institute of Pondicherry, who welcomed the participants of the workshop. He highlighted the growth of Biodiversity Informatics leveraging the Internet. In this emerging discipline, stressed the need to take stock of the latest developments in the area.

Development of Information System, Open Data standards, Archive and Geospatial solutions, Visualization in Bhuvan - M. Arulraj, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

Arulraj gave an overview of the Bhuvan project, ISRO’s geo-portal serving as a rich geteway to Indian earth observations. The project was launched in August 2009 and has made rapid strides since then to expose earth observation images and thematic maps on the Indian sub-continent. The Bhuvan project has multiple modules, which include 3-D and 2-D visualizations; a data archive and data download; thematic land use and land cover maps; a mobile application; and a discussion forum. The project is in active development and in beta, but is adding many features and data to the portal. In addition to data dissemination it provides a webGIS platform with the ability to do analyses and create geographical layers by users. The Bhuvan portal conforms to the national map policy while exposing spatial information and imagery through its evolving portal.

Arulraj explained the architecture of the portal and surveyed the webGIS and open source technologies that were available. A demo terminal of Bhuvan was exposed during the lunch session. During the discussions on map policy, Arulraj quoted that as per Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP)-2011, all satellite data of resolutions up to 1 m shall be distributed on a nondiscriminatory basis and on “as requested basis” by NRSC/ISRO.

Architecture and design of participation interfaces - Anand Janakiraman, Western Ghats Portal

Anand Janakiram spoke about the design of participation interfaces for the Western Ghats portal. The intent was to engage with user groups on the user interfaces and usability of an observation interface, where users will be able to upload a multi-media object; provide a location for the observation; make a species call with a certain level of confidence; and provide notes and comments on the observation. The observation will be rated by the crowd. Species calls could be changed if necessary and agreed or disagreed upon.

Various rating systems were discussed. These included a 5 or ten star rating system, like movie rating systems; a multi-dimensional rating system like in Wikipedia; a “like” rating system that is used in many sites; and an expert based rating system. There was a lot of discussion on rating systems among the participants concerning the necessity of an expert based system; the wisdom of the public in identifications; a simple and easy to use rating system on the portal.

Challenges on the emerging discipline of Biodiversity Informatics - Donald Hobern, Atlas of Living Australia - Web participation.

Donald Hobern participated in the session from Australia over the Internet. His talk and presentation was viewed by the participants via two-way WebEx where he answered questions and interacted with the audience.

Donald presented the Australian Government supported multi-institutional project called the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA). The ALA is a multi-institutional project with large funding to build a comprehensive biodiversity site focused on Australia. The conceptual model for the portal is to build a platform that will aggregate biodiversity information resources from specimen records, field observations, literature, images, experts and amateurs. The information will be integrated as species pages, distributions, regional atlases, and nomenclature. Through this, the portal aims to serve a whole range of users ranging from researchers, taxonomists, land-use planners, and conservation and park managers.

Donald explained the typical specimen, field occurrence and occurrence data and how it is the data is presented via collections. He also explained the services to manage sensitive data and name services available to the public through APIs. The ALA also has rich mapping tools that help relate biodiversity to spatial parameters like rainfall, temperature and other abiotic and biotic factors.

ALA also develops user communities among various stakeholders that include resource management groups, conservation groups, ecological researchers, environmental agencies, field naturalists and taxonomy researchers. They also develop specific use cases and applications for each of these groups.

The questions and interaction session was animated, even though it was on the Internet. One of the issues raised was that the ALA seems to be building an all encompassing and comprehensive portal, without any particular focus theme or focus group. How was the planning of features and functions being done? Donald’s response was the portal team would build functions that they thought would be useful and then engage with user groups to better and fine-tune the application. They engage with user groups about functions on the portal.

The Western Ghats Portal team would like to thank Donald Hobern for his active participation in the workshop with a valued presentation on the state-of-the-art of a comprehensive biodiversity portal.

Plenary II: Scientific commons and policy - 1130 - 1300 hrs

The session was chaired by Dr. Ravi Chellam of the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust. Ravi introduced the session and the speakers. The idea was to generate discussions on data sharing policy among the participants in the context of the Indian legal framework of map policy, biodiversity act, intellectual property, scientific creative commons, and the culture and attitude of Indian scientists. Ravi suggested that the session should lead to further discussions to evolve a policy for data sharing among biodiversity and conservation researchers and to evolve a charter for the best practices among the community.

Commons in the context of Biodiversity Information - Danish Sheikh, Alternative Law Forum

Danish Sheikh from the Alternate Law Forum (ALF) discussed the creative commons and stressed that it maintains the copyright of the contributor. Creative Commons only specifies the terms of sharing the information and in today’s Internet driven world open access to information was essential. With a complex legal framework of creative commons, map policy, biodiversity act, and research interests of individuals, for sharing biodiversity data we must consider property versus propriety. The sharing of information on the portal must be seen from the non-commercial and academic nature of the information as well as the use of data for social good of conservation. Government data in the form of maps and reports should be sharable on an artistic license and they could be deployed on the portal. In the sharing of biodiversity information, there are no concrete cases of violations of laws and thus there are no examples to learn from.

Danish Sheikh had prepared a draft of declaration to be discussed and agreed upon by the community. This was to be circulated to the participants, comments solicited and a broad consensus evolved on the best practices for sharing biodiversity information. The discussions centered on the map policy and the need to carefully study the map policy and the biodiversity act from a legal perspective and arrive at a policy for the portal that will conform to the laws and acts in India.

