Data Liberation Initiative
Alex
up tons of data files, surveys and research to educational
institutions? You do have to apply and pay a fee, so I am not sure why
the word liberation is in the title, unless it means liberate to a
larger audience.
Here's a list of the data sources that are made available under this
project:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/cgi-bin/spider/dli_list.cgi
A Postal Code Conversion File (PCCF) is one such item that shows all
postal code mapping to cities, GPS lat/long and other sundry details.
There is much, much more.
There is a licensing flow chart:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dli-ild/caselaw-jurisprudence/flowchart-organigramme-eng.htm
The terms of the DLI are:
* Authorised users of DLI data within a member institution
include:
o Researchers
o Educators
o Students
o Other staff members
* DLI data may be used for:
o Teaching
o Academic research
o Publishing articles and reports
o Planning of educational services
* DLI data may not be used for:
o Contractual, or income-generating activity
o Identification or disclosing information about any person,
business or organization
o Redistribution outside the DLI
I wonder if ChangeCamp could be considered eligible and would be
willing to invest in the effort to make this data available? It is
truly an incredible resource that matched with the smart minds in
ChangeCamp can truly make some new insights never before available.
More details here:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dli-ild/dli-idd-eng.htm
Andy Kaplan-Myrth
can probably get contacts there), explain what it's doing, and see if
you can either encourage them to open some particularly politically
innoccuous and civicly interesting information under a public licence.
Or just arrange a $Free licence for some of the datasets.
I'd also point out that data itself is not subject to copyright in
Canada and, as such, it is not clear to me what StatsCan is protecting
under those licensing arrangements, and what legal grounds they would
have to do so... ChangeCamp might want to talk to a lawyer about that!
Cheers,
Andy
--
Andy Kaplan-Myrth, M.A., LL.B.
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Mark Kuznicki
This appears at first as a great hope, but unfortunately StatsCan DLI is just not going to cut it and from my reading ChangeCamp couldn't do anything to get into it.
First of all, right now there is no ChangeCamp organization. My expressed intention is to incubate an nonprofit with the ChangeCamp ethos and mandate, but this will take time, lots of work and focus. Oh, and fundraising. Visible Government already exists as a nonprofit organization with opening government data as part of its mission, and it has no sustainable funding either.
Without some capacity to manage a contractual relationship with StatsCan (and its licensing restrictions) it would be impossible to manage. Clearly the license allows very limited uses and cannot be distributed outside the participating organization. Any organization that took this on and started sharing the data to its community would be at serious risk of legal liability according to these rules.
What will happen is what always happens. Hackers and motivated citizens will find a way around these rules. Those students at an academic institution with DLI access would be a prime target, in my guess.
This is no replacement for a true open data open access policy. It is not data liberation.
Mark.
David Eaves
I will be in Ottawa twice in March, I'm happy to meet with StatsCan people then as well (and will actually start exploring some of my contacts - I gave a keynote to their managers 1.5 years ago... so should follow up with them).
Getting ChangeCamp access to the data is an interesting idea - and one, if framed correctly statscan might be open to - however, it doesn't solve the underlying problem that there won't be any financial incentive to sustain or maintain these applications...
Cheers,
dave
c: 778-227-4235
www.eaves.ca
Jason Darrah
ChangeCamp was the spark needed for City of Edmonton to commit to open data initiative, so the changecamp model could serve as a manifestation of public interest that StatsCan needs to tip commitment to change its approach on licensing.
Maybe.
From: chang...@googlegroups.com <chang...@googlegroups.com>
To: chang...@googlegroups.com <chang...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wed Feb 03 15:55:32 2010
Subject: Re: [changecamp] Data Liberation Initiative
Get on (the) board, Edmonton! We want Edmonton on the newest Canadian Monopoly board! Visit www.monopolyvote.ca, register, and vote every day before February 7, 2010. Tell your friends and family. Let's win a property on the board!
Alex
Completely agreed -- I think Mark underestimates the power that he's
yielding. Mark -- it is data liberation, just not the kind you believe
should already exist, yet. But it is. A little story:
A few years ago when I was building a grant system for a program we
wanted to do geolocation of service providers. I had to license the
Postal Code Conversion File (PCCF) which lists all postal codes in
Canada, all cities, all Geo lat/longs for each code and political
ridings. It cost $10,000 but I found another party within government
that had already licensed it for non-commercial use. The amount of
data that StatsCan has is seriously incredible and is just the spark
you need to get going with many of the projects that need a healthy
dose of accurate data. Think where Google Maps would be if someone
didn't make the license deal to get the map data -- surely Google
didn't do the digital mapping of all those cities?
