Centre for Internet and Society

ICANN Begins its Sojourn into Open Data

Padmini Baruah and Sumandro Chattapadhyay — 2016-11-12T01:17:24Z

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently announced that it will now set up a pilot project in order to introduce an Open Data initiative for all data that it generates. We would like to extend our congratulations to ICANN on the development of this commendable new initiative, and would be honoured to support the creation of this living document to be prepared before ICANN 58.

To quote the ICANN blog directly, the aim of this project is to “bring selected data sets into the open, available through web pages and programming APIs, for the purposes of external party review and analysis” [1]. This will play out through the setting up of three components:

Development of a catalogue of existing data sets which will be appropriate for publication
Selection of the technology necessary for managing the publication of these data sets.
Creation of a process to prioritise the order in which the data sets are made available [2].

Principles in Question

The Centre for Internet and Society firmly believes in the value of accessible, inclusive open data standards as a tool for enhancing transparency in any system. Greater transparency goes a long way towards bringing a regulatory authority closer to those who are governed under it – be it a state or a body such as ICANN. It is, in fact, an indispensable component of a multistakeholder model of governance to facilitate informed participation by all parties concerned in the decision making process.

The right to information that a regulatory authority owes those it regulates has two kinds of components. The first may be described as reactive disclosure – “when individual members of the public file requests for and receive information” [3]. The second is disclosure that is more proactive in nature – “when information is made public at the initiative of the public body, without a request being filed” [4]. The former is epitomized by initiatives such as the Freedom of Information Act [5] in the United States, the Right to Information Act in India [6], or ICANN’s very own Documentary Information Disclosure Policy [7].

Proactive disclosure policies, on the other hand, operate out of the principle that the provision of information by those in positions of regulatory authority will ensure free and timely flow of information to the public, and the information so provided will be equally accessible to everyone, without the need for individual requests being filed [8]. Proactive disclosure also goes a long way towards preventing officials from denying or manipulating information subsequent to publication [9]. Scholars have touted proactive disclosure as the “future of the right to know” [10].

At the Centre for Internet and Society, much of our research has pointed towards the direction of creating better open data standards for governments (Please see “Open Data Government Study: India”). We are one of the Lead Stewards of the International Open Data Charter [11] and have maintained that it is crucial for governments to maintain open data standards in the interest of transparency and accountability. We firmly believe that the same principles extend also to ICANN – a body which, as per its own by-laws commits towards operating “…to the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner and consistent with procedures designed to ensure fairness”[12].

Suggestions

While this policy is in its nascent stage, we would like to put forward certain principles which we believe ought to be kept in mind before it gets chalked out, in the best interest of the ICANN community:

To determine what data sets should be made publicly accessible, it would be useful to carry out an analysis of existing DIDP requests to understand trends in the kind of information that the ICANN community is interested in accessing, which can then be proactively disclosed. It would be redundant on ICANN’s part to disclose, under this Open Data Policy, data which is already publicly available.
ICANN should first develop a catalog of all existing data sets with ICANN, apply the principles for deciding appropriateness for publication, then make publicly available both the full catalog, and the actual data sets identified for publication. ICANN should make clear the kind of information it is not going to make accessible under this open data standards, and justify the principles on the basis of which it is choosing to do so (analogous to the exceptions clauses under the DIDP).
With respect to technology to be selected for managing the publication of data sets, free and open source software (such as CKAN) ought to be used, and open standards should be adopted for the use and licensing of such data.
Such data ought to be downloadable in bulk in CSV/JSON/XML formats.
DIDP responses and the open data work flows ought to be integrated so that all the responses to DIDP requests are automatically published in a machine-readable format as open data.
Qualitative (text of speeches, slides from presentations, recordings of sessions, etc.) and quantitative data should both be included under this new policy.

In conclusion, we would like to extend our congratulations to ICANN on the development of this commendable new initiative, and would be honoured to support the creation of this living document before ICANN 58.

Endnotes

[1] Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN Kicks off Open Data Initiative Pilot, (November 6, 2016), available at https://www.icann.org/news/blog/icann-kicks-off-open-data-initiative-pilot (Last visited on November 9, 2016).

[2] Id.

[3] Naniette Coleman, Proactive vs. Reactive Transparency, (February 8, 2010), available at: http://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/proactive-vs-reactive-transparency (Last visited on November 9, 2016).

[4] Id.

[5] Freedom of Information Act, 1966, 5 U.S.C. § 552.

[6] Right to Information Act, 2005 available at http://righttoinformation.gov.in/rti-act.pdf

[7] ICANN, Documentary Information Disclosure Policy, available at https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/didp-2012-02-25-en (Last visited on November 9, 2016).