Open data in the scientific realm - Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet and Society

Sunil Abraham from the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) spoke on various national and international initiatives on open data in the scientific realm. National consultations and discussions have been going on towards evolving a National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) among scientists and researchers in the country. The principle of the policy is based on openness, flexibility, transparency, legal conformity, protection of intellectual property, formal responsibility, and professionalism. Based on these principles, various definitions have evolved. He stressed upon a clear articulation of non-sharable data in the negative list based upon the legal framework and Right to Information Act; restricted access data and open access data.

Sunil Abraham also discussed various international initiatives on scientific data sharing especially in the ecology and biodiversity realm. He spoke of the Eye on Earth initiative for evolving a sharing policy, the framework of the Shared European Environment Information System (SEIS) and various standards for data sharing.

Discussions were around the issues of motivations for data sharing and building social networks and peer encouragement for data sharing. He opined that there was no recipe for engaging the crowd towards building and participating on social networks and sharing information.

Sunil also suggested that the community should evolve a best practices policy document by discussions and debates among themselves. CIS should be seen as a service provider and advocate for evolving a shared policy and lobbying with government if necessary. But the biodiversity community should provide the lead in this effort and the CIS would only be advisory.

Plenary III - Biodiversity portals in India - 1400 - 1700 hrs

The session was moderated by MD Madhusudan of the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore. Over the last few years there has been a multitude of portals focused on aggregating and publishing biodiversity information of the Indian sub-continent. Some of these portals are focused upon a region or taxa or subject of interest and some portals address a wider canvas of issues on biodiversity and conservation. The session was focused on presentations by each of the portals, presenting the key features and focus of their portals; the experience of building and running the portals; key lessons learnt and future plans for the portal.

The response for the sessions on biodiversity was enthusiastic. Over 12 portal initiatives were presented. Some of the presentations were by participants in the United States, who run portals on India. The presentations and participation was done over WebEx sessions overcoming the challenge of different time zones.

Madhusudhan moderated the session, keeping focus, and allowing time for discussions and debates.

V.B Mathur, Indian Biodiversity Information Facility (InBIF)

VB Mathur presented plans for a GBIF node to be set up in India at the Wildlife Institute of India called Indian Biodiversity Facility (InBIF). The project is just being initiated and is conceived as a broad and participative initiative to address the challenges to conservation in the 21st century India. With a growing economy, the objective is to provide biodiversity information to build sustainable development for larger and inclusive populations of India. The InBIF has developed a vision and mission statement and will produce a concept paper by a consultative process by next year 2012. InBIF recognizes that such an inclusive biodiversity portal will require significant funding and the involvement of already present biodiversity portals. InBIF proposes to seek substantial funding based on the concept paper via the 12th Five-Year-Plan period starting 2012-2013.

Suhel Quader, Season Watch (http://www.seasonwatch.in), Migrant Watch (http://www.migrantwatch.in)

Suhel Quader presented two portals Seasons Watch and Migrant Watch focused on citizen science initiatives. The Seasons Watch portal is focused on the observation and recording of seasons as revealed by trees, by their fruiting, flowering and leaf fall patterns. About 100 species are observed all over the country. Migrant Watch observes the arrival and departure of migrant bird species across the sub-continent. Both these large citizen science efforts are focused on the recording and understanding of seasons to create a base-line of data on seasons and their variations. These sites are driven by questions and hypotheses. The sites have an active citizen participation. The portals are planning to expand significantly into school networks. The data generated by citizens are freely available on the portals and it encourages others to download, explore, analyze and publish analysis on the data accumulated on the portal.

Sanjay Molur, Pterocount (http://www.pterocount.org/)

Sanjay Molur presented Pterocount a South Asian bat monitoring program. The project is aimed at creating awareness about bat conservation issues and developing data on the status of South Asian bat populations. There are about 3500 species of bats and data on the bat roosts and their populations is collected through online portals as well as offline forms. The information from all these sites will be compiled and analyzed for trends in the population of bats, to identify key threats to roosts and to provide recommendations for their conservation. The data collected is contributed to the IUCN and is shared with other researchers under creative commons licenses. The study is currently focused on a single bat species Pteropus giganteus, but plans to expand to other bat species as well.

Suma Tagadur, Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (http://envis.frlht.org)

Sathya Sangeetha presented the medicinal plants’ envis site maintained by the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions. The site is focused on the development of a database for medicinal plants with details of taxonomy, local names, status, distribution and trade. The site undertakes a systematic update for 12 medicinal plants per year. They also study the conservation status of medicinal plants and help in the identification of a plant red list. They have plans to develop a children’s portal for increasing awareness of medicinal plants among children. With a focused agenda, the site has a specific and valuable role in biodiversity and conservation of India.

Ramesh BR - Western Ghats Portal (http://www.thewesternghats.in/)

BR Ramesh presented the Western Ghats Portal. This is a relatively young initiative launched about six months ago building on the India Biodiversity Portal. The focus of the portal is to collect biodiversity and conservation information on the Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot. The portal has a map module, a species pages module, a collaborative module and integrative theme pages. The portal has aggregated significant available data on the Western Ghats and deployed it on the portal. The portal plans to add an observation recording interface and campaign for large scale participation on the portal, and species identification keys.

Shwetank Verma, Biodiversity of India, formerly Project Brahma (http://www.biodiversityofindia.org)

Shwetank Verma presented the Biodiversity of India Portal. The portal is developed and managed completely by voluntary effort, and is aimed at being a wiki resource on the biodiversity of India. The site aggregates data on Indian biodiversity from various public sites and presents it attractively on the portal. It has an effective search engine LigerCat that helps index all information on the portal. It aims to add and enrich information on the human and cultural aspects of species and their uses. The portal is keen on networking and sharing information with other biodiversity sites by building necessary APIs for interactions between various biodiversity sites.

