Wednesday night saw the launch of Mix & Mash, the great New Zealand mashup and remix competition. In the best open government service category, competitors are asked to repurpose government data to create something useful or beautiful. You must know by now how we feel about open data here at SilverStripe, so this contest is inspiring stuff.
In fact it was so inspiring that it got me thinking about what would be possible if we mashed up sites SilverStripe had built for clients. Imagine for a minute if fish could vote. Yeah, maybe it's a stretch, but I'd be interested to see data points from NIWA's Ocean Survey 20/20 overlaid with results from Elections 2010. Do you think the depth of the marine life would effect how they would vote? Would fish from the most polluted areas be more or less likely to vote for Green candidates?
Back in the real world, we could use the National Broadband Map and compare it with voter turnout patterns to test the basic hope of the Elections 2010 site - that those with more access to information are more likely to vote. You could dig further and discover if those who live close to bus routes are more likely to vote for candidates who run on public transport platfoms.
To provide a starting place for you to think about a mashup, a number of council sites that we've worked on have open data easily accessible on them. As a random selection of examples:
- the Gisborne District Council's river and rainfall reports, and their popular cemetery records
- the Nelson City Council's air monitoring
- the Taranaki Regional Council has stacks of data on its homepage, including information on wind and soil
- here in Wellington, the regional council monitors the quality of beach water over summer so there will be data available then too.
Aside from the sites we built, there are, of course, other sources of open government data in New Zealand, like the open data catalogue. Our buddies at Koordinates who helped us with Elections 2010 also have a whole range of geospatial data available too.
We're not associated with Mix & Mash at all, but we like what they're doing, so we totally think you should get in there and enter. Naturally, you’ll get triple bonus points (um, from us, not officially) if the site you end up building uses SilverStripe CMS to power it!
Post your comment
Comments for this post are now closed.
Hi Glen,
Thanks very much for your comment, and you raise a really good point. I think my error highlights the gap between those who are chomping at the bit to reuse data, and those who are providing it. It also shows just how important it is to read the fine print - something that might not be as necessary if government sites pay more attention to the licensing of their data, and we have raised this with the councils concerned now.
Posted on 8 Nov 2010 by Joanna @silverstripe
Just be careful with the data you mentioned as it is not fully 'open' and in fact a lot of it is not open at all.
GDC:
"Anyone can print individual pages and download a single copy of the material on this website for your personal, non-commercial use. Where material is being published or issued to others, the source and copyright status must be acknowledged, and Gisborne District Council’s url www.gdc.govt.nz must be clearly displayed. When displayed in an electronic format, this url must be a live hyperlink."
This to me seems to be along the lines of a CC-BY-NC style license.
Nelson:
"The content and behaviours of this website are copyright to Nelson City Council (NCC). We authorise you to access and view material displayed on this website, print individual pages and download a single copy of the material of this website for your personal, non-commercial use."
This prevents reuse. You cannot use the air monitoring data in any mashups.
TRC:
"This website and all its content (unless otherwise stated) is owned by the Taranaki Regional Council and is subject to copyright. Website visitors may reproduce, store and use the content of this website for personal, informational and non-commercial purposes only."
Again this to me seems to be along the lines of a CC-BY-NC style license.
GWC:
"Copyright © 2010 Greater Wellington Regional Council"
I can't find a page on copyright or a privacy policy so you cannot use this material at all.
Maybe if you did these sites you can contact the owners and let them know about how they should be going about licensing this? Maybe suggest they look at NZGOAL as a framework for releasing the dara?
Posted on 6 Nov 2010 by Glen Barnes @barnaclebarnes
Comments
RSS