As for financial sustainability, surely with the right people asking
the right questions from the DLI people, they would considering
expanding DLI and they may be doing just that right now anyways.
VisibleGovernment can join in the program when DLI properly opens it
up to non profit orgs. It is yet another party to the DLI option
outside of educational institutions. I think for smaller organizations
there may be a subset of the catalogue that DLI makes available, that
could be made available at a much reasonable cost, or even a la carte.
A donation system to the initiative could keep it running for a long
time and could be the spark that makes ChangeCamp more than just a
gathering of like minded individuals -- it could spark actual
implementation of some of the ideas that have been floating. And
eventually governments will ask to adopt these terrific projects or
start to work with them -- I don't really think they have a choice.
You're doing some of their pilot and beta testing work for them at a
much more competitive speed and cost. What more could you ask for in
the current fiscal environment?
Alex
ps. Talking as a private citizen on this list, as always.
On Feb 3, 10:55 pm, Jason Darrah <Jason.Dar...@edmonton.ca> wrote:
> ChangeCamp was the spark needed for City of Edmonton to commit to open data initiative, so the changecamp model could serve as a manifestation of public interest that StatsCan needs to tip commitment to change its approach on licensing.
> Maybe.
>
> ________________________________
> From: chang...@googlegroups.com <chang...@googlegroups.com>
> To: chang...@googlegroups.com <chang...@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Wed Feb 03 15:55:32 2010
> Subject: Re: [changecamp] Data Liberation Initiative
>
> While data can't be copyrighted in Canada it can be licensed. Statscan's licensing agreement means that anyone using the data in a way StatsCan doesn't like can be sued if they don't stop using the data.
>
> I will be in Ottawa twice in March, I'm happy to meet with StatsCan people then as well (and will actually start exploring some of my contacts - I gave a keynote to their managers 1.5 years ago... so should follow up with them).
>
> Getting ChangeCamp access to the data is an interesting idea - and one, if framed correctly statscan might be open to - however, it doesn't solve the underlying problem that there won't be any financial incentive to sustain or maintain these applications...
>
> Cheers,
> dave
> c: 778-227-4235www.eaves.ca<http://www.eaves.ca/>
> - Show quoted text -
>
> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 12:54 PM, Andy Kaplan-Myrth <a...@kaplan-myrth.ca<mailto:a...@kaplan-myrth.ca>> wrote:
> Maybe ChangeCamp should arrange to meet with somebody at StatsCan (I
> can probably get contacts there), explain what it's doing, and see if
> you can either encourage them to open some particularly politically
> innoccuous and civicly interesting information under a public licence.
>
> Or just arrange a $Free licence for some of the datasets.
>
> I'd also point out that data itself is not subject to copyright in
> Canada and, as such, it is not clear to me what StatsCan is protecting
> under those licensing arrangements, and what legal grounds they would
> have to do so... ChangeCamp might want to talk to a lawyer about that!
>
> Cheers,
> Andy
>
> --
> Andy Kaplan-Myrth, M.A., LL.B.
> -------------------------------------------------------
> email: a...@kaplan-myrth.ca<mailto:a...@kaplan-myrth.ca>
> web:http://kaplan-myrth.ca
> blog:http://blog.kaplan-myrth.ca
> wave: andykaplanmy...@googlewave.com<mailto:andykaplanmy...@googlewave.com>
> voice: 613-366-1738
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Alex <a...@newpathconsulting.com<mailto:a...@newpathconsulting.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Did you know that StatsCan has a Data Liberation Initiative that opens
> > up tons of data files, surveys and research to educational
> > institutions? You do have to apply and pay a fee, so I am not sure why
> > the word liberation is in the title, unless it means liberate to a
> > larger audience.
>
> > Here's a list of the data sources that are made available under this
> > project:
>
> >http://www.statcan.gc.ca/cgi-bin/spider/dli_list.cgi
>
> > A Postal Code Conversion File (PCCF) is one such item that shows all
> > postal code mapping to cities, GPS lat/long and other sundry details.
> > There is much, much more.
>
> > There is a licensing flow chart:
>
> >http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dli-ild/caselaw-jurisprudence/flowchart-orga...
> > To post to this group, send email to chang...@googlegroups.com<mailto:chang...@googlegroups.com>.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to changecamp+...@googlegroups.com<mailto:changecamp%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>.
> > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/changecamp?hl=en.
>
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> Get on (the) board, Edmonton!
>
> We want Edmonton on the newest Canadian Monopoly board!
> Visitwww.monopolyvote.ca, register, and vote every day before February 7, 2010.