Krushnamegh Kunte, ifoundbutterflies (http://ifoundbutterflies.org/) web participation

Krushnamegh Kunte presented the ifoundbutterfiles portal over a WebEx session from the United States. ifoundbutterflies is a community site on the butterflies of India. It contains information on species pages, life cycle pages, photographs, and identification keys of over 600 species of butterflies in India. All information is carefully peer review and curated a team of biologists studying and researching butterflies. The data is assuredly authenticated and verified and will form a reliable source of butterfly information on India.

Vijay Barve, DiversityIndia (http://diversityindia.org/) web participation

Vijay Barve presented the DiversityIndia, a social network group over a WebEx session from the United States. The effort started off as a yahoo group and then moved to facebook as a more convenient platform to share information on the biodiversity of India. It plans to aggregate the information posted in these groups into a site that will maintain and develop biodiversity databases. The group is open to sharing information and resources with other portals working on the biodiversity of India.

Deepak Menon, India Water Portal (http://www.indiawaterportal.org/)

Samuel Rajkumar presented the India Water Portal. Their portal is supported by campaigning for participation and awareness among various fora on water resources. The features include a question bank and an interaction with experts on water; a data repository on water; and a children’s section. The portal is currently working on a data project aimed at accumulating a large repository of water related data on the portal for open access. The portal intends on expanding with a map component and a data visualization module.

Chitra Ravi, India Biodiversity Portal (http://indiabiodiversity.org/)

Chitra Ravi presented the India Biodiversity Portal. The portal was started in 2008 after the first phase of portal development. Over the past year, the portal has been enriched with checklists and species pages. The portal is closely integrated with the Western Ghats Portal sharing the platform, its features and the data. A comparison of the availability of data in EOL showed that for the lesser known flora and fauna, there is very little information publicly available. The portal expects to fill this gap, by generating rich species and distribution content for Indian species.

M.D. Madhusudhan, Status of Golden Jackals in India

MD Madhusudhan presented a focused and time-based project on the Golden Jackals on India. The site campaigned and crowd sourced on the current and historical occurrence of the golden jackal in India. The enthusiasm for participation was evident with large data collection. The data was analyzed and made available publicly and freely to whoever wanted to use the data. There was a need felt for a generic portal to support such focused time-based crowd sourcing and citizen science efforts.

K.Sankara Rao, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc

K Sankara Rao, presented the Center for Ecological Sciences’ creation of a virtual herbarium database from the rich herbarium available at the Institute. The herbarium is Father Saldhana’s collection on the flora of Karnataka and has the best representation of plant specimens of Karnataka. The effort to digitize the herbarium is a passionate project that will make the herbarium resources to be more widely available. Sankara Rao requested volunteers to come forward and work on the project.

Discussions and summary of the day:

The discussions centered on a range of topics and concerns for Biodiversity Informatics in India. They focused on the following themes:

Large and comprehensive portals versus narrow and focused portals. While focused portals seem efficient in achieving their objectives, large portals are trying to explore different mechanisms of harnessing and disseminating information. While such large and comprehensive portals are necessary, they will require larger efforts, longer periods and significant funding to deliver useful content in biodiversity.

Participation and Quality. There were different views on crowd sourcing information and validation mechanisms. The importance of expert-driven efforts on ensuring quality was appreciated, while there was recognition that amateur naturalists and hobbyists could be very knowledgeable and reliable.

The scientific status of a portal can be enhanced with careful expert driven peer review mechanism. Portals could also serve as repositories for data papers publications and citations that would be valued by the scientific community. Target users for the portal. Discussions on target users for the portal covered the whole spectrum from specialists and scientists to activists and concerned citizens. A biodiversity portal was expected to provide information to a variety of users and stakeholders, including managers and policy makers.

Data exchange between portals: There was a general consensus on the interaction and exchange of data among portals. This was heartening to note, but since all the portals are new and evolving, mechanisms of exchange and building APIs for exchange was lower in priority for most portals. However, all portals were open to sharing information. Many of the citizen science portals have made their data public and downloadable.

There were discussions on larger projects like the WGP to engage in technology facilitation for various citizen science projects. This was discussed and opportunities for such technology facilitation need to be explored.

Various mechanisms, such as quiz competitions, interaction with experts, bio-blitzes, campaigns and road shows; to involve and engage citizens on the portal were discussed. There were open-ended discussions on how each portal can maintain its identity and focus, but at the same time evolve mechanisms for interoperability and exchange of information, and on whether we can network and provide easy tool kits for building focused participation sites.

Dr. Prabhakar, concluded the event with a thank you note and by expressing hope that the biodiversity conservation community can build together on the momentum the workshop has created.

List of participants present at the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics, 25th November, 2011, ATREE, Bangalore

