Hello Chitz,
Could you please send me your Skype ID so that i can add you to the Skype group.
Thank you.
From: chittra.03_at_gmail.com
Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 10:57:07 +0400
Subject: Re: Weekly Skype Discussion about Open Data
To: ishwon_at_opensuse.org
CC: daniel_at_laeng.org; mauritius-internet-users_at_lists.elandnews.com
I will also join the skype discussion on thursday
thanks
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 9:09 AM, Ish Sookun <ish_at_hacklog.in> wrote:
Hi Dan,
On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 11:34 PM, Daniel Laeng <daniel_at_laeng.org> wrote:
I'd like to join in. Are you saying that the skype call is at 20:50
on Thursday?
Yes.
Some suggestions on things it would be interesting to discuss:
1. Discovery service for Open Data
It would be really nice (essential?) for there to be a single
website which publishes (or at least indexes) all Mauritian open
data.
Reading the Open
Government Data Initiatives (2012) document (mentioned by SM a
few weeks ago), I would assume that there should now be several
government departments which have open data available. I'm unable
to find much of that data, either because I don't know where to
look, or because it hasn't actually been published. Having a nice
index would at least make that clear.
Agreed. Currently, it is not easy to find such information from govmu.org. I visited Statistics Mauritius and from the initial pages I went through, I could not find any mention of Open Government Data (OGD). In its footer I found a link to "archive collections" which lead me to population census reports[1]. These are PDF files.
2. Agile Style Approach
It would be nice if we could have a unified voice advocating small
steps towards opening up data *now*, rather than a 10 year bumbling
government initiative that aims to do everything, but delivers
nothing.
I would rather ask the OGD initiative falls under which ministry. It would then be easier to know who is responsible for what. Could we say the relevant ministry failed to achieve anything in 10 years?
Specifically, although it would be wonderful to have a public API
offering fully linked data from all government data, complete with
unique IDs, I doubt anybody has the resources, desire or ability to
do this in any meaningful time frame. So, I'd rather see the focus
on delivering useful (but less perfect) data as soon as possible,
then improve the offering over time. i.e. publish raw data now,
work towards improving the data and the tech incrementally.
I agree.
I have no experience in how the government here tackles open ended
projects like Open Data, and would be interested to know your
experiences.
From my experience, well, most of the projects are tackled by first having workshops with people who do not ask questions. Those who ask are then entitled to only 2 questions, not more.
3. Prioritise Geographic Data!
SM mentioned this in his email to Mr Hawabhay, and I can't emphasise
enough how much I agree. Geographic data is a requirement for many
web style business, and often for making sense of raw data.
I have not seen a reliable source of map data in Mauritius, and that
seems to be a huge problem. I assume that the government maintains
the only detailed geographic data for Mauritius (maps, streets,
addresses, everything) - I think there is a strong case for
publishing this.
People tend to think Google Map is the solution.
[1]
http://statsmauritius.govmu.org/English/StatsbySubj/Pages/Archive/Archive--population-census.aspx
Regards,
--
Ish Sookun
- Geek by birth, Linux by choice.- I blog at HACKLOG.in.
https://twitter.com/IshSookun ^^ Do you tweet?
Received on Thu May 28 2015 - 16:41:38 PST