Personnel: Moisés Sánchez, Executive Director of Pro Acceso Foundation in Chile, has been elected to lead the Latin American network on freedom of expression and information, Alianza Regional por la Libre Expresión e Información.
Russia: The Freedom of Information Foundation reports on the seventh annual monitoring cycle for official websites belonging to Russian regional governments.
Citizen Engagement: A blog post by Maya Forstater of the Transparency and Accountability Initiative discusses “stretch goals” in the context of the Open Government Partnership. The London-based organization is preparing a new edition of its 2011 Guide to Opening Government. Comments are invited on a draft chapter on citizen engagement.
Open Data: Tim Davies evaluates the G-8 open data charter and asks, “But can the charter really deliver?” Among other things, he comments. “Although the pressure of next year’s G8 progress report might not provide a significant stick to spur on action, the charter does give campaigners in Canada, Germany and other G8 nations a new lever in pushing for greater publication of data from their governments.” Davies works part-time for The World Wide Web Foundation managing a research programme on the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries. He is a postgraduate researcher in Web Science at University of Southampton.
Research: Chris Martin, a researcher at the University of Leeds, presents the results of his recent research into perceptions of the barriers to open government data. Three initial findings:
The open government data community seems focused on supply side barriers, and is more sceptical about demand side barriers.
There are contentious issues around some politicized aspects of the open government data agenda.
There are some differences in the perceptions of barriers to open government data across sectors.
European Union: The EU formally publishes its directive on the reuse of information.The new Directive 2013/37/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 amends Directive 2003/98/EC.
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