Sr.No	Name	Affiliation	Role
1	Abhisheka	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
2	Ajith Ashokan	Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala	Audience
3	Amruta	Research and Action in Natural Wealth Administration (RANWA)	Audience
4	Anand Janakiraman	Western Ghats Portal	Speaker
5	Aneesh A	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
6	Anup Prasad K S	TCS, Bangalore	Audience
7	Anuradha S	University of Maryland, College Park	Audience
8	Aravind N A	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
9	Asha.A	Centre for Ecological Sciences - Indian Institute of Science (IISc)	Audience
10	Ashwini H S	Kuvempu University	Audience
11	Avinash K S	Kuvempu University	Audience
12	Baiju Raj	Agra bear rescue facility	Audience
13	Balasubramanian D	French Institute of Pondicherry	Audience
14	Baranidharan.K	Forest College and Research Institute	Audience
15	Chitra Ravi	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Panelist
16	Danish Sheikh	Alternate Law Forum	Speaker
17	Deepak Menon	ARGHYAM	Panelist
18	Devayani Khare	French Institute of Pondicherry	Audience
19	Dharnidharan	French Institute of Pondicherry	Audience
20	Dinesh T B	Servelots Infotech Pvt. ltd	Audience
21	Dr. B R Ramesh	French Institute of Pondicherry	Panelist
22	Dr. Bhaskar Acharya	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
23	Dr. Chikkaswamy	Om Bioscience Research	Audience
24	Dr. Easa	Asia Biodiversity Conservation Trust (ABCT)	Audience
25	Dr. Gautam Talukdar	Wildlife Institute of India	Audience
26	Dr. Gladwin Joseph	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
27	Dr. Jagdish Krishnaswamy	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
28	Dr. K N Ganeshaiah	University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore	Panelist
29	Dr. Karthikeyan Vasudevan	Wildlife Institute of India	Audience
30	Dr. L Shashikumar	Jnana Bharathi, Bangalore University	Audience
31	Dr. M H Swaminath	Addl. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildife)	Audience
32	Dr. M Sanjappa	Botanical Survey of India(BSI)	Audience
33	Dr. N S Hallikhed	BISB	Audience
34	Dr. R Sukumar	Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), IISc	Audience
35	Dr. Ravi Chellam	Madras Crocodile Bank Trust	Speaker
36	Dr. V B Mathur	Wildlife Institute of India	Panelist
37	G Areendran	Wildlife Institute of India	Audience
38	G Muthu Sankar	French Institute of Pondicherry	Audience
39	Harinandanan P V	Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala	Audience
40	Jagadish	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
41	Jyotish M S	Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala	Audience
42	Kavitha A	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
43	Kiran M C	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
44	Krushnamegh Kunte	Harvard University	Panelist
45	M Arulraj	National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Hyderabad	Speaker
46	M D Madhusudan	Nature Conservation Foundation	Audience
47	M Sathya Sangeetha	Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions	Audience
48	Madhura Niphadkar	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
49	Meganath V	Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala	Audience
50	Naveena N L	University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore	Audience
51	Nishadh	Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History	Audience
52	Prashanth M B	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
53	Priti Gururaj	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
54	Prof. K Sankara Rao	Centre for Ecological Sciences - Indian Institute of Science (IISc)	Audience
55	R C Prasad	Spatial Informatics Lab, IIITHyderabad	Audience
56	Radhika Santhanam	Śramani	Audience
57	Rahul Yadava	Strand Life Sciences	Audience
58	Rajan Pilakandy	Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History	Audience
59	Rakesh K N	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
60	Ramesh Kannan	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
61	Ravikanth	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
62	Sabah Rubina	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
63	Samuel Rajkumar	Independent web-developer	Audience
64	Sangeetha Sathya	FRLTH-IAIM	Audience
65	Santosh S Gaikwad	Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History	Audience
66	Seena Narayanan K	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
67	Senthilkumar Umapathy	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
68	Shashank P R	University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore	Audience
69	Shrinivas K R	Kuvempu University	Audience
70	Shwetank Verma	Indian Institute of Science (IISc)	Panelist
71	Sivarajan	French Institute of Pondicherry	Audience
72	Sreerupa Sen	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
73	Suhel Quader	National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS)
74	Suma Tagadur	Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions	Panelist
75	Sunil Abraham	Centre for Internet and Society	Speaker
76	Supriya K S	National Center for Biological Sciences	Audience
77	T Bala	Keystone Foundation - Flora of Nilgiri	Audience
78	Veeranagappa P	University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore	Audience
79	Vidyadhar Atkore	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
80	Vijay Barve	Diversity India	Panelist

Also see Western Ghats Portal: Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/summary-of-the-minutes-of-the-workshop-on-biodiversity-informatics

Geekup on Open Data in Bangalore

praskrishna — 2012-01-31T03:38:25Z

HasGeek in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society invite you to a talk by Hapee de Groot on 25 January 2012 at CIS office in Bangalore.

Hapee de Groot

Hapee de Groot has worked on a wide range of issues around Open Source Data, ICT and Media Development, Access, Security, ICT for Development (ICT4D) and Localisation of Content, for a global stage towards greater transparency and accountability with the Dutch NGO Hivos since 2001. Before that, in the nineties, he was an advocate for free public internet access, working with xs4all and the digital city Amsterdam (DDS). He has also served as an editor for OneWorld International and ran the Digital Divide Campaign which turned into a still ongoing digital channel at DigitalOpportunity.org.

Hapee is one of the earliest generations of hackers and is highly influential on the subjects of ICT and Technology, Open Source, Social Media, and Technology in Africa, according to the influence measures on Klout. This is his 5th visit to India where he has worked previously on Mission 2009 and setting up access for remote areas in India, in collaboration with Toxic Links and Sarai, Delhi. He was a participant at the InfoActivism Camp in Bangalore, 2008.

His current interest is in the field of Open Government Data and he partners with six international donor agencies to run the Transparency and Accountability Initiative. He brings together his technical skills, policy experience and development research to train people in understanding the politics, responsibilities and risks associated with open data platforms and helps NGOs and governments in producing secure and citizen friendly platforms of data collection, distribution and dissemination.

Open Data

From his background working for a development organisation (HIVOS) Hapee will talk about Open Data and its use for citizen engagement. This is a twofold process. On the one side there is the history of the traditional NGO and their limited impact on the system. On the other side there are the Open Government Data initiatives pushed from within administrations, including by the Obama administration. The question is of how both can benefit from each other.

Hapee has some examples of citizen driven projects in Africa that HIVOS supports. He will present on these projects, including on data visualization and technical platforms. He would like to hear from the audience (that's you!) on similar projects in India.

The other side of the coin is privacy which is a bigger issue in India than in Africa. How can we be open while still protecting privacy? Hapee will lead a discussion on this.