[8] Helen Darbishire, Proactive Transparency: The future of the right to information? Working paper. N.p.: World Bank, (2009).

[9] Id.

[10] Darbishire, supra note 8.

[11] Open Data Charter, Who We Are, available at http://opendatacharter.net/who-we-are/ (Last visited on November 10, 2016).

[12] Article III(1), Bylaws For Internet Corporation For Assigned Names And Numbers

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/icann-begins-its-sojourn-into-open-data

Open Data in Cultural Heritage – OpenGLAM in Germany

praskrishna — 2014-07-28T09:49:50Z

Subhashish Panigrahi took part in this event as a member of the OpenGLAM Working Group.

Read the details on the OpenGLAM website here. Images from the event can be seen at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:OpenGLAM_2014

Are you working in a cultural heritage institution, or interested in opening up cultural heritage data for wider reuse? On the morning prior to the start of the Open Knowledge Festival, the OpenGLAM initiative, DM2E project, Open Knowledge Germany and Wikimedia Deutschland are organising a half day workshop on open cultural data, with a special focus on German cultural heritage institutions.

During the OpenGLAM workshop, we will investigate and discuss the possibilities and obstacles of opening up your cultural data as an institution. After a round of inspiring presentation from initiatives like Europeana, Wikidata, the German Digital Library and Coding da Vinci we will continue the discussion how to overcome the barriers to opening up data in the cultural heritage sector.

Finally, we will hear from the successful local OpenGLAM groups currently active in Switzerland and Finland, and kickstart a local OpenGLAM network for German memory institutions interested in open cultural content and open access. We invite everyone to join and help think about the focus points for such a German OpenGLAM group for the future, and look forward to start up a fruitful collaboration!

Programme

9.30: Welcome & introduction to OpenGLAM – Lieke Ploeger, Open Knowledge

9.40: Lightning talks on the value of open data for cultural heritage institutions

We opened up – now what? An analysis of the open data policy of the Rijksmuseum – Joris Pekel, Europeana
1 year in digital cultural heritage – what were the walls I ran into most often & how to tear them down – Stephan Bartholmei, Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek
Wikidata – Making your data available and useful for everyone – Lydia Pintscher, Wikimedia Deutschland
How to use cultural heritage data: Coding Da Vinci results – Helene Hahn, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany
Experiences from German GLAM projects / GLAM-Wiki-Kollaborationen in der Wissenschaft - Daniel Mietchen, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin

10.30: Coffee Break

10.45: Debate on the current situation around openness in Germany

11.30: Forming a local German OpenGLAM group

With inspiring presentations of the OpenGLAM local groups from Switzerland & Finland

13.00: End

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/open-data-in-cultural-heritage

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

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

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

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 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

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

Wikipedia Introductory Session organized for Data and India portal consultants

subha — 2013-07-17T06:33:20Z

On May 13, 2013, the Access to Knowledge team led by Subhashish Panigrahi conducted a Wikipedia Introductory Session at the National Informatics Centre in New Delhi for the consultants working for Data and India portal. This session was aimed to emphasize how these portals and their useful data could be used on Wikipedia to create good quality articles.

Recently Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge team was invited to demonstrate the usefulness of Wikipedia for the consultants of National Informatics Centre (NIC) working for the Data.gov.in and the National Portal of India at NIC's New Delhi office. Data portal being one of the very important open data portal of the Government of India has worked immensely to populate over 2400 datasets from 32 departments participating in it.¹

Many of the data need to be transcribed in popular medias especially on web. Wikipedia being world's largest online encyclopedia could be one such primary platform to use these useful data. Subhashish from A2K team explained the usefulness of Wikipedia for the people associated with this project. The session went with discussing about policies, Manual of style and Five pillars of Wikipedia followed by a demonstration of editing articles on English Wikipedia. Post editing session there was a discussion session about the notability and how to check accuracy of articles by using valid references.

1 http://bit.ly/11DMH5w

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-introductory-session

Big Data, People's Lives, and the Importance of Openness

nishant — 2013-07-03T04:23:11Z

Openness has become the buzzword for everything in India right now. From the new kids on the block riding the wave of Digital Humanities investing in infrastructure of open knowledge initiatives to the rhetoric of people-centered open government data projects that are architected to create 'empowered citizens', there is an inherent belief that Opening up things will make everything good.

This blog post was published in DML Central on June 24, 2013.

I am not an Open-data party pooper. In fact, I firmly believe that opening up data – through hardware, through software, through intellectual property regimes on content – and enabling access to information and data is one of the most basic needs of the information age. I also advocate for strong policies that curb corporate and government control and monopolies over data and information. Along with my colleagues at the Centre for Internet and Society, and the many networks we work with, I have thought of myself as an open data advocate and have worked towards examining openness not only at the level of content, but also openness in infrastructure and conditions of access, distribution and storage. More than ever, it is necessary to build systems of Open Data that not only have distributed, collective and ethical ownership but also ensure the fair use and integration of information in our everyday life – especially given the sinister age of relentless remembering, as lives get incessantly archived through ubiquitous and pervasive technologies of portable computing.

