Hi SM,
Thank you for writing a concise but detailed summary of the open data
workshop proceedings. I'm currently out of the country, so I appreciate
being able to stay informed from a distance.
Going from your summary, I tend to agree with the findings: Mauritius
isn't perfect for open data, but the potential is there. I'm still a
little sceptical that various government departments will be willing to
open their data, but I'm hoping to be proven wrong.
I'm looking forward to seeing the open data floodgates open. :-)
Regards,
Dan.
On 10/28/2015 04:30 PM, S Moonesamy wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I attended the Ministry of Technology, Communication and
> Innovation/World Bank workshop on Open Data readiness assessment as a
> representative of the Mauritius Internet Users. The workshop was held
> to validate the findings of the World Bank on Open Data.
>
> Anat Lewin, ICT Policy Special, World Bank gave a presentation about
> the assessment process and the role of the World Bank. She commented
> that there were Open Data initiatives in 46 countries and provided
> some information about how Open Data helps for:
>
> - Economic value
> - Transparency/accountability
> - Data exchange across government
> - Data-informed policy making
>
> The World Bank uses a five star ranking for Open Data formats:
>
> 1. Make the data available on the web
> 2. Make it available as structured data (e.g. Excel)
> 3. make it available in a non-proprietary format (e.g. CSV)
> 4. Use URLs to identify datasets
> 5. Links to other people's data to provide context and enrich the
> datasets
>
> Ms Lewin explained that the ODRA is a diagnostics and planning tool.
> The aim is to have action-oriented recommendations based on best
> practices. The findings of the World Bank study was that Mauritius is
> well-placed to implement Open Data. She commented that there was:
>
> - Strong commitment at the top-level to transparency and innovation
> - Strong demand for Open Data from developers, the private sector and
> researchers
> - Government could move quickly as it already publishes statistical
> data but
> it needs to conform to the requirements of Open Data (terms of use
> and format)
>
> It was mentioned that Open Data requires visible strong and sustained
> leadership across government and that the Ministry of Technology,
> Communication and Innovation and Statistics Mauritius are well-placed
> to lead change at operational level. It was found that Open Data
> would require a cultural change and that it could be done with the
> support of the Ministry of Civil Service. The World Bank recommended
> that government needs to proactively engage with Civil Society and
> developers.
>
> Roza Vasileva, Open Data Consultant, World Bank explained the Open
> Data Readiness findings. The ODRA uses a three color ranking, Red,
> Yellow and Green.
>
> The rank for Senior leadership was yellow. It was recommended that
> government adopts an Open Data "declaration" to link initiatives to
> commitments.
>
> The rank for the policy framework was yellow. This was because of a
> lack of clear policies on copyright and licensing of government
> information. It was also attributed to the absence of Freedom of
> Information legislation and the privacy provisions in the Statistics
> Act. The World Bank recommended the development of an all of
> government Open Data policy including criteria for release, licensing
> and charging (for data), data protection and anonymization.
>
> Institutional structures and capabilities ranked green. It was found
> that the Ministry of Technology, Communication and Innovation was
> well-placed to lead the Open Data with the support of Statistics
> Mauritius and the Ministry of Civil Service. The World Bank
> recommended that the Ministry of Technology, Communication and
> Innovation should establish a central team for Open Data and ensure a
> common understanding of Open Data.
>
> Data Management policies and procedures ranked yellow. There was no
> formal comprehensive inventory of government data holdings.
>
> Demand for Open Data ranled from yellow to green. There was a
> strongly expressed data demand by software developers, the private
> sector, Civil Society and academics. It was stated that it is
> difficult to obtain the data directly from ministries and agencies and
> that there is no evidence of engagement by individual ministries. The
> World Bank recommended that the Ministry of Technology, Communication
> and Innovation could work with existing groups of entrepreneurs and
> software developers; and that the ministry themselves engage with data
> users in their appropriate sectors.
>
> Civil engagement and capabilities ranked yellow. This is because
> there is no data journalism and no social media engagement. It was
> also found that the apps economy is at an early stage. It was
> recommended that the Ministry of Technology, Communication and
> Innovation and the Government Information Service. The World Bank
> recommenced that the Ministry of Technology, Communication and
> Innovation should introduce a data journalism capacity building program.
>
> Finding for an Open Data program ranked yellow to green. It was found
> that the Nation ICT strategy plan includes Open Dat as a key
> component. However, funding is not yet in place. Funding could also
> be found within the planned high-priority Smart Mauritius strategy.
> It was recommended that the government should consider moving to Open
> Source Software.
>
> National Technology and Skills infrastructure ranked yellow. It was
> found that there is a relatively strong technology infrastructure and
> high mobile penetration. There were high broadband tariffs,
> especially in the business sector. It was also found that ICT skills
> are not met by market demand.
>
> Alla Morisson, Program Officer, World Bank, gave a presentation about
> the Recommendations for Action for the implementation of Open Data in
> Mauritius. Ms Morisson recommended an implementation structure which
> creates a central team with each ministry having an implementation cell.
>
> The next step within the government needs to take place by building an
> Open Data portal and develop a policy of "open by default". There
> should also be a strategy for audience growth and user engagement. It
> was recommended that there should be the release of "quick win"
> datasets onto the Open Data portal and hackathons should be organised
> soon after the data is released.
>
> The Open Data policy needs to cover:
>
> - basic principle of open by default
> - exceptions regarding privacy, security, etc.
> - terms and conditions of use
> - no charging policy
> - standards
>
> In terms of licenses, it was recommended to follow the international
> best practices of Creative Commons Attributions 4.0.
>
> Open Data is not just about new data. It also includes data
> previously published as a lot of data is already published but it is
> not quite "open". It was recommended that data publishing use
> standards such as CSV, JSON and XML. The World Bank recommended that
> the government develop an audience growth and that it identifies
> engagement channels. The government should also solicit feedback of
> outcomes and success stories.
>
> The advice to the isers were as follows: proactively communicate your
> needs, consider whether your data gaps are being addressed and whether
> Open Data helps you to solve a problem.
>
> I commented that the report looks balanced and I asked Mr Rajnish
> Hawabhay, Chief Technical Officer, Ministry of Technology,
> Communication and Innovation about whether the report could be
> circulated. Mr Hawabhay explained that the report will have to be
> sent to the Cabinet and that it would be published after that. If I
> recall correctly, he mentioned that it is a matter of weeks. There is
> a list of datasets in the report. That may be of interest to people
> who have requested access to datasets.
>
> There was a question from a person from academia about using High
> Performance Computing for data crunching (of Open Data). Ish asked
> about whether Linux Users could be given access to the High
> Performance Computing. In his reply, Mr Hawabhay stated that the
> Mauritius Research Council just had a first workshop and that there
> are no facilities at the HPC here. He added that the Ministry of
> Technology, Communication and Innovation is thinking about how to go
> ahead.
>
> Mr Hawabhay, in reply to a question about the Open Data portal,
> answered that the MS Sharepoint platform is going to be used to design
> the Open Data portal.
>
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
>
>
--
Daniel Laeng
Software Developer
+44 78 3820 0978
Received on Sat Oct 31 2015 - 20:46:30 PST