Registrations are closed

Wednesday, 25 January 2012, Bangalore

Welcome with tea, coffee and snacks	6.00 p.m. - 6.15 p.m.
Lightning Talks	6.15 p.m - 7.00 p.m.
Open Data	7.00 p.m. - 8.00 p.m.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/geekup-bangalore

Western Ghats Portal: Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

praskrishna — 2011-11-08T05:01:14Z

The Western Ghats portal team is organising a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state on biodiversity informatics on 25 November 2011 at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore.

Schedule

09:00 – 09:20	Registration of participants
09:20 – 09:30	Welcome / Introduction
09:30 – 11:15	Plenary talks - Technology behind biodiversity informatics (3 talks)
11:15 – 11:30	Tea break
11:30 – 12:30	Plenary talks - Scientific commons and policy (2 talks)
12:30 – 13:00	Discussion
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch break
14:00 – 16:00	Biodiversity portals in India - Presentations by different teams/panel discussion
16:00 – 16:15	Tea break
16:15 – 17:00	Discussions and networking

Spheres of the Workshop:

Plenary I: Technology behind biodiversity informatics - 0930 - 1115 hrs

Development of Information System, Open Data standards, Archive and Geospatial solutions, Visualization in Bhuvan - Arul Raj, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) - 20 mins + 10 mins discussion

Exploring the semantic web for species pages - M. Sravanthi, Western Ghats Portal - 20 mins + 10 mins discussion

Challenges on the emerging discipline of Biodiversity Informatics - Donald Hobern, Atlas of Living Australia - 30mins + 10 mins discussion

Focus:

The objective of this session is to understand the global developments in biodiversity informatics in relation with developments in India. The session will focus on:

the evolution of the discipline of biodiversity informatics and its current status
the development of standards in Indian context
the technologies for biodiversity informatics
the challenges in biodiversity informatics

Plenary II: Scientific commons and policy - 1130 - 1300 hrs

Commons in the context of Biodiversity Information - Danish Sheikh, Alternative Law Forum - 20 mins + 10 mins

Open data in the scientific realm - Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet and Society - 20 mins + 10 mins

Discussion on Scientific commons and Policy - 30 mins

Focus:

The objective of the session is to understand the commons principle and its implications for scientific research. The session will focus on:

the experience of developing a creative commons policy in Indian scenario and the resulting impacts for scientific collaboration, open data and open access
policy and social implications of open data sharing

Plenary III - Biodiversity portals in India - 1400 - 1700 hrs

Moderation: R. Prabhakar/ MD Madhusudhan
Panelists: (Introductory note by each of the panelists - 10 minutes each)

Suhel Quader, Season Watch (www.seasonwatch.in), Migrant Watch (www.migrantwatch.in)

Sanjay Molur, Pterocount (www.pterocount.org/)

K.N.Ganeshaiah - Indian Bioresource Information Network (www.ibin.co.in)

Ramesh BR - Western Ghats Portal (www.thewesternghats.in/)

Shwetank Verma, Biodiversity of India, formerly Project Brahma (http://www.biodiversityofindia.org)

Krishnamegh Kunte, ifoundbutterflies (http://ifoundbutterflies.org/)
Vijay Barve, DiversityIndia (http://diversityindia.org/)
Deepak Menon, India Water Portal (http://www.indiawaterportal.org/)
Chitra Ravi, India Biodiversity Portal (http://indiabiodiversity.org/)
Mr D.K Ved, Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (http://envis.frlht.org)

Focus:

The objective of the session is to learn from each other’s experience and develop a combined vision for the future of biodiversity informatics in India. The panelists will present a focused summary of the

key features available on their portals
the experience of building the portal
the key lessons learnt
future plans

We believe these four aspects will be of common interest to all participants and the presentations are expected to stimulate discussion around these four aspects.

Summary of the Day: R Prabhakar - Call for synergy/collaboration/Thank you!!

Concept Note

Rapid advancements in the domains of computer Science and information technologies have allowed integration of biodiversity information and analytical capabilities to collaborate on social networks, leading to the emergence of a new discipline, Biodiversity Informatics. The dynamics in this discipline are defined by integrating multiplicity with the semantic web and enabling of democratic social networks focused on biodiversity. We are bound to see tremendous diversification in the scope of biodiversity informatics globally and in India.

Harnessing technology for aggregating, storing, querying and analyzing biodiversity data has seen major developments over the last decade. There has been a plethora of biodiversity information resources that include mailing lists and discussions groups, occurrence records, geographical databases, biodiversity image libraries, institutional databases, species description pages, specimen records of herbaria and museum databases, and biodiversity focused Internet sites. The challenges on the biodiversity informatics landscape are on two fronts: (1) A semantic web framework to link these biodiversity information islands; and (2) Effective and flexible data exchange standards for seamless information sharing among these sites.

The evolution of social networks and communities around biodiversity information systems has been a unique factor in influencing the ways in which these information systems have developed. The assimilation and aggregation of user-generated biodiversity data and dissemination under the 'commons' principle has gained momentum globally. It has changed the way scientific collaborations are being made, and created possibilities for effective citizen-science initiatives. It is now possible to ask fresh questions, with more data, newer methods, better tools and for citizens to participate and report data from different geographies. With this, local-level data can be integrated with large-scale data leading to a better understanding of biodiversity.

With the increased penetration of the Internet into developing economies, and the widespread adoption of web technologies, biodiversity informatics has spawned an impressive variety of initiatives. These initiatives range from global knowledge bases and networks, national initiatives, eco-region based initiatives, as well as sharply focused initiatives which address a single species or event. There have been tangible advantages for stakeholders from these initiatives which has inspired many other endeavours. Success stories exist at both global and local level, and learning from these experiences can help one understand the multi-faceted nature of this discipline.

