About Social Media Today
The Transparency Programme is focused first on helping local authorities to release expenditure data and other required sets by January. Getting the data out there, open, re-usable and done as easily as possible – addressing redaction, licensing and the impacts of releasing expenditure data.
It’s also focused on making this data useful to local authorities themselves, supporting standards which will help comparability. Helping us to move toward linked data which can help us combine and share information more cheaply and effectively.
Right now, open data, particularly expenditure data, can feel like just a big stick to beat councils with. A source for journalists to pick through and find the most embarrassingly labeled bits of spend. (And yes, I’m sorry to say I did have to snicker a bit at the CLG spend on Indian Head Massage). But open data and linked data are actually huge opportunities for public bodies and citizens. And we need to do more to present the wider opportunities and the possibilities of sharing public data in re-usable formats with open licenses, some of the things that are presented in the San Francisco and London showcases.
Some great current opportunities:
1. NESTA currently has funding available to councils to begin working with open data and contact information is available in the social media community of practice. But hurry, application deadline is 20 August 2010.
2. CityCamp London is coming to a London near you – 8-10 October. This is a three day event for practitioners, academics, data folk and developers to work collaboratively to explore the possibilities of open data and the web. Day 1 is an exploration, presenting the possibilities, Day 2 is a participative unconference/ barcamp and Day 3 is a hands on collaborative development and planning day for those who’d like to take the ideas further. Tickets aren’t available YET (except for event sponsors) – but go and register your interest NOW – you’ll be emailed when FREE tickets become available – you do not have to attend the whole thing. And you don’t have to be from London either, but the context will be mainly London – which is just as well – as that’s where most of the open data is right now.
3. In a more focused way, the Knowledge Hub (the replacement the Communities of Practice space and more) is establishing working groups on various aspects of the platform – and one of them is a data group. This will look at both data architecture within the Knowledge Hub, sources of data and innovative uses of open data. Find out more in the Knowledge Hub Community of Practice.
