For the last three years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been giving its data to five of the largest cloud service providers in an effort to increase public access, lower costs for the agency and potentially create new markets. Now, as the initial run nears its end, NOAA officials want to know if it’s working. [Read more…] about NOAA wants to hear from users about OpenData
opendata
CrowTrax Open Source Webmap Maps Crow attacks
This time of year in Western Canada the crows start getting a little aggressive. As a result, a University Professor at Langara College has developed a webmap using nothing but open source software to share a real world use for a community webmap. Crowtrax identifies locations where crow attacks and aggressive crow behavior has been spotted and reported. The maps are available for Vancouver and Victoria, B.C and appear to reveal patterns such as increased activity near areas with restaurants and public parks, likely where there’s plenty of food to be scooped up!
Langara College offers classes in GIS and even have an Open Source GIS Certificate program
Share Your Comments on OpenGov and OpenData
We’d like to hear from you with a little feedback and comments regarding Open Government and OpenData. We’d like you to share your favorite resources, comment on the state of OpenGov and provide some general feedback… enjoy, and thanks for participating! [Read more…] about Share Your Comments on OpenGov and OpenData
Report Shows Rapid and Widespread Adoption of Open Data By Governments #opengov
Socrata (www.socrata.com) has announced the launch of the Socrata 2014 Open Data Benchmark Reportdesigned to measure and report public-sector use of open data in the United States. The report reveals that an increasing number of public-sector organizations have embraced open data as a way to boost visibility into government decision-making and performance.
“This benchmark study clearly and dramatically confirms what we’ve been seeing during the past few years – open data adoption and usage is exploding in governments all over the world,” says Kevin Merritt, Founder and CEO of Socrata. “Open data has gone mainstream. It’s a viral movement that’s now unstoppable. And, as the lifeblood of connected global networks, it’s improving the lives of people on just about every continent.”
Open Government Tour 2014 #OGT14 Hits Victoria BC to Stimulate OpenData Dialog #opengov
A topic that is hugely hot these days, particularly with the GeoTech crowd, is Open Data. I spent an evening in the meeting chambers at our local City Hall discussing OpenData with about 2 dozen other geeks with nothing better to do on a Monday night. The event was planned by and run by opendata enthusiast and co-founder of CitizenBridge, Richard Pietro and brought together about 10 very knowledgeable speakers and enthusiasts to share their stories and advice. The tour, which is supported by sponsorship from the Microsoft backed Open Source project, Make Web not War, is designed to ignite the open government conversation in areas that may not have had the chance to experience the conversation – that may not be the case in Victoria BC but it is always a great idea to re-ignite the discussion.
FME UC 2014 Video: FME Powers CKAN Open Data Portal
YEs indeed the FME User Conference videos, more than 70 of them, are all online for your viewing pleasure! One of my favorite sessions at the event was delivered by Mark Laudon of the City of Surrey, B.C. Surrey is definitely a leader when it comes to open data and citizen engagement, although they are quite modest about it! Enjoy this talk by Mark as he describes their efforts, discusses open data platforms, and shares some very useful tips! [Read more…] about FME UC 2014 Video: FME Powers CKAN Open Data Portal
Esri Connecting Citizens and business With Open Data
Recall it was in February (seems ages ago!) when Esri’s Andrew Turner (@ajturner) lifted the lid off the Esri Open Data initiative, and effort to help Governments meet their mandate to be more transparent and serve the public with more open data – enter ArcGIS Open Data. I’m a huge fan of such efforts, mainly as they support Governent’s true mandate of serving the public and acting as the platform for innovation!
See more in this blog post from Esri
For all the deets direct from Esri see this resource devoted to ArcGIS Open data
Mashing up Two of My Favorite Things… Coffee + Maps for Coffee walkingshed communities
Yes indeed, I take notice when I see maps of things I really enjoy, like beer and coffee! Enter these maps showing “walkable regions” for independent coffee shops in major Metropolitan areas like Brooklyn, Portland, and Seattle.
illustreets Exemplifies the power of Open Data Enabling Anyone to Explore England
You know the scenario… you want to move to a new city and you’d like to find out where the best places are to live, however, you know nothing about the region at all. Have you been there? Well, there’s great news, particularly for people wanting to locate great places to live in England thanks to the awesome resource illustreets (illustreets.co.uk). The powerful, map driven, data rich resource empowers users with data, TONS of it, thanks to all that fabulous open data in and around the UK. Using illustreets, users can pinpoint a place on the map, then browse loads of social variables, economic indicators, housing market data, crime stats, transportation links and much more.
[Read more…] about illustreets Exemplifies the power of Open Data Enabling Anyone to Explore England
Open Source Leader, Boundless, Rolls out OpenGeo 4.0
The open source hipsters and geogeeks are being treated to a release this week as OpenGeo errrrrr Boudless has announced the availability ofOpenGeo suite 4.0. According to teh company, this release brings new features and improvements, including component upgrades to PostGIS 2.1, GeoServer 2.4, GeoWebCache 1.5 and support for OpenLayers 3 and QGIS. Additional developments include a GeoServer clustering extension which allows high availability and better scaling under load.
[Read more…] about Open Source Leader, Boundless, Rolls out OpenGeo 4.0