Having said that, there is a strange thing happening around Openness right now. Openness seems to have been separated from the fact that it is a response to things being gated and closed. Openness, as it is being deployed right now, in e-government initiatives or rapid digitization processes in university libraries, seems to suggest that Openness is merely about making things in the physical format available in the digital medium. Hence, for example, the National Mission for Education through Information and Communication Technologies, India’s largest flagship government initiative to build learning conditions of the future, is investing almost all of its budget on digitizing historical and local language material in digitally intelligible and legible records that can be easily distributed. While the effort at building the infrastructure and preserving this material is absolutely worth supporting, making it the be-all and end-all of Open data initiatives is symptomatic of what I call the ‘politics of the benign’. We need to realize that Openness is not merely about making already available content in physical formats in the digital domain. Openness is about battles with Intellectual Property Regimes, which charge an extraordinary amount of money for high-value knowledge to anybody who wants to access it. In other words, openness is not about digitizing our grandparents’ pictures; it is about claiming access to knowledge and information hidden behind paywalls and gateways that is often produced using public resources.

As you can imagine, the perpetuation of this politics of benign fits many agendas; there are numerous stakeholders and actors who seek to neuter the radical nature of demands made by the Openness movements while retaining the vocabulary of political change. And that is why, if you look at the ways in which openness debates have changed, they get immediately deflected to questions around infrastructure, access, last-mile, etc. – which are all presented to us as the infrastructure of being political and being open. In the last few years, especially with Digital Humanities emerging as the playground where politics is not allowed, I find too many instances where the Humanities and Social Sciences questions get morphed into similar sounding questions that pretend to be the same but dislocate the political content and intention from the engagement.

One of the ways this works really well is by a separation of data from the lived reality of people. Data is seen as something that is out there – something that is about the real rather than the real. It is seen as an abstraction, which, when it further enters the circuits of pretty visualizations and graphic representations, becomes so entrenched in questions of reading and coding that it often becomes a surrogate for the larger realities that it is supposed to intervene in. So, for example, in India, the concerns around agriculture infrastructure and conditions of the farmers have easily been replaced by agriculture informatics – leading to a strange paradox where the states with the highest community informatics infrastructure also have the highest incidences of farmer suicides. I am not suggesting there is a cause-and-effect relationship here. However, it is a telling story that the community informatics infrastructure which was supposed to change the bleak realities of agriculture and farming in India has definitely not changed the nature of the reality it set out to solve.

Or in a similar vein, the ways in which the landscape of education is changing in the country, because of the emergence of the digital as the new organizing principle and in some instances, the raison de etre for building education infrastructure also needs to be examined. So, for instance, India has seen a rapid improvement of the Gross Enrollment Ratio in education that measures the annual intake and successful completion of education programs by students in the country. The GER shows that with remote education processes, the attempts at building distributed learning environments and the building of digital infrastructure has led to more students in different parts of the country getting enrolled in formal education systems. There is a celebration that more children are entering schools and colleges and are also in a state of socio-economic mobility. There is a clear causal relationship established in producing digital infrastructure and greater access to education and learning resources for an emerging information society like India.

However, this particular mode of looking at education, through the lens of access and inclusion, is no longer able to reflect on the core concerns that education institutions in the country were historically supposed to address. If the primary function of education was to address the questions of inequity, uneven modernity, disparate wealth distribution, and widespread socio-cultural conservatism, these are no longer questions that are featured in the Data-Technology driven education programs. These problems, which have been at the center of education debates in the country – leading to widespread affirmative action and violent resistance to it – have now been reformulated around quantifiable parameters of intake, credits, employability, affordability, accessibility, merit, etc. So there is silence about the nature of the students who enter education. There is an implicit push for the disinvestment of the state from education resources in favor of privatization. We remain enamored by the numbers joining the system, without worrying about the categories of discrimination – caste, gender, sexuality, language, location – that have affected the quality, intention and function of education. These issues have become moot points, to be replaced by visualizations and data sets that remain opaque in looking at the negotiations of identity politics and the need to embed education processes in lived realities of the students who enter formal education.

These problems are not new. And the intention of this articulation is not to deny the power of digital technologies or the opportunities they produce. Instead, it is a call to say that we need to stop thinking of data – an abstraction, an artifact, a manual product – as a natural state of being. We need to remind ourselves that engagement with data is not a sterile engagement, rendered beautiful through visualizations and infographics that can make reality intelligible. It is perhaps time to realize that Data has replaced People as the central concern of being human, social and political. Time to start re-introducing People back into debates around Data, and acknowledging that Data Informatics is People Informatics and data wars have a direct effect on the ways in which people live. And Die.

Banner image credit: sugree http://www.flickr.com/photos/73462957

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/dml-central-june-24-2013-nishant-shah-big-data-peoples-lives-and-importance-of-openness

International Open Data Charter: First Public Draft

sumandro — 2015-06-02T15:51:12Z

The first public draft of the International Open Data Charter was released at the International Open Data Conference in Ottawa, Canada, May 28-29, 2015. It is being developed by a range of organisations led by the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Open Data Working Group (co-chaired by Government of Canada and the Web Foundation), the Government of Mexico, the Open Data for Development (OD4D) Network, and Omidyar Network. CIS has contributed comments to a previous version of the draft, and also took part in the pre-release meeting of potential stewards of the Charter on May 26 in Ottawa. Here is the text of the draft Charter. Please visit opendatacharter.net/charter/ to submit your comments.

Consultation Draft, May 2015

Preamble

1) The world is witnessing the growth of a global movement facilitated by technology and digital media and fuelled by information – one that contains enormous potential to create more accountable, efficient, responsive, and effective governments and businesses, and to spur economic growth.

Open data sit at the heart of this global movement.

2) Building a more democratic, just, and prosperous society requires transparent, accountable governments that engage regularly and meaningfully with citizens. Accordingly, there is an ongoing effort to enable collaboration around key social challenges, to provide effective oversight of government activities, to support economic development through innovation, and to develop effective, efficient public policies and programmes.

Open data is essential to meeting these challenges.

3) Effective access to data allows individuals and organisations to develop new insights and innovations that can generate social and economic benefits to improve the lives of people around the world, and help to improve the flow of information within and between countries. While governments collect a wide range of data, they do not always share these data in ways that are easily discoverable, useable, or understandable by the public.

This is a missed opportunity.

4) Today, many people expect to be able to access high quality information and services, including government data, when and how they want. Others see the opportunity presented by government data as one which can provide innovative policy solutions and support economic and social benefits for all members of society. We have arrived at a point at which people can use open data to generate value, insights, ideas, and services to create a better world for all.

5) Open data can increase transparency around what government is doing. Open data can also increase awareness about how countries’ natural resources are used, how extractives revenues are spent, and how land is transacted and managed – all of which promotes accountability and good governance, enhances public debate, and helps to combat corruption.

6) Providing access to government data can drive sustainable and inclusive growth by empowering citizens, the media, civil society, and the private sector to identify gaps, and work toward better outcomes for public services in areas such as health, education, public safety, environmental protection, and governance. Open data can do this by:

showing how and where public money is spent, which provides strong incentives for governments to demonstrate that they are using public money effectively;
supporting citizens, civil society organisations, governments and the private sector to collaborate on the design of policies and the delivery of better public services;
supporting assessments of the impact of public programs, which in turn allows governments, civil society organisations, and the private sector to respond more effectively to the particular needs of local communities; and
enabling citizens to make better informed choices about the services they receive and the service standards they should expect.

7) Open government data can be used in innovative ways to create useful tools and products that help to navigate modern life more easily. Used in this way, open data are a catalyst for innovation in the private sector, supporting the creation of new markets, businesses, and jobs. These benefits can multiply as more private sector and civil society organisations adopt open data practices modelled by government and share their own data with the public.

8) We, the adherents to the International Open Data Charter, agree that open data are an under-used resource with huge potential to encourage the building of stronger, more interconnected societies that better meet the needs of our citizens and allow innovation and prosperity to flourish.

9) We therefore agree to follow a set of principles that will be the foundation for access to, and the release and use of, open government data. These principles are:

Open Data by Default;
Quality and Quantity;
Accessible and Useable by All;
Engagement and Empowerment of Citizens;
Collaboration for Development and Innovation;

10) We will develop an action plan in support of the implementation of the Charter and its Technical Annexes, and will update and renew the action plan at a minimum of every two years. We agree to commit the necessary resources to work within our political and legal frameworks to implement these principles in accordance with the technical best practices and timeframes set out in our action plan.

Principle 1: Open Data by Default

11) We recognise that free access to, and the subsequent use of, government data are of significant value to society and the economy, and that government data should, therefore, be open by default.

12) We acknowledge the need to promote the global development and adoption of tools and policies for the creation, use, and exchange of open data and information.

13) We recognise that the term ‘government data’ is meant in the widest sense possible. This could apply to data held by national, federal, and local governments, international government bodies, and other types of institutions in the wider public sector. This could also apply to data created for governments by external organisations, and data of significant benefit to the public which is held by external organisations and related to government programmes and services (e.g. data on extractives entities, data on transportation infrastructure, etc).

