A non-digital service example of working in the open

Matt has recently been blogging and speaking about "working in the open" in public service roles. Giles has written a lot about working in the open too, most recently collecting examples of teams who are doing open for different purposes, e.g. for remembering and thinking out loud. I've worked in the open on software and … Continue reading A non-digital service example of working in the open →

“AI-Ready Data” is the wrong framing

A paper was published this week by Stefaan Verhulst, Andrew Zahuranec and Hannah Chafetz called "Moving Toward the FAIR-R principles: Advancing AI-Ready Data". The paper sets out to do two things: Make the case that we are in a "Fourth Wave" of open data in which it is critical that data is made useful for … Continue reading “AI-Ready Data” is the wrong framing →

Acceptable answers only

It can be hard to comment on a lot of tech news without coming across like Apu taking a bullet for a big tech platform. But a few aspects to the current debate around the new StackOverflow deal with OpenAI have irked me, as reported in TechCrunch and The Register and debated on Mastodon. So … Continue reading Acceptable answers only →

A basis for better definitions of “open”

There's been a lot of discussion around what is means to be "open" recently. I think this has largely been driven by issues and concerns around the development and deployment of Large Language Models and claims for at least some of those models to be "open". What does it mean for an LL or other … Continue reading A basis for better definitions of “open” →

What datasets have been classified as Digital Public Goods?

Update: 2024-04-14, I've updated this post with some corrections. See below A couple of years ago I wrote a short series of posts looking at some different approaches for assessing data infrastructure. It includes this post on the Digital Public Goods standard and registry. Digital Public Goods are defined as: open-source software, open data, open … Continue reading What datasets have been classified as Digital Public Goods? →

Increasing consistency of data with FAIR Implementation Profiles

FAIR implementation profiles offer a means to increase consistency around how data is shared.

The Public Charge Point regulations and other examples of open data and standards in UK legislation

This week the UK published some new draft legislation: The Public Charge Point Regulations 2023. You can read a summary of what the legislation covers elsewhere, but what caught my attention was that it purports to require that operators of electric vehicle charging points must publish open data about their charging points. But I was … Continue reading The Public Charge Point regulations and other examples of open data and standards in UK legislation →

Schema explorers and how they can help guide adoption of common standards

Despite being very different projects Wikidata and OpenStreetmap have a number of similarities. Recurring patterns in how they organise and support the work of their communities. We documented a number of these patterns in the ODI Collaborative Maintenance Guidebook. There were also a number we didn't get time to write-up. A further pattern which I … Continue reading Schema explorers and how they can help guide adoption of common standards →

Building data validators

This is a post about building tools to validate data. I wanted to share a few reflections based on helping to design and build a few different public and private tools, as well as my experience as a user. I like using data validators to check my homework. I've been using a few different recently … Continue reading Building data validators →

Some lessons learned from building standards around Schema.org

OpenActive is a community-led initiative in the sport and physical activity sector in England. It's goal is to help to get people healthier and more active by making its easier for people to find information about activities and events happening in their area. Publishing open data about opportunities to be active is a key part … Continue reading Some lessons learned from building standards around Schema.org →