What data should we ask local councils for?

@Nick As far as I can tell LAWA is useless for downstream development like GovHack or similar. The site defaults to ©Copyright LAWA which is All Rights Reserved. The terms as http://www.lawa.org.nz/terms/ specify Personal & Non-commercial use so reuse via mashup or app isn't allowed by default.

Well that sucks.

Nick WilliamsonSystems Thinker & Innovatorwww.mashmatix.com ( http://www.mashmatix.com/ )

I image we can ask the LAWA for a clarification on license terms for GovHack use? @shaunmcgirr1 ?

\cc @jonathanhunt @nickwilliamson

@jobooth It would be good to ask them to simply license it per NZGOAL, preferably something permissive like CC-BY.

Very constructive suggestions, I've sent them this. Feel free to reuse any of the language!

Hi there,

I'm the Wellington "data wrangler" for an event coming up in July called "GovHack", in which teams of people build innovative solutions to common problems with open government data. The outcome could be a website, an app, or a visualisation.

Your website is a fantastic resource, especially as it pools together data from multiple councils, allowing any team using LAWA to get to the "solution" part faster and spend less time wrangling data.

Unfortunately, your terms and conditions are pretty scary! While the limited "personal, non-commercial" grant of use sounds nice, it isn't really a license that would freely allow mashup and reuse of the type we promote through GovHack. That means we can't recommend LAWA to participants, which is a shame.

Central government is now typically licensing its data through the NZGOAL framework, which provides options that might work for you. Note that none of these remove or affect your copyright on any data, they simply clarify the terms of reuse.

If you're interested in opening up the data so people can take full advantage of your work collecting it, please let me know how GovHack can help.

Cheers
Shaun McGirr

Great messaging Shaun, Paul, and team on data (re)use. :-)

Also a useful prompt for staff in public sector funded organisations planning information releases who may need a prompt on the NZGOAL framework. Thinking about re-use early in the process can be helpful.

Cheers

Kay Jones

Something that'd I'd love to see (or create for) councils is APIs into their 'fix my street' or equivalent data.

Last minute, the awesome team at Hexagon Geospatial have gifted a top tier subscription to their Mobile Alert crowd sourcing service - so attendees at all GovHack locations in Australia and New Zealand will see a specific GovHack 'wheel' in the app. I'll be providing the feed from that to anyone who asks - with the hope someone will mash it up into their local council, sports field, community project or anyone who likes being told whats afoot in their neighbourhood.

See how it works - Mobile Alert demo video and if you want some datas - pop to my Playing Smarter post on pulse and click the Request Resources link