14) We recognise that there is domestic and international legislation, in particular pertaining to security, privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property, and personally-identifiable and other sensitive information, which must be observed and/or updated where necessary.

15) We will:

develop and adopt policies and practices to ensure that all government data is made open by default, as outlined in this Charter, while recognising that there are legitimate reasons why some data cannot be released;
provide clear justifications as to why certain data cannot be released;
establish a culture of openness, not only through legislative or policy measures, but also with the help of training and awareness programs, tools, and guidelines designed to make government, civil society, and private sector representatives aware of the benefits of open data; and
develop the leadership, management, oversight, and internal communication policies necessary to enable this transition to a culture of openness.

Principle 2: Quality and Quantity

16) We recognise that governments and other public sector organisations hold vast amounts of information that may be of interest to citizens, and that it may take time to identify data for release or publication.

17) We also recognise the importance of consulting with citizens, other governments, non-governmental organisations, and other open data users, to identify which data to prioritise for release and/or improvement.

18) We agree, however, that governments’ primary responsibility should be to release data in a timely manner, without undue delay.

19) We will:

create, maintain, and share public, comprehensive lists of data holdings to set the stage for meaningful public discussions around data prioritisation and release;
release high-quality open data that are timely, comprehensive, and accurate in accordance with prioritisation that is informed by public requests. To the extent possible, data will be released in their original, unmodified form and at the finest level of granularity available, and will also be linked to any visualisations or analyses created based on the data, as well as any relevant guidance or documentation;
ensure that accompanying documentation is written in clear, plain language, so that it can be easily understood by all;
make sure that data are fully described, and that data users have sufficient information to understand their source, strengths, weaknesses, and any analytical limitations;
ensure that open datasets include consistent core metadata, and are made available in human- and machine-readable formats under an open and unrestrictive licence;
allow users to provide feedback, and continue to make revisions to ensure the quality of the data is improved as needed; and
apply consistent information lifecycle management practices, and ensure historical copies of datasets are preserved, archived, and kept accessible as long as they retain value.

Principle 3: Accessible and Usable by All

20) We recognise that opening up data enables citizens, governments, civil society organisations, and the private sector to make better informed decisions.

21) We recognise that open data should be made available free of charge in order to encourage their widest possible use.

22) We recognise that when open data are released, they should be made available without bureaucratic or administrative barriers, such as mandatory user registration, which can deter people from accessing the data.

23) We will:

release data in open formats and free of charge to ensure that the data are available to the widest range of users to find, access, and use them. In many cases, this will include providing data in multiple formats, so that they can be processed by computers and used by people; and
ensure data can be accessed and used effectively by the widest range of users. This may require the creation of initiatives to raise awareness of open data, promote data literacy, and build capacity for effective use of open data.

Principle 4: Engagement and Empowerment of Citizens

24) We recognise that the release of open data strengthens our public and democratic institutions, encourages better development, implementation, and assessment of policies to meet the needs of our citizens, and enables more meaningful, better informed engagement between governments and citizens.

25) We will:

implement oversight and review processes to report regularly on the progress and impact of our open data initiatives;
engage with community and civil society representatives working in the domain of transparency and accountability to determine what data they need to effectively hold governments to account;encourage the use of open data to develop innovative, evidence-based policy solutions that benefit all members of society, as well as empower marginalised groups; and
be transparent about our own data collection, standards, and publishing processes, by documenting all of these related processes online.

Principle 5: Collaboration for Development and Innovation

26) We recognise the importance of diversity in stimulating creativity and innovation. The more citizens, governments, civil society, and the private sector use open data, the greater the social and economic benefits that will be generated. This is true for government, commercial, and non-commercial uses.

27) We recognise that the potential value of our open data is greatly increased when it can be used in combination with open data from other governments, the private sector, academic, media, civil society, and other non-governmental organisations.

28) We will:

create or explore potential partnerships to support the release of open data and maximise their impact through effective use. This may include local, regional, and global partnerships between governments, civil society, and the private sector;
engage with civil society, the private sector, and academic representatives to determine what data they need to generate social and economic value;
provide training programs, tools, and guidelines designed to ensure government employees are capable of using open data effectively in policy development processes;
encourage non-governmental organisations to open up data created and collected by them in order to move toward a richer open data ecosystem with multiple sources of open data;
share technical expertise and experience with other governments and international organisations around the world, so that everyone can reap the benefits of open data; and
empower a future generation of data innovators inside and outside of government by supporting an environment optimised for increasing open data literacy and encouraging developers, civil society organisations, academics, media representatives, government employees, and other open data users, to unlock the value of open data.

