Open Data: UNESCO has created a portal that presents a snapshot of the status of Open Access to scientific information around the world. “The portal has country reports from over 148 countries with weblinks to over 2000 initiatives/projects in Member States. The portal is supported by an existing Community of Practice on Open Access on the WSIS Knowledge Communities Platform that has over 1,400 members.”
Book Review: Freedom of Information and the Developing World. The Citizen, the State and Models of Openness by Colin Darch and Peter G. Underwood (Oxford: Chandos Publishing , 2010. 200 pp. $80 (paper ) is reviewed in Tom McClean in the journal Governance. The authors question the theoretical benefits of FOI, such as its relationship to democratization. The review concludes: “Rather, what is needed is analysis of empirical practice as a phenomenon in its own right, producing self-consciously bounded, mid-range explanations for the kinds of information over which public access becomes a matter of struggle and the outcome of those struggles. Much remains to be done.”
United States: Open Government and E-Government: Democratic Challenges from a Public Value Perspective, by Teresa M. Harrison, Santiago Guerrero, G. Brian Burke, Meghan Cook, Anthony Cresswell, Natalie Helbig, Jana Hrdinová, and Theresa Pardo. This academic paper analyzes the current U.S. Administration’s Open Government Initiative.
U.S. Video Contest: CNN and Reporters Without Borders USA launching a nationwide contest, challenging American university students to create a video PSA that will air on World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2012. The PSA will seek to answer the question “Why should we care about freedom of information?” the PSA will air on CNN.
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