The Western Ghats Portal team is organising a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state of biodiversity informatics as expressed in three spheres: i) technology behind biodiversity informatics, ii) scientific commons and policy and iii) biodiversity portals in India. With these objectives in mind, we welcome your active participation during the workshop. It could provide an opportunity for us to interact and learn from similar endeavors in this discipline.

Download the agenda here [PDF, 124 kb]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/bio-diversity-informatics-workshop

Open Government Data in India (v2)

pranesh — 2012-12-14T10:25:25Z

The first draft of the second version of the Open Government Data Report is now online. Nisha Thompson worked on updating the first version of the report. This updated version of the report on open government data in India includes additional case studies as well as a potential policy (National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy) that would create a central government data portal. The report was distributed for peer review and public feedback.

There are additional government case studies regarding e-governance and how they are changing the way data is collected and distributed. The report also looks at the issues around open data at the city and panchayat level and profiles new projects that are working to fill that void. It also includes a deeper account account of the global perspective on open government data and how India's experience with open data will be different from what the west is doing. Please do let us know what you think are deficiencies in the report, corrections that should be made, or even just general comments. Drop in a word even if you just find it useful. Please do write in to pranesh[at]cis-india.org by Friday, September 2, 2011. Download the [draft report].

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/ogd-draft-v2-call-for-comments

Opening Government: A Guide to Best Practice in Transparency, Accountability and Civic Engagement across the Public Sector

pranesh — 2012-12-14T10:26:42Z

The Transparency & Accountability Initiative has published a book called “Opening Government: A Guide to Best Practice in Transparency, Accountability and Civic Engagement across the Public Sector”. We at the Centre for Internet & Society contributed the section on Open Government Data.

Cross-posted from the Transparency & Accountability Initiative blog.

Download the full report (PDF, 440 Kb)

Open Government Partnership

In January 2011, a small group of government and civil society leaders from around the world gathered in Washington, DC to brainstorm on how to build upon growing global momentum around transparency, accountability and civic participation in governance. The result was the creation of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a new multi-stakeholder coalition of governments, civil society and private sector actors working to advance open government around the world — with the goals of increasing public sector responsiveness to citizens, countering corruption, promoting economic efficiencies, harnessing innovation, and improving the delivery of services.

In September 2011, these founding OGP governments will gather in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly to embrace a set of high-level open government principles, announce country-specific commitments for putting these principles into practice and invite civil society to assess their performance going forward. Also in September, a diverse coalition of governments will stand up and announce their intention to join a six-month process culminating in the announcement of their own OGP commitments and signing of the declaration of principles in January 2012.

'Opening Government' report

To help inform governments, civil society and the private sector in developing their OGP commitments, the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (T/A Initiative) reached out to leading experts across a wide range of open government fields to gather their input on current best practice and the practical steps that OGP participants and other governments can take to achieve it.

The result is the first document of its kind to compile the state of the art in transparency, accountability and citizen participation across 15 areas of governance, ranging from broad categories such as access to information, service delivery and budgeting to more specific sectors such as forestry, procurement and climate finance.

Each expert’s contribution is organized according to three tiers of potential commitments around open government for any given sector — minimal steps for countries starting from a relatively low baseline, more substantial steps for countries that have already made moderate progress, and most ambitious steps for countries that are advanced performers on open government.

Chapters and Contributing Authors

Aid – Publish What You Fund
Asset disclosure - Global Integrity
Budgets – The International Budget Project
Campaign finance – Transparency International - USA
Climate finance – World Resources Institute
Fisheries – TransparentSea
Financial sector reform Global Financial Integrity
Forestry – Global Witness
Electricity – Electricity Governance Initiative
Environment – The Access Initiative
Extractive industries – The Revenue Watch Institute
Open government data – The Centre for Internet and Society - India
Procurement – Transparency International-USA
Right to information – Access Info and the Center for Law and Democracy
Service delivery – Twaweza

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/opening-government-best-practice-guide

Comments on the draft National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy

pranesh — 2011-08-24T06:32:55Z

A draft of the 'National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy', which some hope will be the open data policy of India, was made available for public comments in early May. This is what the Centre for Internet and Society submitted.

These are the comments that we at the Centre for Internet and Society submitted to the National Spatial Data Infrastructure on the draft National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy.

Comments on the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy by the Centre for Internet and Society

We would like to begin by noting our appreciation for the forward-thinking nature of the government that is displayed by its pursuit of a policy on sharing of governmental data and enabling its use by citizens. We believe such a policy is a necessity in all administratively and technologically mature democracies. In particular, we applaud the efforts to make this applicable through a negative list of data that shall not be shared rather than a positive list of data that shall be shared, hence making sharing the default position. However, we believe that there are many ways in which this policy can be made even better than it already is.

1. Name

We believe that nomenclature of the policy must accurately reflect both the content of the policy as well as prevailing usage of terms. Given that 'accessibility' is generally used to mean accessibility for persons with disabilities, it is advisable to change the name of the policy.

Recommendation:

A. We would recommend calling this the "National Open Data Policy" to reflect the nomenclature already established for similar policies in other nations like the UK. In the alternative, it could be called a "National Public Sector Information Reuse Policy". If neither of those are acceptable, then it could be re-titled the "National Data Sharing and Access Policy".

2. Scope and Enforceability

It is unclear from the policy what all departments it covers, and whether it is enforceable.

Recommendation:

A. This policy should cover the same scope as the Right to Information (RTI) Act: all 'public authorities' as defined under the RTI Act should be covered by this policy.

