Local councils have been told to open up their vast resources of data about the environments in which we live, work and play. The latest annual survey of local e-government includes a plea to authorities "to get a permissive copyright policy on your website, publish your data in a way that computers can read easily, don't charge for your data and respond positively to people who ask you for basic data sets".
The message, in the Better Connected survey of local government websites, is a welcome reminder of councils' pivotal place in the three-year campaign to Free Our Data. ...
Neither the Office of Public Sector Information nor the Cabinet Office, which for the past year has promoted free data as part of its "Power of Information" agenda, can order councils to set their data free. The message relies more on peer pressure - it will be read by the council managers who would be responsible for making technical changes to set data free. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 4/05/2009 06:14:00 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.
