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okfest_civic_data_API
Other content migrated and moved to https://pad.okfn.org/p/Open_Decisions_APIs
SKYPE MEETING BOSTON HELSINKI 8.4.2014
Participants: Juha, Markus Petteri, Antti, James T, Jaakko, Aleksi
Background about Open Civic Data -project
- Who are behind the project
- Team is part of Sunlight Foundation
- The project is funded by google.org
- At the moment no politicians involved or supporting, but some civil cervants do support
- First cities to be approached
- NY and Chicago
- Kansas City
- Also collaboration with the Canadians and Chileans
Some practical questions:
- If we harmonize the initiatives technically, should we also go under the same name / brand?
- How is the Open Civic Data API site and project managed?
- What are the important issues to be discussed face-to-face
- Scope of the API - should it be targetted more fore cities or for all kinds of decision making bodies?
- The differences are mostly superficial (for example cities, states, counties etc.), all the data deals people, organizations and topics (decisions)
- Differences between nations might be bigger
- Small common core + optional parts of API
- Which stakeholders should we involve in this early stage?
- Maybe not so many yet? / Jogi
Next steps: What should be done now (Before Chile / Transparency Camp / Berlin)
- Juha will start using popolo specification
- Meeting in Chile comes very soon and it is a bit different, but we could have a session about this in Chile
- Geocoding stuff is interesting and could be implemented in the OCD data model
- Terminology "bill" vs "issue" in Finland cities don't have city code or city legislation -> make the concept of bill more generic
- Jogi will contact OKF central (Rufus Pollock & Laura James) about the possibility to collaborate Internationally
- James' team was invited to co-host a democracy monitoring API standartization workshop at the Open Knowledge Festival 2014
- What kind of prerequisites and commitments does the developers hold for prolifirating and lobbying the API?
- Does The Open Civic Data API crew find their chosen brand good for proliferating and is it open for participation in practice?
- Should we discuss with the Sunlight Foundation's executives - who would be the right person to address to about global proliferation strategy?
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OKfestival Proposal
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First Name*: Markus Petteri
Last Name*: Laine
E-mail Address*: Petteri.Laine@okf.fi
Organisation: Open Knowledge Foundation Finland
Twitter account: Patteri77
Blog/ Personal Website:
If your session will be co-facilitated with others, please note their names here:
Antti "Jogi" Poikola, jogi@okf.fi
James McKinney james@opennorth.ca
Andrew Stott andrew [dot] stott [at] dirdigeng [dot] com
Markus Petteri Laine, Petteri.Laine@okf.fi
K. Scott Hubli, NDI, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, shubli@ndi.org
Jaakko Korhonen, jaakko@okf.fi
Stream*:
Session Title*: Decisions API
Session description* Max 1000 characters
Global meeting of the key developers of Democracy Monitoring API's. The session aims at
A) Survey of the Document Management Systems used for global public governance in order to understand better the information systems context we are working with
B) Working out and agreeing upon a global Decisions Data standard framework or choosing not to build a common standard,
C) Drafting a roadmap for global proliferation of public governance decissions making API's.
Session motivation*
Relevant search specific local Decisions data takes a lot of time and effort to find from the varying forms of non-machine readable documents. Even the decision makers themselves do not have a clear understanding of the causal relations leading to current Decision making agenda. The lack of shared memory in governance leads to frustration and repetitive work. In order for the democratic process to work, a democracy needs an enlightened electorate who can make fact based voting decisions. If the civil servants, journalists and media can not follow up on the chain of events leading to a public decision - no enlightened electorate can exist - if the electorate is not aware of the political development, the criteria of modern democracy is not met. Open Decisions session aims at bringing together global Decisions making API developers and users to troubleshoot and build common understanding of the developing information ecosystem enabling the development of second generation democracy monitoring applications.
Session outcomes*
A) Mapping the global public governance Document Management Systems in order to understand better the context we are participating in.
B) Working out and agreeing upon a global Decisions Data standard framework or choosing not to build a common standard.
C) Drafting a roadmap for Global proliferation
D) Recognizing use cases and maturity levels for different API's
How would the session be structured?*
* Short 5 min introductions of the current status by OKFFI, NDI and OpenCIvicData representatives
* Division to co-writing working groups A, B, and C.
* Delivery presentations 5 min each group + 5 min Q&A
* Wrap up and follow up procedure for year 2014
How does your session contribute to OKFestival’s narrative and aims?*
When launched the Open Decisions API alignement opens a whole variety of possibilities for new application developers who wish to utilize the decisions data.
Is this session appropriate and interesting for a younger audience (under 18)?*:
The session is appropriate for younger audiences, but it might prove to be quite advanced and hard to follow.
Would you prefer to facilitate your session in a language other than English? If so, what language?:
Will your session involve physical movement?*:
Forming working groups.
If so, how will you ensure that people with all levels of physical ability are able to participate?:
The session organizers would like to request a suitable venue for the event.
Please indicate if you'd like support from the staff in planning:
We need a big screen and three table groups.