B. Its enforceability should be made clear by including provisions on consequences of non-compliance.

3. Categorization

The rationale for the three-fold categorization is unclear. In particular, it is unclear why the category of 'registered access' exists, and on what basis the categorization into 'open access' and 'registered access' is to be done. If the purpose of registration is to track usage, there are many better ways of doing so without requiring registration.

Recommendation:

A. Having three categories of:

Open data
Partially restricted data
Restricted data

B. Data that is classified as non-shareable (as per a reading of s.8 and s.9 of RTI Act as informed by the decisions of the Central Information Commission) should be classified as ‘restricted’.

C. The rationale for classifying data as 'open' or 'partially restricted' should be how the data collection body is funded. If it depends primarily on public funds, then the data it outputs should necessarily be made fully open. If it is funded primarily through private fees, then the data may be classified as 'partially restricted'. 'Partially restricted' data may be restricted for non-commercial usage, with registration and/or a licence being required for commercial usage.

4. Licence

No licence has been prescribed in the policy for the data. Despite India not allowing for database rights, it still allows for copyright over original literary works, which includes original databases. All governmental works are copyrighted by default in India, just as they are in the UK. To ensure that this policy goes beyond merely providing access to data to ensure that people are able to use that data, it must provide for a conducive copyright licence.

Recommendation:

A. The licence that has been created by the UK government (another country in which all governmental works are copyrighted by default) may be referred to: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/

B. However, the UK needed to draft its own licence because the concept of database rights are recognized in the EU, which is not an issue here in India. Thus, it would be preferable to use the Open Data Commons - Attribution licence:

http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/

The UK licence is compatible with both the above-mentioned licence as well as with the Creative Commons - Attribution licence, and includes many aspects that are common with Indian law, e.g., bits on usage of governmental emblems, etc.

5. Integrity of the data

Currently, there is no way of ensuring that the data that is put out by the data provider is indeed the data that has been downloaded by a citizen.

Recommendation:

It is imperative to require data providers to provide integrity checks (via an MD5 hash of the data files, for instance) to ensure that technological corruption of the data can be detected.

6. Authenticity of the data

Currently, there is no way of ensuring that the data that is put out by the data provider indeed comes from the data provider.

Recommendation:

It is preferable to require data providers to authenticate the data by using a digital signature.

7. Archival and versioning

The policy is silent on how long data must be made available.

Recommendation:

There must be a system of archival that is prescribed to enable citizens to access older data. Further, a versioning and nomenclature system is required alongside the metadata to ensure that citizens know the period that the data pertains to, and have access to the latest data by default.

8. Open standards

While the document does mention standards-compliance, it is preferable to require open standards to the greatest extent possible, and require that the data that is put out be compliant with the Interoperability Framework for e-Governance (IFEG) that the government is currently in the process of drafting and finalizing.

Recommendation:

A. The policy should reference the National Open Standards Policy that was finalised by the Department of Information Technology in November 2010, as well as to the IFEG.

B. The data should be made available, insofar as possible, in structured documents with semantic markup, which allows for intelligent querying of the content of the document itself. Before settling upon a usage-specific semantic markup schema, well-established XML schemas should be examined for their suitability and used wherever appropriate. It must be ensured that the metadata are also in a standardized and documented format.

9. Citizen interaction

One of the most notable failings of other governments' data stores has been the fact that they don't have adequate interaction with the citizen projects that emerge from that data. For instance, it is sometimes seen that citizens may point out flaws in the data put out by the government. At other times, citizens may create very useful and interesting projects on the basis of the data made public by the government.

Recommendation:

A. The government's primary datastore (data.gov.in) should catalogue such citizen projects, including open and documented APIs that the have been made available for easy access to that data.

B. Additionally the primary datastore should act as a conduit for citizen's comments and corrections to the data provider. Data providers should be required to take efforts to keep the data up-to-date.

C. Multiple forms of access should preferably be provided to data, to allow non-technical users interactive use of the data through the Web.

10. Principles, including 'Protection of Intellectual Property'

It is unclear why ‘protection of intellectual property’ is one of the guiding principles of this policy. Only those ideals which are promoted by this policy should be designated as ‘principles’. This policy, insofar as we can see, has no relation whatsoever with protection of intellectual property. The government is not seeking to enforce copyright over the data through this policy. Indeed, it is seeking to encourage the use of public data. Indeed, the RTI Act makes it clear in s.9 that government copyright shall not act as a barrier to access to information.

Given that, it makes no sense to include ‘protection of intellectual property’ amongst the principles guiding this policy. Further, there are some other principles that may be removed without affecting the purpose or aim of this document: ‘legal conformity’ (this is a given since a policy wouldn’t wish to violate laws); ‘formal responsibility’ (‘accountability’ encapsulates this); ‘professionalism’ (‘accountability’ encapsulates this); ‘security’ (this policy isn’t about promoting security, though it needs to take into account security concerns).

Recommendation:

A. Remove ‘protection of intellectual property’, ‘legal conformity’, ‘formal responsibility’, ‘professionalism’, and ‘security’ from the list of principles in para 1.2.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/draft-ndsap-comments

Open Government Data Study

pranesh — 2015-09-03T08:08:22Z

CIS produced a report on the state of open government data in India, looking at policy, infrastructure, and particular case studies, as well as emerging concerns, future strategies and recommendations. The report is authored by Glover Wright, Pranesh Prakash, Sunil Abraham, and Nishant Shah. We are grateful to the Transparency and Accountability Initiative for providing generous funding for this report.

Cross-posted from the Transparency and Accountability Initiative website.

Open Government Data Study: India

India provides one of the most fascinating examples of the use of open government data in a developing country context. It has one of the best right to information laws in the world and the government’s approach to open data builds on this legacy of making open data relevant to Indian citizens. An estimated 456 million Indians live on less than $1.25 a day and a key issue for India, and other developing countries, is how open data can be accessible to them.