Crossposted from http://opendatacharter.net/charter/.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/international-open-data-charter-first-public-draft

Workshop on Open Data for Human Development

sumandro — 2015-06-02T15:34:06Z

Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Sunil Abraham will take part in the workshop being organised for government officials from Bhutan, Maldives, Meghalaya, Sikkim, and Tripura, by the International Centre for Human Development (IC4HD) of UNDP India, during June 3-6, 2015. The workshop will be held at the National Institute of Advanced Studies Campus in Bengaluru. Sunil will be one of the panelists in the opening discussion on 'data and transparency in governance,' and Sumandro will provide input for and lead the sessions on developing the draft implementation plan for the Sikkim Open Data Acquisition and Accessibility Policy. Sumandro worked with the IC4HD team to design the objectives and the agenda of the workshop.

Sikkim Open Data Acquisition and Accessibility Policy

Government of Sikkim passed the SODAA Policy in 2014 so as to streamline and open up the availability of “authentic data to buttress the achievements of the Government of Sikkim and to gather data on key metrics to be able to spur growth in all the areas of human development.” The Policy mandates setting up an open data portal, hosted by the State Data Centre of Sikkim, where data contributed by all the state government agencies will reside, and from which the same data will be made openly accessible to government agencies, non-government organisations, and private individuals alike. Only data that is shareable – data that is not part of negative list prepared by any government agency – and that is non-sensitive – data that does not contain information that can be used to identify any private individual – will be made available through this Sikkim open data portal. The Department of Information Technology of the Government of Sikkim has been assigned the role of being the nodal agency for coordinating and monitoring the implementation “of policy through close collaboration with all State Government Departments and agencies.”

Objectives of the Workshop

The Government of Sikkim understands that data collection, management, and reporting processes at the different departments must go through a structural reconfiguration before systematic and sustainable publication of data through this open data portal can be possible. This work will of course involve a long duration of change, and participation of a wide range of actors. The International Centre for Human Development, at UNDP India, is organising this workshop for Sikkim government officials to conceptualise and develop the outlines of an action strategy towards this goal of streamlining data acquisition and publication processes across government departments.

Discussions in this workshop will focus on the activities of four departments of the Government of Sikkim – Department of Health, Rural Management and Development Department (RMDD), Human Resource Development Department (HRDD), and Department of Agriculture. At least two officials from each of these departments would take part in the workshop. Apart from these departments, officials from Department of Information Technology (DIT), Department of Economic Statistics, Monitoring, and Evaluation (DESME), and others, will also participate.

Apart from government officials from Sikkim, those from Bhutan, Maldives, Meghalaya, and Tripura will also attend the workshop, so as to think ahead towards their respective open data initiatives.

Agenda of the Workshop

Day 1: June 3, 2015

Time	Session
0930-1000	Welcome and Introductions A.K. Shiva Kumar, Director, IC4HD P.D. Rai, Honourable Member of Parliament (LS) from Sikkim
1000-1100 Session 1	Panel Discussion Data and Transparency in Governance Moderator: P. D. Rai Panellists: Srivatsa Krishna, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka B. Gangaiah, Additional Director General, Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, The Centre for Internet and Society
1100-1130 Session 2	Sikkim Open Data Acquisition and Accessibility Policy Moderator: P. D. Rai Presentation by: T. Samdup, Joint Director, Department of Information Technology, Sikkim
1130-1200	Tea Break
1200-1300 Session 3	Implementing an Open Data Policy - Key Components Moderator: A. K. Shiva Kumar Presentation by: Sumandro Chattapadhyay, The Centre for Internet and Society
1300-1400	Lunch
1400-1430 Session 4	Group Exercise 1 Challenges of Opening up Government Data in Sikkim Facilitated by: Sumandro Chattapadhyay
1430-1530 Session 5	Mobile Phone-based Data Collection Introduction to Akvo FLOW Moderator: Meenaz Munshi, IC4HD Presentation by: Joy Ghosh and Amitangshu Acharya, AKVO
1530-1600	Tea Break
16:00-1730 Session 6	Group Exercise 2 Collecting Data Using Akvo FLOW Facilitated by: Joy Ghosh and Amitangshu Acharya, AKVO

