I’m a big fan of opening up as much public sector information as possible in easily discoverable and reusable ways (taking into account privacy, security and commercial-in-confidence considerations). The data allows citizens and organisations to build a more informed view of their government’s activities, a good accountability measure. It also allows the development of useful…
Joining the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and a host of other jurisdictions already leading the way around the world, the Australian Government has now launched its official government data sharing website, www.data.gov.au Announced by Special Minister of State, Gary Gray, in the post Release of data.gov.au on AGIMO’s blog, Minister Gray said that,…
In a initiative to improve electoral records, the NSW electoral commission is asking citizens to geocode their own location. The initiative relies on the prevalence of GPS units in peoples’ smartphones and other devices, coupled with an online system which allows people to locate their homes online and confirm that they have been mapped correctly…
Government is the master of the written word. Across Australian governments we probably produce billions of them each year, carefully organised into documents designed to impart knowledge and influence decisions. If you were to consider a medium-size agency producing, let’s estimate, twenty 100 page reports each year, fifty 2-page media releases and 200 4-page minutes,…
Following on from our last exercise, Reasons for not releasing data in government, we’ve been discussing the benefits and risks of increasing (online) collaboration and consultation with citizens. Below is what the room came up with (and discussed). Please add your own in the comments. Note this is a raw dump – I’ve not sorted…
We’re in the first workshop of the day at the CEBIT Gov 2.0 conference. It is led by Andrew Stott, the Director for Digital Engagement for the UK government. The first exercise of the day has been to come up with reasons that government may give for not releasing data online. I don’t know if…
Last year Australia’s Gov 2.0 Taskforce initiated the GovHack event, produced by Web Directions, to showcase what could be done with open government data. This year I’m glad to see that GovHack is returning – as part of Amped, a free 10 hour hack day, in Sydney’s PowerHouse Museum on Sat 16th of October. Whether…
The US government recently launched Challenge.gov, a site allowing US agencies to manage and promote challenges, prizes and competitions where the community is asked to help solve a wide range of public governance issues – all in one central location. The challenge concept is a simple one. By tapping into the wisdom of crowds governments…
Business.gov.au has introduced a social media section to its website. While this type of approach has become quite widespread overseas, providing a central hub to access all of an agency’s social media engagement tools, business.gov.au is one of the first Australian government websites to provide this type of hub. At the same time business.gov.au has…
The Guardian reported in July that the UK government has released details on the costs of developing, staffing and hosting their major government websites. The data includes web traffic, accessibility and user opinions on the websites. This type of data is very useful when modeling the costs of developing and operating government sites, allowing agencies…
This archive mirrors the original eGov AU blog — Craig’s professional commentary on AI, digital government and technology in public life, running since 2006.
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