Newsletters/6

[okfn-announce] Open Knowledge Foundation Newsletter No. 6 Wed May 28 20:10:56 BST 2008

Welcome to the sixth Open Knowledge Foundation newsletter!

Contents:

* OKCon 2008 / launch of the Public Domain Dedication & License (PDDL) * CKAN is still growing! * Launch of Open Knowledge Definition Advisory Council * New translations of the Open Knowledge Definition * First Open Visualisation Workshop * Open Knowledge Local Groups * Open Knowledge buttons on MusicBrainz, omdb, Archive.org and others * Other news in brief * Thanks to our volunteers! * Support the Open Knowledge Foundation * Further information

OKCON 2008 / LAUNCH OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN DEDICATION & LICENSE (PDDL)

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This year's annual Open Knowledge Conference, OKCon 2008, took place on 15th March at London School of Economics. The event brought together individuals and groups from across the open knowledge spectrum for a day of seminars and workshops. Speakers included:

- Gavin Starks (AMEE and dgen) - Tom Steinberg (MySociety) - Dr Muki Haklay (Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London) - Liz Turner (Freelance Designer and Visualizer Extraordinaire) - Gael Varoquaux (Mayavi2 - the next Generation Visualization Toolkit) - Martin Albrecht (SAGE the Open Source Mathematics Engine) - Erik Duval (ARIADNE) - Lisa Petrides (OER Commons) - Dr Martin Brett (Cambridge University History Department and the Ivo Project)

Jordan Hatcher also launched the Public Domain Dedication & License (PDDL) at the event - a legal tool to make data open, specifically taking into account rights in data such as the European Database Directive.

Audio, images and slides are available at the Post-Event Information page.

OKCon 2008: Post-Event Information http://okfn.org/okcon/2008/after

'Public Domain Dedication & License (PDDL) v.1.0 released at OKCon!' http://blog.okfn.org/2008/03/18/public-domain-dedication-license-pddl-v10-released-at-okcon/

CKAN IS STILL GROWING!

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The Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN), a registry of open knowledge packages 'from genes to geodata, sonnets to statistics' is still continuing to grow! Thanks to user contributions, there are now over 180 packages registered.

In March we organised a virtual 'Package Party' - which saw quite a few new packages being added. In April CKAN had a flurry of attention in the blogosphere after a Brett Taylor initiated a discussion on the need for a resource for open data.

If you come across a large open dataset, or a substantial collection of open texts, images or other content, please consider registering it on CKAN!

CKAN http://ckan.net/

'Open Data Going Mainstream?' http://blog.okfn.org/2008/04/10/open-data-going-mainstream/

LAUNCH OF OPEN KNOWLEDGE DEFINITION ADVISORY COUNCIL

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In February we launched an Advisory Council for opendefinition.org. The Council is formally responsible for maintaining and developing the Definitions and associated material found on the Open Definition site - including the Open Knowledge Definition and the Open Service Definition. As you probably know, these definitions aim to provide clear and succinct sets of conditions for ‘openness’ in knowledge and services.

Jordan Hatcher of opencontentlawyer.com has kindly agreed to be Chair of the Council, which includes:

- Paul Jacobson, iCommons - Paul Miller, Talis - Peter Murray-Rust, Cambridge University - Rufus Pollock, Open Knowledge Foundation & Cambridge University - Rob Styles, Talis - Peter Suber, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) & Earlham College - Luis Villa, Columbia Law School, GNOME Foundation & Open Source Initiative - Jo Walsh, Open Knowledge Foundation & Open Source Geo-Spatial Foundation - John Wilbanks, Science Commons

'Open Definition Advisory Council launched' http://blog.okfn.org/2008/02/15/open-definition-advisory-council-launched/

Advisory Council http://opendefinition.org/advisory-council

NEW TRANSLATIONS OF THE OPEN KNOWLEDGE DEFINITION

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Over the last few months we've added several new translations of the Open Knowledge Definition (OKD). These include Danish, Polish, Catalan, Spanish and Basque versions. Many thanks to Peter Froberg, Jarosław LIpszyc, Ignasi Labastida i Juan and Gotzon Egia for these!