Day 2: June 4, 2015

Time	Session
0930-1000 Session 7	Analysing, Visualising, and Publishing Data Moderator: Amitangshu Acharya Presentation by: Thejesh GN, DataMeet
1000-1045 Session 8	Collecting, Visualising, and Publishing Geographic Data Moderator: Amitangshu Acharya Presentation by: Shiv Ramachandran, MapBox
1045-1145 Session 9	Group Exercise 3 Organising, Analysing, Visualising, and Publishing Data Facilitated by: Thejesh GN and Shiv Ramachandran
1145-1200	Tea Break
1200-1300	Group Exercise 3 Organising, Analysing, Visualising, and Publishing Data (Continued)
1300-1400	Lunch
1400-1500 Session 10	Open Data and Health Management Presentation by: Dr. Shiban Ganju, Consultant, Ingalls Health, Harvey, Illinois, Chicago; Chair, Atrimed Health Consulting, Bangalore
1500-1600 Session 11	Open Data and Primary Education Presentation by: Gautam John, Karnataka Learning Partnership

Day 3: June 5, 2015

Time	Session
0930-1030 Session 12	Panel Discussion Regional Experiences and Reflections on Open Data Panellists: representative from Bhutan, and from Meghalaya
1030-1115 Session 13	Implementing National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy Presentation by: D. P. Misra, National Informatics Centre
1115-1130 Session 14	Group Exercise 4 Drafting the SODAAP Implementation Plan Facilitated by: Sumandro Chattapadhyay
1130-1200	Tea Break
1200-1300	Group Exercise 4 Drafting the SODAAP Implementation Plan (Continued)
1300-1400	Lunch
1400-1500 Session 15	Group Presentations Draft SODAAP Implementation Plan Moderator: P. D. Rai Facilitated by: Sumandro Chattapadhyay
1500-1530	Wrap-Up and Vote of Thanks

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/workshop-on-open-data-for-human-development-2015-06

Open Data Intermediaries in Developing Countries - A Synthesis Report

sumandro — 2015-06-16T09:40:58Z

The roles of intermediaries in open data is insufficiently explored; open data intermediaries are often presented as single and simple linkages between open data supply and use. This synthesis research paper offers a more socially nuanced approach to open data intermediaries using the theoretical framework of Bourdieu’s social model, in particular, his concept of species of capital as informing social interaction... Because no single intermediary necessarily has all the capital available to link effectively to all sources of power in a field, multiple intermediaries with complementary configurations of capital are more likely to connect between power nexuses. This study concludes that consideration needs to be given to the presence of multiple intermediaries in an open data ecosystem, each of whom may possess different forms of capital to enable the use and unlock the potential impact of open data.

This synthesis report is prepared by François van Schalkwyk, Michael Caňares, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, and Alexander Andrason, based on the analysis of a sample of cases from the Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries (ODDC) research network managed by the World Wide Web Foundation and supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada. Data on intermediaries were extracted from the ODDC reports according to a working definition of an open data intermediary presented in this paper, and with a focus on how intermediaries link actors in an open data supply chain.

Below is an excerpt from the report. The full report can be accessed from Figshare or from Github.

Implications for Policy

The practical implications of the findings presented here are not insignificant. Given that most of the open data intermediaries in this study were found to rely on donor in order to execute their open data-related social benefit activities, it is perhaps funders who should take heed of the findings presented here when making grants. For example, where a single agency is awarded a funding grant to improve the lives of citizens using open data, questions need to be asked whether the grantee possesses all the types of capital required not only to re-use open data but to connect open data to specific user groups in order to ensure the use and impact of open data. Questions to be asked of grantees could include: “Who are the specific user groups or communities that you expect to use the data, information or product you are making available?”; “Does your organisation have existing links to these user groups or communities?”; and “What types of channels are in place for you to communicate with these user groups or communities?”. Alternatively donor funders may rethink awarding funding to single agencies in favour of funding partnerships or collaborations in which there is a greater spread of types of capital across multiple actors thereby increasing the likelihood of effectively linking the supply and use of open data. Such an approach would be more in line with an ecosystems approach to multiple actors being participants in the data supply and (re)use of open data, and the importance of keystone species and positive feedback loops to ensure a healthy system.

In addition to highlighting the importance of social capital in developing-country innovations systems, Intarakummerd and Chaoroenporn (2013) point to the importance of government initiating and coordinating the activities of both public and private intermediaries. Our findings indicate that should governments adopt such a co-ordinating role in the case of open data intermediaries, they would do well to engage with a broad spectrum of intermediaries, and not simply focus on intermediaries who possess only the technical capital required to interpret and repackage open government data. To be sure, this will be a challenging role for government to assume as conflicting vested interests are likely to surface. Although speculative, it is possible that such a coordinating role is likely to work best when there is a strong pact between all actors involved. And this, in turn, will require a common vision of the value and benefits of open data – something that cannot be taken for granted.

