Discussion & opinion
Social information like crime maps require skills of the users as well as the publishers
Michael Grimes
Tuesday 1 February 2011
The UK Police have published their crime map, showing levels of crime by street and postcode. But will this culture of publicly visible information have the positive impact that we hope it will, or can that happen only if we develop our skills and attitudes?
The ability to see the stark figures of reported crime on [...]
One year on, geek opinion of data.gov.uk is divided; but what do publishers think?
Michael Grimes
Friday 21 January 2011
To mark the first year of data.gov.uk The Guardian looks at both the enthusiasm and skepticism of people who want data to be free and re-usable, while I want to know how publishers see it.
In ‘Government data UK: what’s really been achieved?‘ Simon Rogers and Charles Arthur discover that concerns felt by developers include the [...]
Have your say on the Localism Bill
Michael Grimes
Tuesday 18 January 2011
You can now have your say on the UK government’s Localism Bill. It’s just a shame it’s not as easy as it could be.
There are lots of different things to read, and you have to email your response.
A key plank of the Bill is to make more data available and give the public greater power [...]
UK public data to be overseen by a new single body
Michael Grimes
Friday 14 January 2011
On Wednesday the Cabinet Office announced plans for a Public Data Corporation, which will be responsible for the availability of UK government data.
The Corporation will attempt to:
“…bring together Government bodies and data into one organisation and provide an unprecedented level of easily accessible public information and drive further efficiency in the delivery of [...]
More clarity please about the jurisdiction of ‘open standards’
Michael Grimes
Monday 10 January 2011
I keep coming across neat tools that claim to support ‘open government’ and ‘open standards’, but have no indication of which governments or regions they are relevant to.
The Open Data Standards website is a case in point. It’s facilitating the development and fine-tuning of open standards, but for a while I suspected that it was [...]
Open Data Publisher: useful tool for publishing open government data?
Michael Grimes
Monday 10 January 2011
I’ve just come across Open Data Publisher, which claims to be ‘the easiest way to start publishing Open Government data if you are already using SQL Server’.
I don’t know anything about it and the website is quite technical. Also I don’t know if it’s useful to UK local authorities or only relevant to Canada.
Do you [...]
‘Lets not pretend it’s simple’
Louise Kidney
Wednesday 5 January 2011
As I watched my Twitter stream flash past about a week ago (allegedly on holiday but never quite managing) I noticed ‘lets not pretend opendata is simple’ scroll up. I can’t remember who it was the comment came from but it rang very true for me. And here’s why.
I work for the digital team for [...]
If charities are to deliver public services will they need to release data?
Michael Grimes
Tuesday 14 December 2010
The UK government yesterday confirmed its commitment to devolving some power to the voluntary sector, and to ensuring data is made available for the public scrutiny of public services.
“The best contribution that central government can make [to the Big Society] is to devolve power, money and knowledge to those [...]
…Continue reading 'If charities are to deliver public services will they need to release data?'Is this blog useful?
Michael Grimes
Sunday 12 December 2010
This blog was intended as a helpful resource. Is that the case, or is it just another well-meaning but unnecessary piece of online clutter?
I was intending to highlight Leicestershire’s 2008 Place Survey results in my examples of local authorities using open data well, but I don’t really know if it is one. Certainly it’s [...]
‘Open data’ is not the same as ‘publicly available data’
Michael Grimes
Friday 10 December 2010
In an interesting article on opensource.com, Melanie Chernoff complains about how the terms ‘open data’ and ‘publicly available data’ are being used interchangeably. I have to confess I’m guilty of that.
“Simply put, all open data is publicly available. But not all publicly available data is open.
“Open data does not mean that a government or other [...]
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