This paper reviews the progress being made towards open government data in India. Using case studies, it examines some of the pressing challenges facing the adoption of OGD in India. These include infrastructural problems, privacy concerns and the power imbalances that improved transparency can unwittingly create. It also examines government attitudes towards open data and related policies and reviews the relationships between open government data, the media and civil society.

The authors argue that the Indian Government’s responsibility should not stop short at just providing information, but also extend to making it available and accessible in a way that facilitates analysis and enhances offline usability – and ultimately makes it accessible to the poorest.

The paper concludes by suggesting technical and policy strategies to develop, promote, implement and maintain a robust open government data policy in India.

Download the report [PDF, 1.03 MB]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-government-data-study

Call for Comments for Report on Open Government Data in India

praskrishna — 2013-03-01T05:50:49Z

The Centre for Internet & Society is pleased to announce a public call for comments on the Report on Open Government Data in India prepared by Glover Wright, Pranesh Prakash, Sunil Abraham and Nishant Shah.

This report situates the current move towards open government data in India in the context of the country’s growingly sophisticated information and communications technology (ICT) practices as well as the Right to Information Act. It relies primarily on conversations—both on the record and off—with government officials, businesses, civil society organizations, and individual activists. For background it relies on a review of the literature relevant to OGD and RTI generally, to present a snapshot of where India stands now in respect to OGD, and to predict where it is likely to go in the near future. It seeks to understand what “open government data” means in an Indian context, and what effects institutionalized open data practices and ideas might have on Indian society. Finally, it suggests certain technical and policy strategies for developing, promoting, and implementing, and maintaining a robust open government data policy in India.

Please do write in to Pranesh Prakash (pranesh at cis-india.org) with any suggestions, criticisms, or general comments that you have by 30 January 2011.

Download the complete report here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-government-data-report

Civic Hacking Workshop

pranesh — 2011-08-23T03:14:03Z

CIS, with the UK Government's Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office Team for Digital Engagement, and Google India, is organizing a workshop on open data (or the lack thereof) and 'civic hacking'.

The UK Government's Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office Team for Digital Engagement, Google India and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore are organizing a 'Civic Hacking Workshop' on Wednesday, July 28, 2010, bringing together civic-minded technologists who've been working with governmental data in India and Britain.

The workshop will discuss the problems of obtaining data, especially in India, the technological solutions that these various groups have encountered, the difficulties of technology as a mass-based civic solution, and the visions that these groups have for a more engaged civil society and the contributions they seek to make to the public.

The people attending are, from India (Bangalore):

Alok Singh (Akshara Foundation)
Shivangi Desai (Akshara Foundation)
Arun Ganesh (Geohackers / National Institute of Design)
A. Pandian (Mapunity)
Sridhar Raman (Mapunity)
S. Raghavan Kandala (Mapunity)
Thejesh GN (Janaagraha / Infosys)
Sushant Sinha (IndianKanoon.com / Yahoo)
Vijay Rasquinha (Mahiti)
P.G. Bhat (SmartVote.in)
Pranesh Prakash (CIS)
Raman Jit Singh Chima (Google)

And from Britain:

David McCandless (Information Is Beautiful)
Harry Metcalfe (TellThemWhatYouThink.org / Open Rights Group)
Tim Green (Democracy Club)
Edmund von der Burg (YourNextMP)
Rohan Silva (Special Adviser to the PM)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/civic-hacking-workshop

Centre for Internet and Society

Open Government Platform: An Open Source Solution to Democratizing Access to Information and Energizing Civic Engagement

Conceptual Overview

OGPL Components

Dataset Management System

Data Portal

Monitoring and Management Dashboard

Note by BK Gairola

Indo-US Collaboration

OGPL - An Open Source Solution

Citizen Engagement

Technology Evangelists and Religious Evangelists — A Talk by Katherine Sydenham

Abstract

Katherine Sydenham

Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy & Open Government — Talk at CIS

Details

More Details

Additional Links

Water Data Consultation

Agenda

Open DataCamp — 2012

Sessions

Open access to government data on the cards

Summary of the Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

Objectives of the Workshop

Plenary I: Technology behind biodiversity informatics - 0930 - 1115 hrs

Plenary II: Scientific commons and policy - 1130 - 1300 hrs

Plenary III - Biodiversity portals in India - 1400 - 1700 hrs

List of participants present at the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics, 25th November, 2011, ATREE, Bangalore

Geekup on Open Data in Bangalore

Hapee de Groot

Open Data

Western Ghats Portal: Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

Schedule

Spheres of the Workshop:

Plenary I: Technology behind biodiversity informatics - 0930 - 1115 hrs

Plenary II: Scientific commons and policy - 1130 - 1300 hrs

Plenary III - Biodiversity portals in India - 1400 - 1700 hrs

Concept Note

Open Government Data in India (v2)

Opening Government: A Guide to Best Practice in Transparency, Accountability and Civic Engagement across the Public Sector

Open Government Partnership

'Opening Government' report

Chapters and Contributing Authors

Comments on the draft National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy

Comments on the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy by the Centre for Internet and Society

1. Name

Recommendation:

2. Scope and Enforceability

Recommendation:

3. Categorization

Recommendation:

4. Licence

Recommendation:

5. Integrity of the data

Recommendation:

6. Authenticity of the data

Recommendation:

7. Archival and versioning

Recommendation:

8. Open standards

Recommendation:

9. Citizen interaction

Recommendation:

10. Principles, including 'Protection of Intellectual Property'

Recommendation:

Open Government Data Study

Open Government Data Study: India

Call for Comments for Report on Open Government Data in India

Civic Hacking Workshop