By Tim Davies on May 5, 2013
I spent most of last week at the 2013 Web Science Conference. Although I’ve been working on my PhD in Web Science for about 18 months (now part-time, as I work on the Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries project with the Web Foundation), it was the first big Web Science [...]
Posted in PHD | Tagged websci13
By Tim Davies on April 21, 2013
The 2012 issue of Global Information Society Watch was focussed on ‘The Internet and Corruption’, exploring how online technologies are being used in the fight against corruption across the world. GIS Watch is focussed on country level analysis of information society issues around the world, but also includes a number of wider articles. I was asked [...]
Posted in Governance, International Development, Publications
By Tim Davies on February 12, 2013
[Summary: very rough and speculative notes in response to a land coalition online dialogue] The land coalition are hosting a online dialogue until 20th Feb looking at “using online platforms to increase access to open data and share best practices of monitoring women’s land rights”. It’s an interesting topic for a dialogue particularly given one [...]
Posted in International Development, Open Data
By Tim Davies on February 5, 2013
The evaluation of open data initiatives has become an increasingly pressing concern for many. As open data initiatives have proliferated, there have been a number of attempts to develop assessment, monitoring and measurement frameworks that can inform policy, and that will support comparative assessment of different open data efforts, or that can guide the creation [...]
Posted in Open Data
By Tim Davies on January 17, 2013
[Summary: brief reflections on the dynamics of transparency in developing countries] Doug Hadden of FreeBalance (developers of Public Financial Management software) has posed the question “What are the Incentives for Transparency in Developing Country Governments?“. Doug notes that many of their developing countries customers have been interested in implementing transparency portals such as Transparency.gov.tl, and [...]
Posted in International Development
By Tim Davies on December 20, 2012
[Summary: A brief critique of the 'openness score'] A recent Cabinet Office press release, picked up Kable Government Computing states that: “The average openness score for all departments is 52%”. What’s an openness score I hear you ask? Well, apparently it’s “based on the percentage of the datasets published by each department and its arms-length [...]
Posted in UK National Goverment
By Tim Davies on December 13, 2012
I’ve just come across a report from Science Wise on an ‘Open Data dialogue’ they held earlier this year. The dialogue brought together 40 demographically diverse members of the UK public to discuss how they felt about the application of open data policies to research data. Whilst the dialogue was centred on research data rather [...]
Posted in Governance
By Tim Davies on December 11, 2012
Below is the pre-print full text of an article of mine forthcoming in the 2012/13 edition of the Commonwealth Governance Handbook. You can find a PDF copy over here. How might open data contribute to good governance? Access to information is increasingly recognised as a fundamental component of good governance. Citizens need access to information [...]
Posted in Open Data, Other Governments
By Tim Davies on December 10, 2012
In October the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information (APPSI) released a short discussion paper based on the idea of building a ‘National Information Framework’ to build an ‘information infrastructure’ for the United Kingdom. The idea of an information infrastructure draws upon the metaphor of physical infrastructure – noting that governments play a role planning, [...]
Posted in Open Data, UK National Goverment
By Tim Davies on December 3, 2012
[Summary: notes on another open data consultation response] As if to provide plenty of opportunities for procrastination from working on my PhD, government is providing a constant stream of open data related consultations right now. Next up, a consultation on the Code of Practice to be issued concerning the ‘Right to Data’ introduced by the [...]
Posted in Open Data, UK National Goverment
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