Open Government

Open government is a doctrine that holds citizens have the right to access the documents, information and proceedings of the government to allow for effective public oversight. Open government ranges from open access and televising events to the release of datasets and documents. Crowdsourcing of information -- such as upcoming events or notifications about potholes or barking dogs -- can improve citizen involvement and better practicing government. Open government ranges from the international to the national, state, regional, local and neighborhoods. The Open Semantic Framework is a proven platform in open government.

Early and current efforts in open government have tended to focus on the publishing of minutes and entire datasets. When published, they are often provided often without adequate descriptive backup, and nearly always lack connections and often search or filtering functions.

Leading innovators from the World Bank to the City of Winnipeg, however, are showing there are better ways to leverage existing information assets, in the process fostering engagement with constituencies. Datasets from global trade to local parks and zoos have been shown they can be brought together, correlated via meaningful connections, and effectively viewed and managed with easy-to-use widgets.

One exemplar of the use of OSF for open government is provided via the Neighbourhoods of Winnipeg (NOW) project.