28/04/2010

El Gobierno Vasco ha lanzado Open Data Euskadi, el nuevo portal de acceso a la información pública de esa administración autonómica en formato reutilizable.

Este sitio, desarrollado sobre la base jurídica de la Ley 37/2007, de Reutilización de la información del sector público, aspira a garantizar los principios de transparencia, participación ciudadana, servicio y eficiencia vinculados a dicha norma y a los compromisos de Gobierno Abierto formulados por el Ejecutivo de Vitoria.

23/04/2010

Regulation (EU) No 268/2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council came into force on the 19th April 2010.

This Regulation, published by the European Commision in the Official Journal of the European Union Commission of 29 March 2010, regards the access to spatial data sets and services of the Member States by Community institutions and bodies under harmonised conditions.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

22/04/2010

Sunlight Labs is holding a civic design contest, Design for America, in an effort to “make government data more accessible and comprehensible to the American public.”

Categories are Data Visualization, Process Transparency and Redesigning the Government.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

22/04/2010

As part of the First Lady’s campaign to combat childhood obesity, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in February launched the Your Food Environment Atlas – an online mapping tool of the nation’s access to food at the county level.

The tool, developed by the USDA Economic Research Service, also happens to serve the dual role of becoming one of three datasets that Agriculture plans to add to its contributions to Data.gov as agencies continue to comply with the White House Open Government Directive.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

20/04/2010

The UK Government HM Treasury has announced in the UK Parliament and published the Budget Statement.

Chapter 6 of the Budget report, titled Protecting public service’s states, anticipates by the end of April 2010 a substancial packaged of local data will be available via the data.gov website.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

16/04/2010

Subsequent to the recent consultation on Ordnance Survey data and Gordon Brown’s commitment to opening up an unspecified amount of the data in a speech last month, the UK’s mapping agency is releasing now a significant portion of their data for free use by the public.

It is the most important step made in the Ordnance Survey's history (from 1750) and a break from its previous financial model, under users had to pay for every information.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

16/04/2010

Opensource.com, blog about open source software, has devoted its last comments to explain why open formats are essential for sharing and preserving government data.

The post remembers that with the advent of Internet some public agencies began sharing records online. However, what was posted was extremely limited, incomplete, and stored in a format that was impossible to use for anything beyond a cursory search of individual records.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

15/04/2010

The City of Vancouver has opened up its public data and most of this has been imported into the Windows Azure cloud on the Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) website.

Now, Microsoft Canada and a Vancouver-based developer, Nitobi, have developed VanGuide, a web and mobile based social mapping application that enables citizens to tag, rate and comment on Vancouver landmarks and locations, such as schools, libraries, drinking fountains, fire halls, community centres, bus / train stops, and parking lots.

This app is explained on You Tube.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

14/04/2010

Gov 2.0 Expo, co-produced by O'Reilly Media, Inc. and UBM TechWeb, is providing a first glance at the key speakers, topics, and themes that apply technology best practices to improve transparency, efficiency, and cost containment in government programs.

Gov 2.0 Expo will give government employees and contractors access to the practical tools, in-depth training, and new technologies needed to build a 21st century government.

Gov 2.0 Expo will take place May 25-27, 2010 at the Washington Convention Center in Washington DC.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

14/04/2010

Chris Corbin, Advisor to the European Public Sector Information Platform, has made a presentation that provides a brief status report on the progress Europe has made over the last decade on PSI re-use.

The information, presented on Turin (Italy) at the end of March, briefly provides answers to questions such as what EU is doing to promote PSI re-use, how Member States have implemented regulations or what are the current issues that are restraining economiic activity within the European market.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

13/04/2010

Government modernisers in Asia and Europe have stressed the importance of building transparent official web sites as a way to boost citizen trust.

Public sector experts from Singapore and the Netherlands say that public sector web sites that seek to embrace transparency should not simply be a repository for information on the organisation’s functions: it should have functionalities that enable citizens to locate the information they need efficiently and effectively.

Spanish version:versión en castellano

13/04/2010

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced wide-ranging plans to open up UK government data. In addition to a general promise to extend the existing commitments to “make public data public” he announced the opening up of a large and important set of transport data and a commitment to open up a significant amount of Ordnance Survey data.

In a speech, last month, on “Building Britain’s Digital Future”, the PM also announced an online e-”domesday” book giving “an inventory of all non-personal datasets held by departments and arms-length bodies.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

08/04/2010

La Dirección General del Catastro de España ha convocado un encuentro para los días 1 y 2 de junio en Madrid sobre reutilización de la información catastral.

Este acto, que se enmarca dentro de las actividades preparadas por la Presidencia Española de la Unión Europea, está destinado a propiciar el contacto y el debate entre las distintas administraciones públicas europeas y las empresas usuarias y/o transformadoras de dicha información.

El plazo de inscripción para estas jornadas finaliza el 21 de mayo de 2010.

06/04/2010

Cologne-based libraries and the Library Centre of Rhineland-Palatinate (LBZ) in cooperation with the North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Center (hbz) have became the first German libraries to adopt the idea of Open Access for bibliographic data by publishing their catalog data for free public use.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

06/04/2010

The Opendata Hackday is a two day barcamp-style meetup on 17/18 April 2010. The goal of the event is to demonstrate that it’s possible to progam creative and innovative prototypes and applications, in short time and on a low budget, that allow us to make data from politics and public administration accessible and usable.

Spanish version: versión en castellano

06/04/2010

Las Administraciones Estatales de Archivos de 14 Estados de la UE, además de Europeana (Red Temática de Patrimonio Cultural y Científico de Europa), han sellado un acuerdo con la Comisión Europea para la creación en España del Portal Europeo de Archivos y Documentos (APEnet).

Este portal, que se enmarca dentro de un proyecto coordinado por el Ministerio de Cultura de España, permitirá el acceso a través de Internet a cerca de 15 millones de objetos digitales y unos 3 millones de descripciones archivísticas normalizadas .