Friday, November 04, 2011

Opening Access to Government in Canberra

Greetings from the National Library of Australia where Professor Anne Fitzgerald from QUT has just opened "Creative Commons for You, and for Government". There are about 100 people here, many of whom have Commonwealth Government lanyards around their necks.

The QUT Creative Commons people ave been going around Australia talking about how the Australian versions of these open access licenses can be used to provide better access to information for business, education, government and the community. They left Canberra to last, as there considerable knowledge of this in the federal public service and universities already.

The most important point about CC is that it is based on copyright. Normally the emphasis with Copyright is on stopping people doing things with material, but CC emphasizes what you can do.

Stuart Corner wrote yesterday about "Ericsson calls for consumer-friendly, market-promoting copyright reform" (iTWire, 3 November 2011 13:30). Ericsson's "Guiding Principles to Copyright Enforcement in a Networked Society" (by RENE SUMMER, Ericsson Group and Dr Nicolas Suzor,
Queensland University of Technology). Unfortunately the report was not well formatted and so is hard to read on-line. Here is an excerpt:
A one sided approach which enforces copyright at the expense of all other stakeholders and the digital competitiveness of nations is not the cure for the problem nor a treatment of the symptoms. Economic history has already taught us well that a monocausal explanation of complex processes and hence one-sided solutions will not work. ..
While looking for open access material on-line I also came ac cross the Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing Framework (AusGOAL). This government website provides guidance on open access licenses. AusGOAL appears to be recommending the use of the Creative Commons Australian licence for government as the preferred option. However, I am not sure as I could not get their License Chooser to work (I got as far as "About the Licensing Review" and then got stuck).

It is not clear who has endorsed and is using AusGOAL. While it has a national Australian government domain name (gov.au) and is written as if it is providing official advice for federal government, the domain name is registered to the Queensland Department of Public Works.

There is a need for clear authoritative advice on how to implement open access in Government. Unfortunately the current initiatives, including those by QUT and AusGOAL are not doing that effectively. This partly because they do not take into account the way government makes decisions in practice, at the level where devisions on web publishing are made.

In the mid 1990s I was part of the group which introduced the web to the Australian Government. Contrary to the official histories, this was a confused, messy process which involved considerable conflict. What got the federal government on the web was a loose alliance of public servants, academics, political staff and industry. What was needed was to show that it would work and was palatable to all concerned. A similar loose alliance is needed to advance open access.

From bitter first hand experience I found that simply writing and issuing government policy does not result in that policy being implemented. What is needed is to explain to those who have to implement the policy why it is in their individual interest, as well as in the public interest. They also have to see that people like them use and support it. They also need the education and support to implement the policy.

To help with open access I designed and run the ANU course COMP7420 with a set of notes available: Electronic Document and Records Management.

3 comments:

Baden said...

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your interest and comments on AusGOAL. I am its National Programme Director, and I hope I can answer some of the queries you raise directly.

I'm sorry to hear that you got stuck using our licence chooser tool, because its working for me at the moment. I should add that we are currently building a new one that will be easier to use. I'd be happy to let you know when that becomes available.

With regard to your other queries, I think they can, in large part, be answered by my blog post, written for the launch of the website, and located here: http://blog.ausgoal.gov.au/2011/07/07/launch-ausgoal-is-online/

The clear authoritative advice on delivering open access to government, in the federal government sphere at least, is contained in the OAIC Principles on open access to PSI, and the Commmonwealth Attorney Generals Principles on Copyright, which I understand will soon be supported by final versions of both IP guidelines and an IP manual.

We have a relatively extensive "how to implement AusGOAL" website, which we consider goes a long way to to providing advice on how to implement open access. But we are always seeking ways to improve our guidance, so if you have material you think I have missed, please dont hesitate to let me know, and I will add it to the website.

We are also developing AusGOAL practitioner groups in each of the jurisdictions. These groups are intended to provide support for practitioners doing the 'rubber on the road' licensing /open access work in their departments. Two of these groups have also been established in the research and innovation sector, with the assistance of the Australian National Data Service, ANDS, which has an office at ANU.

As to the registration of the domain name, that is merely a domain administration issue because I am based in Brisbane, rather than Canberra.

