Democracy with Web 2.0

Greetings from the AGM of Computing Assistance Support & Education Inc (CASE) where Pia Waugh, policy adviser to Senator Kate Lundy, speaking on Engaging in Democracy with Web 2.0. Pia started by pointing out that the Australian Government issued a Declaration of Open Government (DOG). She showed some of the winners from the government sponsored Mashups, including Know Where You Live.

Pia then showed Senator Lundy's website, produced using Wordpress and designed to have a relatively simple layout. She pointed out that Open Australasia's enhanced version of Hansard is used.

Pia then discussed citizen centric services, noting that Australia had been a leader in on-line government. The idea is to put the citizen at the centre of the design of services, rather than a structure based on government agencies. For me, the issue how much of this can be done via software mashups and how much requires the government to be restructured. An examples are an australia.gov.au account, which the citizen to deal with multiple government services with one account.

Pia then discussed participatory government, using the example of the Public Sphere process she developed for Senator Lundy. She emphasized the need for consultation with the public to be conducted sincerely. In the latest example a 106 page Submission on Digital Culture (6MB PDF) was created for the National Cultural Policy.

Pia suggested that using on-line tools two people could conduct a substantial public consultation over three months. This is far less than the staffing needed for a traditional process.

Libraryhack at State Library of South Australia

Greetings from the Adelaide North Terrace Cultural Precinct. I am in town for a meeting for the ACS Education faculty, but thought I would spend some time at the Libraryhack at State Library of South Australia, this evening. Similar Library Hack events are being held around Australia, during Net Traveller: Information Awareness Month.

Event Type: Launch
Age Group(s): Young Adult, General
Date: 6/05/2011
Start Time: 5:30 PM
End Time: 7:30 PM

Description:

Learn about creating digital media by listening to our special guest speaker, acclaimed digital media artist Cindi Drennan. Bring your own laptop and use the free wi-fi to experiment with datasets. Seize the opportunity to share ideas, explore the possibilities and collaborate with experts in the field. Be inspired to create your own amazing Libraryhack entry to win a great prize in the national competition

Location: Treasures Wall Spence Wing first floor

Other Information:

Free. No need to book, just turn up!

Contact: Cate Parkinson / Jo Hocking
Contact Number: 8207 7292
Presenter: Cindi Drennan

Web 2 War

In "Using Web 2.0 as a Weapon" (Professional Notes, Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, February 2010), Lieutenant Randal T. Jones discusses how RSS feeds, blogs, Wikis and mash ups are being used by the military. The Lieutenant points to the US Army Knowledge Online (AKO) as an example of a secure intranet with RSS feeds and blogs. He cites the US intelligence Intellipedia as an example of a successful classified Wiki and the Army's Tactical Ground Reporting Network (TiGRNET) as a mash-up. I could not find any publicly available references to TiGRNet, but it may be similar to the Tactical Ground Reporting System (TIGR).

However, this use of technology is not all one sided. Later in the same journal, Norman Friedman ("Stealing Signals") reports that from 2004 insurgents in Iraq were intercepting video from US Predator UAVs and have been doing so in Afghanistan as late as 2009. What is not clear is why these signals were being transmitted unencrypted or if they were of any practical value to the insurgents. A few fleeting images from a UAV would be of little value. But Web 2.0 technology is now available to anyone with a smart phone and this could make scattered images of far higher intelligence value.

GovHack: Mashup Australian Government Data on 30 October

GovHack is a free, intensive event at in Canberra on 30 to 31 October. This is sponsored by the Government 2.0 Taskforce and supported by CSIRO. Government agencies, locals, state, federal and international, might like to come forward with APIs and datasets to be used by the participants. Offer datasets and tools via the Wiki. University and industry researchers can contact Laurent Lefort at CSIRO. The event will explore some of the ideas for the use of government information discussed at Bar Camp Canberra.

Pipes from RSS Feeds

PC Authority magazine contains a excellent article "Absolutely fabulous" (David Kidd, October 2007) on Web 2.0 and mashups. I used their instructions to create a simple RSS feed using Yahoo's Pipes service. This lets you take data from several feeds, filter and sort it and then pipe it out as a feed. It uses a "join the dots" approach, displaying each source and filter as a box, with the information flows as pipes joining the boxes. I used it to create a custom feed of Seminars at the ANU Computer Science and Information Technology Building. This can then be combined with other announcements and displayed on a screen in the foyer.