Open Government Partnership: The OGP Access to Information Working Group has issued a brief questionnaire soliciting “ideas on the priorities for working group, potential activities, and the way in which you are interested in contributing to the OGP ATI Working Group.” Deadline Feb. 7.
United Kingdom: “FOI 10 Years On: Freedom Fighting or Lazy Journalism,” a new book from Abramis Academic Publishing, edited by Tom Felle and John Mair. ?Contributors include Peter Preston, former editor, the Guardian; former BBC correspondent Nicholas Jones; Charles N Davis, University of Georgia, USA; Canadian ‘FOI Warrior’ Ken Rubin; and the BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum. The graphic cover is by Flying Binary.
European Union: The European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, has made proposals to the European Commission on how to make its expert groups more balanced and transparent. The Commission oversees hundreds of such advisory groups.
United Kingdom: Some of the most important government departments are not fulfilling their obligations under the UK Freedom of Information Act, a Newsnight investigation by Chris Cook has shown. The program tried to learn about foreign travel by ministers, but only two of the 13 government departments that were approached answered the question in line with the law.
Morocco: Abdelaziz Abids of the Moroccan Network of Civil Society Organizations for Right to Information (REMDI), will speak about RTI in Morocco at a World Bank webinar Feb. 12.
Transparency Research: A call for papers for the Fourth Global Conference on Transparency Research Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano: 4?6 June. The deadline is Feb. 15. For more information, please visit the conference website: www.transparency.usi.ch The Global Conference on Transparency Research assembles for the fourth time academics, policy makers, and interest group representatives to analyze and discuss the ever-growing reach and impact of the logic of transparency and openness: policies on access to information held by public entities, transparency relationships between organizations, transparency relationships between governments, private and non?profit entities and citizens.
Transparency Research: An article on the website of the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Pubic Policy summarizes research on the impact of transparency.
Open Government Partnership: The Support Unit released the Open Government Partnership activity calendars for all participating countries. In addition, civil society advocates gathered in The Hague to review and conclude the pilot phase of the Civil Society National Action Plan Review tool. “The idea of the project is primarily to equip national OGP actors with an advocacy tool that can help them push for a stronger partnership and more ambitious plans by assessing the OGP process through a civil society lens.”
Open Aid: “The importance of open aid data to open governance,” a World Bank blog post.
United States: Many reports on oversight of FOIA activities are listed in a blog post by the FOIA Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee. For an update on the committee’s work see post by OpentheGovernment.org.
United States: The General Services Administration has launched its online Public Participation Playbook, a resource of best practices and performance metrics for government managers to evaluate and build better services through citizen involvement. Gwynne Kostin, director of GSA’s Digital Services Innovation Center, unveiled the site at the Adobe Digital Government Assembly. See article in Federal Contracts Weekly.
United States: The American Society of News Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press announce the 10th annual Sunshine Week initiative, March 15-21. More details will be available soon on the Sunshine Week website, sunshineweek.org. Follow Sunshine Week on Facebook and Twitter, and use the #SunshineWeek hashtag.
United States: “Knowledge is power, but it can also be profitable. According to a recent study by academics at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, Hedge Funds are using Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to get access to information that frequently leads to trading profits.” So begins an article by Clayton Browne in Value Walk.
United States: The Kansas House defeated an amendment designed to require electronic correspondence by state government officials about public business to fall under jurisdiction of the Kansas Open Records Act.
United States: The Electronic Frontier Foundation “is setting out to recognize the most outrageous responses to Freedom of Information Act and state open records act requests. We’re calling it The Foilies and we need journalists, citizen watchdogs, and transparency activists to submit nominations for these dubious honors.”
Partnership for Transparency Fund: The PTF e.V., the European affiliate of Partnership for Transparency Fund, has issued an annual report on its first year.
Freedom of Expression: The Centre for Law and Democracy and International Media Support are launching a set of twelve Briefing Notes on key freedom of expression issues. Electronic versions of the Briefing Notes in English and in Burmese are available at www.mediasupport.org and www.law-democracy.org/live/cld-and-ims-launch-briefing-notes-on-freedom-of-expression/.
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