My company, iCognition, has recently worked with several Government agencies where a progressive approach is being taken – all documents, data, forums, topics and discussion threads are being captured as records automatically behind the scenes. This leaves staff free to undertake the activities required and not be concerned about whether or when records are being captured.

Arguments that this type of information is of ephemeral value and should be managed outside the record system are not valid. All information created and stored by a Government organisation belongs to the organisation and needs to be managed as records. Not only does this ensure accountability and transparency, if it’s not done this way organisations can expect significant cost in management and discovery, as well as embarrassment when auditors need to spend substantial effort examining and/or searching multiple information repositories.

iCognition has been working closely with a number of government agencies on this issue and would be pleased to chat further about the approach being taken.

the Cambridge Report (2008) was a brilliant theoretical work but did not take into account that the proposed solution might conflict with the legislative framework in Europe, even in the UK. Eventually Australia has adopted a similar legislation which I am not aware off.

PRICING and FUNDING are two sides of a coin. As long as public data holders face a standstill or even decrease of public funding, it is waste of time to propose to a certain category of public data holders (!) the marginal cost model. – The adoption of the US-model failed in Europe since most European Governments fund public services in a different way. – Different funding model, different pricing (at least of re-users).

Furthermore, marginal costs or even free data show a wide range of price elasticity: under certain conditions (which we are better aware before 10 years of research) the demand of the PSI re-user may soar (A) and in other cases free public data heavily damaged the local publishing industry (B).

I met only one excellent British professor who understood the complexity of these PRICING issues. By the way his book is the only one I can recommend in that regard.

For details please refer to my comprehensive feedback sent to your Taskforce on August 26. After 12 years research on PSI re-use, FOI and eGovernment related issues I am still in the infancy to formulate the adequate questions for proper research. Its not the time for a quick fix. – But you could draw upon the bad lessons from Europe – in terms of methodology, market research, target marketing, benchmarks and forecasts which never became reality as some consultants believed to take place.

the Cambridge Report (2008) was a brilliant theoretical work but did not take into account that their proposed solution might conflict with the legislative framework in Europe, maybe even in the UK. Eventually Australia has adopted a similar legal framework.

PRICING and FUNDING are two sides of a coin. As long as public data holders face a standstill or even decrease of public funding, it is waste of time to propose to a certain category of public dataholders (!) the marginal cost model. – The adoption of the US-model failed in Europe since most European Governments fund public services in a different way. – Different funding model, different pricing (at least of re-users).

Furthermore, marginal costs or even free data show a wide range of price elasticity: under certain conditions (which we are better aware before 10 years of research) the demand of the PSI re-user may soar (A) and in other cases free public data heavily damaged the local publishing industry (B).

I met only one excellent British professor who understood the complexity of these PRICING issues. By the way his book is the only one I can recommend in that regard.

For details please refer to my comprehensive feedback sent to your Taskforce on August 26. After 12 years research on PSI re-use, FOI and eGovernment related issues I am still in the infancy to formulate the adaequate questions for proper research. Its not the time for a quick fix. – But you could draw upon the bad lessons from Europe – in terms of methodology, market research, target marketing, benchmarks and forecasts which never became reality as some consultants believed to take place.

Part 1. A crowdsourced inventory of publicly available government data at the national level
Part 2. Rating of each data source against the principles of open access
Part 3. Use case studies to explore the options for combining open-access publishing of government information with an open & transparent research process (including at least some crowdsourcing) to demostrate the potential of gov2.0 to shorten the feedback loop between policy implementation and evaluation.

Getting into Gov2.0 shouldn’t neccessarily be an added expense. Most departments and agencies are already spending considerable resources on old worls public consultation procedures which are increasingly innefficient. All public consultations should be encouraged to do a cost benefit analysis of incorporating web 2.0 into their existing budgets and plans. The Productivity Commission and Law Reform Commissions are ideally positioned to benefit and save money.