The OKD is now available in 8 languages. If you would like to help out translating the Definition into another language - or you know of someone who might be interested in doing so - please get in touch!

Open Knowledge Definition http://www.opendefinition.org/

FIRST OPEN VISUALISATION WORKSHOP

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The Open Knowledge Foundation is organising a series of informal, hands-on workshop for those who work with, or are interested in, open-source visualisation technologies, whether based on the web or on the desktop, whether for data or other kinds of knowledge.

The first Open Visualisation Workshop took place at Trampoline Systems in London. There were talks and demos from:

- Martin Dittus, last.fm - Julie Tolmie, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London - Jan Berkel, Trampoline Systems - Jonathan Lister, Osmosoft - Gregory Jordan, European Bioinformatics Institute - David Aanensen, Division of Epidemiology, Public Health and Primary Care, Imperial College London - Jonathan Gray, The Open Knowledge Foundation

The workshops will take place regularly in London. If you are interested in taking part please add your name to the wiki page and join the mailing list.

'After the first Open Visualisation Workshop' http://blog.okfn.org/2008/05/26/after-the-first-open-visualisation-workshop/

First Open Visualisation Workshop http://okfn.org/wiki/OpenVisualisation/Workshop/1

Open Visualisation Workshops http://okfn.org/wiki/OpenVisualisation/Workshop

OPEN KNOWLEDGE LOCAL GROUPS

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While there's been an Open Knowledge Group in Cambridge for a while - the last few months have seen new local groups forming in London and Oxford. The first London Meetup took place last month at the London Knowledge Lab and already has several projects planned in addition to regular meetings! The Oxford group is looking to organise an event in the next few months.

If you'd like to get involved in any of these Groups, or you'd like to start a new one in your area, please get in touch on the relevant mailing lists!

Open Knowledge Local Groups http://okfn.org/wiki/LocalGroups/

OPEN KNOWLEDGE BUTTONS ON MUSICBRAINZ, OMDB, ARCHIVE.ORG, AND OTHERS!

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Our Open Knowledge, Open Content, and Open Data buttons advertise that a given resource is open in accordance with the Open Knowledge Definition. New adopters from the past few months include MusicBrainz, omdb, and the Prelinger Archives at Archive.org, among others!

If you manage or publish a resource which is open as in the OKD, please consider displaying one of the web buttons so that others know they are free to re-distribute, modify and build on it!

Open Knowledge and Open Data Web Buttons http://www.opendefinition.org/buttons

OTHER NEWS IN BRIEF

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- CKAN now in version 0.5. http://blog.okfn.org/2008/02/01/ckan-05-released/

- Over 1000 academics sign statement in support of Open Textbooks http://blog.okfn.org/2008/04/16/open-textbooks-statement-to-make-textbooks-affordable/

- Meeting of COST A32 group: Open scholarly communities on the web http://blog.okfn.org/2008/04/24/open-scholarly-communities-on-the-web/

- SPARC Europe Seal for Open Access Journals http://blog.okfn.org/2008/04/25/sparc-europe-seal-for-open-access-journals/

THANKS TO OKF VOLUNTEERS!

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As usual, many thanks to our volunteers and to our extended virtual community for their help with our projects and activities! Particular thanks go to J-P Stacey, for his assistance at OKCon 2008, and to Iain Emsley, for his work on Open Shakespeare and Open Milton!

SUPPORT THE OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION

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A donation to the Open Knowledge Foundation would greatly help us with our overhead costs, including hosting (currently around £1000/year) and project development. To find out more about supporting our work, please visit:

http://www.okfn.org/support

FURTHER INFORMATION

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If you would like to know more about what we are up to, please take a look at our active projects page.

http://www.okfn.org/projects/

If you are interested in participating in any of the OKF's projects, please see our participate page, or join the OKF discuss list.

http://www.okfn.org/participate/ http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss

For further news and comments, see our blog:

http://blog.okfn.org

The Open Knowledge Foundation is a not-for-profit organization. It is incorporated in the United Kingdom as a company limited by guarantee with company number 5133759. The registered office is 37 Panton Street, Cambridge, CB2 1HL, UK.