Should there be agreement on the value and benefits of open data, our findings show that most of the intermediaries in our study are NGOs that rely on donor funding. This should raise serious questions about the sustainability of open data initiatives that are civic-minded in conjunction with questions about what incentives other than that of donor funding could ensure the supply and use of open data beyond project funding. Funders and supporters of open data initiatives may have to think not only about the value and benefits or funding projects, but of the sustainability and the impacts of the products produced by the projects they fund.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-data-intermediaries-in-developing-countries

CIS Signs MoU with Odia Virtual Academy

sailesh — 2018-12-20T00:24:44Z

On October 26, 2018, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Odia Virtual Academy (OVA) to work on drafting an open content policy for the state, to promote use of Wikimedia projects by various user types and to ensure sustainability of Wikimedia projects, and to facilitate development of relevant free and open source software projects. This partnership between OVA and CIS will be carried out from December 2018 to November 2019, and we are sharing an overview of the activities and their objectives in this post.

The internet is increasingly significant as a knowledge repository today. Especially relevant in this context is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which contains information on almost every topic under the sun, across many languages spoken globally, and is used extensively all people to seek information and produce knowledge.

From past one year (since July 2017), The Government of Odisha has been actively participating in the open knowledge movement by publishing the content of their seven websites and eight social media accounts under Creative Commons 4.0 International license. This active collaboration with Government of Odisha and an active Odia Wikimedia community seeking to create and distribute knowledge in Odia language over the internet has resulted in improving 1,200 articles on different Wikimedia projects, and together has received a near about 16 Million page views. Further, the Government of Odisha adopting an open content policy will provide a significant boost in institutionalising creation, sharing, and re-use of open knowledge resources - including government documents, official statistics, open educational resources, and open cultural resources - in Odia language.

Odia Virtual Academy (OVA) is an organisation established by Government of Odisha for development, promotion and popularization of Odia language, literature, and lexicography for general use. It is an organised initiative to encourage expeditious evolution and popularisation of Odia books, magazines, journals, old songs, manuscripts, assembly speeches, and archival records by digitising and providing internet based resources and opportunities for all odia people living across the globe.

On October 26, 2018, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) signed a MoU with the Odia Virtual Academy to work on drafting an open content policy for the state, to promote use of Wikimedia projects by various user types and to ensure sustainability of Wikimedia projects, and to facilitate development of relevant free and open source software projects.

This partnership between OVA and CIS will be carried out from December 2018 to November 2019, and its activities are structured by the following objectives:

Open Content Policy for the Government of Odisha: The open content policy will include guidelines for the use of open licenses and open standards to enable the resource (text, resources or otherwise) publishing entity to share resources in a manner that it can be easily and freely be accessed, shared, and re-used by entities, without asking for prior permission, while ensuring that full attribution to the creator/publisher is provided and the resources are not misused, or the creator/publisher is not misrepresented in the process.
Developing Digital and Open Knowledge Resources in Odia Language: The CIS team will undertake awareness-building, training, and outreach activities to develop Odia language content on Wikimedia ecosystem, as well as to enable content creators from across institutions, with a focus on state government officials at district headquarters and college students. The broad mandate of the digital resource generation workshop is to introduce teachers, students, and interested citizens to tools of collaborative knowledge production on the internet and methods for generating new online content or reintroduce offline content in Odia language.
‘Revive Odia’ Activities: Odia as a language has a long tradition and has been medium of expression for the native speakers of Odisha. While Odia as a language of communication is not under any immediate threat, its role and responsibility as a language of Knowledge needs to be examined carefully. ‘Revive Odia’ activities have a simple objective: To bring Odia under limelight in the digital domain. Wikimedia projects in Odia language are working actively to increase the presence of Odia language on the Internet. If such projects can be supported new projects can be incubated, Odia will emerge as the language of knowledge production and distribution as well.
GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) Partnerships: Wikimedia ecosystem offer several platforms for using the power and opportunities of internet to (digitally) preserve, enable access to, and creative re-use of historical, cultural, and social artefacts, and channel the expertise of local populations to build narratives around these artefacts. The CIS team is particularly interested in initiating engagement with public GLAM institutions at various locations and levels, and work with academic and research community to build scientific metadata of these objects. The metadata will be used to represent the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Odisha in projects such as Wikidata.
Building and Supporting FOSS for Odia Language: To promote and enable usage of Odia language on the web, the CIS team will facilitate development of an Odia font, an input tool, and a spell-check dictionary - all of which will be released as FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) resources.

To undertake these activities, CIS will receive a grant of Rs 20,00,000 (~$28,000) from OVA.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-signs-mou-with-odia-virtual-academy

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Programme

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1. Name

Recommendation:

2. Scope and Enforceability

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3. Categorization

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4. Licence

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5. Integrity of the data

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6. Authenticity of the data

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7. Archival and versioning

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8. Open standards

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9. Citizen interaction

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10. Principles, including 'Protection of Intellectual Property'

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CIS Signs MoU with Odia Virtual Academy