If you have any further queries or would like to discuss AusGOAL with me, please don't hesitate to contact me at http://www.ausgoal.gov.au/contact-us

Baden Appleyard
National Programme Director - AusGOAL

Tom Worthington said...

Baden Appleyard, National Programme Director - AusGOAL, wrote November 06, 2011 6:09 AM:

>... I'm sorry to hear that you got stuck using our licence chooser tool, because its working for me at the moment ...

I got stuck at the page "About the Licensing Review", which displayed no "next" link on my screen. Reducing the font size I see there is a link, but which was hiddin in a non scrollable window. You need to set the overflow property for this box to "auto", to have a scroll control appear, when needed.

One other anomaly I see is that the licence chooser page is copyrighted to the State of Queensland, with no Creative Commons licence. This is a little odd for a site promoting open access.

>With regard to your other queries, I think they can, in large part, be answered by my blog post, written for the launch of the website, and located here: http://blog.ausgoal.gov.au/2011/07/07/launch-ausgoal-is-online/

Thanks, that helps. It says AusGOAL is under the "Cross-Jurisdictional Chief Information Officers Committee" but does not say what that is. A link to something like the CJCIOC terms of reference on the Federal Department of Finance web site would help.

>The clear authoritative advice on delivering open access to government, in the federal government sphere at least, is contained in the OAIC Principles on open access to PSI, and the Commonwealth Attorney Generals Principles on Copyright, which I understand will soon be supported by final versions of both IP guidelines and an IP manual.

The current advice is scattered and hard to find. So having it on AusGOAL would be useful.

>We are also developing AusGOAL practitioner groups in each of the jurisdictions. These groups are intended to provide support for practitioners doing the 'rubber on the road' licensing /open access work in their departments. Two of these groups have also been established in the research and innovation sector, with the assistance of the Australian National Data Service, ANDS, which has an office at ANU.

I am at the ANU, but have not heard of the practitioner groups, a pointer on the web would help.

>As to the registration of the domain name, that is merely a domain administration issue because I am based in Brisbane, rather than Canberra.

The issue is which government entity has authorised AusGOAL. If authority comes through the CJCIOC, the web site should provide a link then from CJCIOC to an actual government agency, such as the Federal Department of Finance. Otherwise it looks like you are just making this stuff up and the reader will ask "Why should I take any notice of this?". Having a link to a credible government source will reassure the reader.

Baden said...

Hi Tom,

One other anomaly I see is that the licence chooser page is copyrighted to the State of Queensland, with no Creative Commons licence. This is a little odd for a site promoting open access.

It is licensed under CC-BY, as per the copyright notice on the chooser, and the general notice on the AusGOAL website. Its a hangover from the former GILF website that I launched in Queensland. As I have indicated, these issues (and others along these lines) will be resolved when the new version is released this year.

Thanks, that helps. It says AusGOAL is under the "Cross-Jurisdictional Chief Information Officers Committee" but does not say what that is. A link to something like the CJCIOC terms of reference on the Federal Department of Finance web site would help.

Good point Tom! Thanks. I must admit I thought I had done that... I will fix that today.

I am at the ANU, but have not heard of the practitioner groups, a pointer on the web would help.

I agree, and am going to be placing some content on the website about that shortly... In the meantime, here it is on the ANDS site: http://www.ands.org.au/publishing/licensing.html

Bottom two links on the page.

The current advice is scattered and hard to find. So having it on AusGOAL would be useful.
I agree.

I have already included reference to the OAIC content on the what is open page... http://www.ausgoal.gov.au/what_is_open

Indeed, you may also like to view the videos from the Information Commissioner and Dr Siu-Ming Tam from the ABS here: http://www.ausgoal.gov.au/videos

When the Commonwealth Attorney-Generals department releases their IP Manual and IP Guidelines in final form, I will also provide a link to them as well from the AusGOAL website.

Aside from that, the Department of Finance has made its views relatively clear on their blog, where they have mentioned AusGOAL a few times.

I trust, in some small way, this makes things a little clearer. Thanks again for your comments and response.

I will make your suggested amendments to the AusGOAL site as soon as possible.

Kind regards,

Baden