Open Access News

The Queensland government in Australia has released a major new report, Government Information and Open Content Licensing: An Access and Use Strategy Government Information Licensing Framework Project prepared by the Queensland Spatial Information Council.  Although it's dated October 2006, it was not released until June 2007.  Excerpt:

1.  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.1 This report outlines work undertaken during Stage 2 of the Government Information Licensing Framework Project.

1.2 Stage 1 of the project resulted in endorsement by the Queensland Spatial Information Council (QSIC) and the Information Queensland Steering Committee of an open content licensing model, based on Creative Commons (CC).

1.3 Stage 2 of the project was initiated to bring QSIC licensing arrangements up to date, and to create a Draft Government Information Licensing Framework based on an open content licensing model to support data and information transactions between the Queensland Government, other government jurisdictions and the private sector.

1.4 Other jurisdictions in Australia and overseas are moving to more open access and use arrangements to support social and economic development, and are introducing policies and principles and implementing appropriate licences to support this move. Background research during Stage 2 has resulted in the recommendation that the Queensland Government also move to open access and use arrangements, balanced with appropriate protection for private and confidential information collected or held by government.

1.5 The project proved valuable in testing the CC licences against a sample of existing licences used within the Queensland Government. A detailed legal analysis of existing licences was undertaken to identify key characteristics and to map these to CC licence provisions....

1.9 There is an opportunity to progress a generic standard for government information licensing in partnership with CC....

2. RECOMMENDATIONS

2.1 That the Queensland Government establish a policy position that, while ensuring that confidential, security classified and private information collected and held by government continues to be appropriately protected, enables greater use and re-use of other publicly available government data and facilitates data-sharing arrangements.

2.2 That the CC open content licensing model be adopted by the Queensland Government to enable greater use of publicly available government data and to support data-sharing arrangements.

2.3 That QSIC and the Office of Economic and Statistical Research continue to work closely with the Department of Justice and Attorney-General to ensure that any privacy provisions developed also support new data use, re-use and sharing policies....

2.5 That the Draft Government Information Licensing Framework toolkit, which incorporates the six iCommons (Creative Commons Australia) licences, be endorsed for use in pilot projects proposed for Stage 3....