Cc-au mailing list

[Jessica Coates <j2.coates AT qut.edu.au>]

http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/12/22/final-taskforce-report-released/

 

This is a bit belated, as it was released in 22 December – but I thought people would be interested in the final report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce established in June to advise the Australian government on "increasing the openness of government through making public sector information more widely available to promote transparency, innovation and value adding to government information" and "encouraging online engagement with the aim of drawing in the information, knowledge, perspectives, resources and even, where possible, the active collaboration of anyone wishing to contribute to public life." 

 

Key findings of the report - Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 - include:

·         “Government 2.0 or the use of the new collaborative tools and approaches of Web 2.0 offers an unprecedented opportunity to achieve more open, accountable, responsive and efficient government.

·         Though it involves new technology, Government 2.0 is really about a new approach to organising and governing. It will draw people into a closer and more collaborative relationship with their government. Australia has an opportunity to resume its leadership in seizing these opportunities and capturing the resulting social and economic benefits.

·         Leadership, and policy and governance changes are needed to shift public sector culture and practice to make government information more accessible and usable, make government more consultative, participatory and transparent, build a culture of online innovation within Government, and to promote collaboration across agencies.

…

·         Information collected by or for the public sector — is a national resource which should be managed for public purposes. That means that we should reverse the current presumption that it is secret unless there are good reasons for release and presume instead that it should be freely available for anyone to use and transform unless there are compelling privacy, confidentially or security considerations.”

Most importantly from our point of view – the report (which is under a BY licence) wholeheartedly endorses Creative Commons Attribution as the default licence for government material.

 

Also of interest is the Appendix “Troubleshooting concerns about Creative Commons licensing” which contains an excellent summary of, and responses to, common concerns raised about using Creative Commons in a government (and non-government) licensing context.

 

Hopefully this well researched and written report will lead to more wholesale adoption of open government principles and Creative Commons in Australia and internationally.

 

 

Jessica Coates

Project Manager

Creative Commons Clinic

Queensland University of Technology

 

ph: 07 3138 8301

fax: 07 3138 9395

email: j2.coates AT qut.edu.au