Vancouver city council has endorsed the principles of making its data open and accessible to everyone where possible, adopting open standards for that data and considering open source software when replacing existing applications. ...
[City councillor Andrea] Reimer had argued that supporting the motion would allow the city to improve transparency, cut costs and enable people to use the data to create new useful products, including commercial ones. She had also noted that taxpayers paid for the data to be collected in the first place. ...
According to Reimer, only a few other cities such as Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Toronto have started moving toward this kind of increased openness. ...
City of Toronto mayor David Miller announced [the city]'s plans for an open data catalouge at Mesh09 [Toronto, April 7-8, 2009] last week. Miller, who is in charge of the 6th largest government body in Canada, made a strong case for the benefits of open government data. His arguments (transcribed from video) deserve repeating:
... I am very pleased to announce today at Mesh09 the development of http://toronto.ca/open, which will be a catalogue of city generated data. The data will be provided in standardized formats, will be machine readable, and will be updated regularly. This will be launched in the fall of 2009 with an initial series of data sets, including static data like schedules, and some feeds updated in real time.
The benefits to the city of Toronto are extremely significant. Individuals will find new ways to apply this data, improve city services, and expand their reach. By sharing our information, the public can help us to improve services and create a more liveable city. And as an open government, sharing data increases our transparency and accountability. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 5/26/2009 03:36:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
