Implementing the Australian Governments' Open Access and

Licensing Framework Open (Data) DownUnder

Baden Appleyard National Programme Director @AusGOAL

Contents

Background to OA in Australia What is AusGOAL?

AusGOAL's Position on Open (data) Licensing Federation of Data Portals

Some Final Questions Answered

1. 2006 - 2007 - Queensland Government develops the Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF)

2. 2008 – Victorian Government EDIC Parliamentary Committee recommends Open Access for Victorian Government PSI. Takes evidence from QLD Government

3. 2008 - 2009 - Australian Finance Minister announces the Gov 2.0 Taskforce. It recommends GILF based copyright licensing reforms. Finance Minister announces open government declaration, and resigns on the same day.

4. 2009 - Queensland Government repeals FOI law and replaces it with Right to Information Act (RTI). Creates Queensland Information Commissioner

5. 2009 - 2010 - The Australian Government, New South Wales, Tasmania follow Queensland lead and also introduce RTI Laws.

6. 2010 - AusGOAL is launched as a national initiative, in response to COAG request and is housed under the Cross-Jurisdictional Chief Information Officers Committee

Background to OA in Australia

What is AusGOAL? 1. Nationally endorsed through CJCIOC. Represents Australia internationally (eg.

GEO) 2. Not PSI, PFI – Publicly Funded Information 3. Strategic partnerships with sectoral organisations (ANDS, Education, NRIP etc) 4. Incorporates:

a) support to all levels of government and research sector, and to those supplying data to government and research

b) a policy and principles c) a requirement to choose the Least Restrictive Licence d) 8 licences (6 Creative Commons Licences, 1 Restrictive Licence and 1

Software Licence) e) License Chooser f) Practitioner Groups and resource catalogue g) Supporting the federation of data portals h) Licence injector for MS Office

AusGOAL's Licence PositionBespoke Open Licences • Why should the taxpayer fund the creation of bespoke open licences? • Whom will fund their maintenance? • How will they be curated? • How compatible will they be – really!? • Will they be machine readable? – (particularly important for science agencies) • Will they be accessible in multiple languages?

Myths about CC use in Government • Entraps Crown arms\government logo's • Irrevocable • Don't work for data • Are not legally binding • They offend Google • They aren't customisable to cover a multitude of possible government administrative errors.

The Cases Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991) Telstra v Desktop Marketing Systems [2002] FCAFC 112 IceTV Pty Limited v Nine Network Australia Pty Limited [2009] HCA 14 Telstra Corporation Limited v Phone Directories Company Pty Ltd [2010] FCA 44

AusGOAL's Position 1. CC-BY is OK. 2. CC Public Domain Dedication is OK 3. CC0 is NOT OK, but might be soon! 4. Any CC Non-Derivatives Licence is NOT OK

Open (data) Licensing

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Federating Open Data Portals?

Some Closing Questions1. When did you start with a portal?

The Victorian Government built the first portal in Australia in 2009. The first Commonwealth Government data portal – a Wordpress site – was created as a pilot in 2008.

2. How is the amount of datasets developing? Data portals have no greater than 3000 datasets each. However there are other websites that contain government data that contain tens/hundreds of thousands of datasets.

3. What are main drivers to open data? Transparency, economic development – new industries services and products, innovation – new ideas, data cleansing

4. How are you working on transparency? All jurisdictions have FOI law’s, 5 have RTI laws. Review bodies exist in all jurisdictions. Information Commissioners exist in 3 jurisdictions. OAIC disbanded

5. How are you stimulating re-use? State premiers competitions, Open Data Institute about to launch.

6.How is data being re-used within government itself? Predominately aggregated to the Commonwealth Government or shared with other jurisdictions. Also reused by government funded research institutes / programme’s.

Some Closing Questions7. What are the biggest barriers in opening data?

1. Middle level managers and those with a vested interest in the status quo. Many that have built careers and or empires within governments that are not aware that the world is changing around them, and or have data that no one else has / perform a role that no one else performs. 2. Those that do not know what they are doing. They mean well, but sometimes fall into easy mistakes.

8. How are you dealing with that? Communication, cultural change, persistence.

9. How are open data laws developing? We don’t have any open data laws yet – however the Queensland Government is developing an Open Data Act, which, we think, will create a statutory cause of action against any agency that withdraws access to data they publish that is being relied upon for commercial reuse.

10. How do you decide data is open data? The law provides in many jurisdictions that data is open by default. The task is then to actually make it ‘open’ by publishing, licensing and placing in open formats.

11. What are limitations in re-use? Once the data is available – and licensed, there are no limitations on reuse.

Thank you!

Baden Appleyard National Programme Director – AusGOAL

Mobile: +61 (0) 459 824 061 E-Mail: b.appleyard@ausgoal.gov.au

Linkedin: http://au.linkedin.com/in/badenappleyard Website: http://www.ausgoal.gov.au

Twitter @AusGOAL

License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcodePlease give attribution to: © AusGOAL 2014