Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Federal Gov't releases data.gov.au

AGIMO calling on further data sets to increase public access to government data

The Federal Government is calling on the commercial, research and community sectors to make greater use of public sector information recently made available on the new data.gov.au website.

The data.gov.au site, with more than 200 datasets available, replaces the data.australia.gov.au beta site, which was developed for the Government 2.0 Taskforce’s Mashup Australia Contest in 2009.

In a blog post on the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) site, special minister of state, Gary Gray, wrote the new site would play a crucial role in realising the Australian government’s Declaration of Open Government and Freedom of Information (FoI) reforms.

Along with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Geoscience Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO, other government agencies were also being encouraged to make data open and reusable for the public through the site.

Presently data sets range from the location of barbeque sites in the ACT through to world heritage areas across the country to British Convict transportation registers.

As part of the site’s release, the AGIMO is calling on the public to suggest datasets it would like released by Australian government agencies.

It is also calling for the public to participate on the site by rating and commenting on datasets, provide feedback and suggestions for site improvements, and contribute submissions of mashups or data-based initiatives they produce.

Gray said AGIMO, in conjunction with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, is also preparing best practice guidance to assist agencies with the technical aspects of publishing public sector information.

Additionally, guidelines were being developed by the Attorney-General’s department to assist agencies with licensing public sector information, with the goal of encouraging the use of open licences.

Follow Tim Lohman on Twitter: @tlohman

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: ACT, Attorney-General, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, CSIRO, Federal Government
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), data.australia.gov.au, data.gov.au website, Gary Gray, government
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Security Threat Report 2012
    This threat report shares the latest research on hacktivism, online threats, mobile malware, cloud computing, and social network security looking ahead to the coming year.
    Learn more »
  • The State of Data Security
    Recognize how your data can become vulnerable, including the latest issues stemming from unprotected data on mobile devices and social media sites. Understand the compliance issues involved, and identify data protection strategies you can use to keep your company’s information both safe and compliant.
    Learn more »
  • Case Study: NZ Bus Develops Applications 60% Faster, Improves Database Performance by up to 35%
    Key Benefits: Developed applications 60% faster, Created development and test environments in minutes compared to days and weeks previously, Reduced server costs by 30% with server virtualisation, Saved NZ$40,000 in database administrator training costs, Provided high availability features that keep the database and core applications up and running in the event of a server failure, Introduced compression capabilities that improved database performance by 30% to 35%. Read on.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments