Agenda adjustments

Kevin: will talk about White House call on Thurs in agenda 2

Kevin: news of data.gov

US Open government memo implementation update

Kevin: mentions http://opengov.ideascale.com/

Kevin: Beth N. has new title [congrats]

Kevin: takeaways : 1. furthering transparency

Kevin: concept behind launch of site is to hear best recommendations
... remarks on call pointed to short timeframe
... 2nd round will show best recommendations into a second level that goes out to agencies for comments
... already effort ongoing beyond the NAPA process too
... can the recommendations be put forward as regs is a question
...it may be till end of the year till much happens

Kevin: a lot of data.gov conversation. but many questions about why.
... Suzanne had clued folks into a memo that asked for top 5 data sources (to answer questions)
... were some people struggling for reason for datasets released.

Kevin: my own comments were positive for having larger discussion with public
... looking to put together list of orgs to contact

Joe: What is our goal toward the data.gov process (our meaning w3c egov IG)

Kevin: we discussed this issue

Joe: how can we participate?

Daniel: should we post group note to Open Govt. Dialogue NAPA site?

Kevin: we had brought the group note to some in us gov upon publication

Joe: in that gov put up not ready for prime time version a good place to start

Kevin: media was looking for criticism. I was positive to the effort.
... so many questions going around. this is a method for moving forward.

<annew> yes!

Daniel: should we post group note to Open Govt. Dialogue NAPA site?

<josema> hi, anne! so great to see you around :)

<annew> glad to be here

<joec> hi anne

Joe: I put up my xml version of the data.gov site for people to play with http://www.xmldatasets.net/data.gov/catalog.xml

Data.gov

<annew> hi joe.

Joe: what was the acronym?

John: registration of information. makes a catalog that is human readable

Anne: is it a periodical

<josema> [http://www.epsiplus.net/content/download/15123/189429/file/Information%20Asset%20Registers%20(OPSI%20Discussion%20Paper)%2010%20Sep%2008.pdf]

Anne: ?

<josema> wondeful URI, isn't it? ;)

Anne: is it like GILS?

<Owen> Sorry, Kevin. I was multi-tasking, taking another call when you called upon me just now.

John: yes, Anne
... catalog descriptions is good to a point. linking is missed.
... let me give an example
... if geo info is mentioned, then I could find it"
... but another model is to have URI for each location"
... but then I can go to a search location using URI for a set location"
... and this is a linked system for URIs rather than just general catalog metadata system"

Joe: you still need datasets to be published

John: agreed

Joe: if you RDF it then the information then it can be discovered

John: yes, but not saying that that is the only solution

Brand: did a google search that energy with data.gov
... I get a URL, but not real answer

Anne: are we asking to find the dataset or a piece of data?

Daniel:[talked alot]

<aharvey> :)

<josema> uh, oh, datapedia is coming

<annew> wiki.dbpedia.org apparently...

<john> are you saying we don't need dbpedia?

<john> I think dbpedia adds value, no?

<josema> I think Daniel is saying that as far as one can guess the underlying structure of the data it's fine

Daniel: mainly about need to use WWW of domains to say where a dataset is and having a decent structure to the data, that can be enough

<daniel> yes, Jose

Joe: fundamental problem of semantics

<annew> I thought daniel was saying that we should be able to scrape the data from any web page. standards or no.

Joe: if one org is trying to standardize temp, that may be impossible across all orgs

<daniel> Anne, as long as the web site /data is using standard web/xhtml or xml w/ xsl

<john> agree, we are missing the URI concept with data catalogues

Ken: perhaps there is a way for important buildings in federal blds for example, that can be a standard

<john> we use URIs to disambiguate

Ken: we need a good blend of web and semantic standards

Joe: wikipedia is an example of a centralized data

<josema> daniel, anne, I think "valid" is not enough (in fact it's not even needed in many cases), I think the interesting point is to be able to guess what the data is about, what's the structure, as daniel mentioned e.g. microformats for geop, even better if some sort of XML or RDF

<john> does an agency have a location? or does only a building? (something purely topographical)

Owen: we should move to XML instead of RDF

Daniel: [more long talking]

Rick: not a good model for world, Owen

<john> horses for courses, no?

<josema> I said this a million times, for me it's about chosing the right tool for the job, and I can ellaborate on that

Daniel: W3C has combined XML with RDF into XHTML+RDFa

Joe: let a million flowers bloom

<annew> Thank you daniel for some diplomatic skills

Kevin: we should talk about best practices, not complete answers

<Owen> Correction: I did not say not to use XML *instead* of RDF.

Joe: we can use different things. but we should talk about it.

Anne: we have different ways to do things and we should have levels of completeness.

<Owen> If we want folks to use RDF OR XML, we should help them do so.

<john> whatever format you use (including Excel), we should be pushing for good uris

<josema> +1 to owen!

<daniel> john, we should use URLs if possible

<annew> Quick and dirty with a minimal amount of reusability. i.e. Joe's example of using .csv instead of .xls

<aharvey> +1 to Anne's point

<josema> +1 to anne, too

Joe: lets use some use quick and dirty methods.

Dave: first point to documentation

<Owen> Documentation can be published in xsd:documentation elements within XML schemas.

<john> +1 josema

<kevin> +1 Josema

Jose: let us not go into XML vs. RDF
...I'm in the middle, it's about right tool for the job for me

<Owen> Why not suggest best practices for both?

<john> rdf is really bad for legislation documents for example...

Jose: some cases we have different sources, we need to just get better data.
... GRDDL is an interesting way to expose data

<john> also, there's lots to say for xhtml, no? as a great format ;)

<annew> john: yes agree about rdf and leg docs. working on a leg schema. ...another discussion

<annew> I have a meeting on the hour. Hope the conversation goes back to interoperability issue in John's email.

<josema> sure, namely XHTML(2)!

Jose: concentrate on releasing bit

<josema> one can apply GRDDL to XHTML(2) then get RDF (and XHTML(2) is XML in the end) isn't it wonderful?

<josema> Daniel: BP1 = Documentation; BP2 = Standardization

<annew> Anne's gotta go. Next time and online. Bye

<hughb> best practice for semantically exposing data

<john> cheers Anne

<annew> bye

Daniel: talks a bit about BP of documentation

Joe: that data.gov does point to some documentation

Jose: we should move to next agenda item

Kevin: lets cover the Open Gov call first

<john> I agree

Jose: let me mention, I dont know how W3C will act yet.
... will discuss whether data.gov is responded to. needs concensus

<Owen> One of the things the eGov IG could do is suggest additional datasets to include in Data.gov

<Owen> One dataset that might be good to include in Data.gov is the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) dataset: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg_xmlreports/

<hughb> +1

<john> hmm - is that the right place to do that?

<john> shouldn't we talk more generically?

<john> eg if you are a gov and want to surface data, data..gov is worth a look; it's great. If you wanted to do more, you could do x, y and z

Daniel: we should have a W3C eGov hosted discussion board

<josema> I like more john's approach

<aharvey> +1 to john

<john> happy for the ig to talk about gov data, less happy talking about just data.gov; albeit a great and startling and important initiative

Kevin: I agree that there is only a short amount of time. we should put together consensus eGov IG doc
... like John put up generic comments. also have a blog with individual commentors.
... blog is good idea.

<john> +1

<daniel> +1 enthusiastically

<josema> +1, too

<hughb> bye

Joe: would this be in addition to examples?
... we are hoping to create a page off of the wiki key ideas as well as blog

John: I agree with Joe on doing experimentation as well as doing comments

<Owen> I agree with Joe too.

John: we can bring a broader perspective

[scribe notes only 14 minutes left]

[and 2 agenda items left]

Daniel: can we vote? blog, no blog. experiments, no experiments.

<josema> chairs?

<john> blog is good, gives us some flex; lets move on ;)

Kevin: lets move forward

<josema> ACTION: kevin to collect comments [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/05/27-egov-minutes.html#action01]

<trackbot> Created ACTION-64 - Collect comments [on Kevin Novak - due 2009-06-03].

Kevin: how to proceed?
... will be talking to press, so would like some feedback

[Daniel on we could have a blog, skip deadline by pointing to it from open dialogue platform and saying response will be there on a given date]

<josema> site to comment = http://opengov.ideascale.com/ ?

<john> too clever by half, I fear

<john> issues paper covers heaps

<john> so, maybe we just point to stuff thats there?

Kevin: the group note can stand for our consensus

[5 minutes left]

<aharvey> I'll be able to add comments on this stuff later today.

[and still 2 agenda items]

<josema> re-reads: "...This online brainstorming session, open from May 21st to 28th, 2009..."

Kevin: wonders about date for comments

Rachel: thought it would be longer

<josema> apparently page not aligned to what was said on the call (June 2)

[3 minutes left]

[still 2 agenda items]

Jose: not enough time to discuss charter, but lets discuss plan

<john> great - go ahead

<aharvey> I will be unable to make the June 10 call

Jose: we have deadlines
... we have until mid-June for draft for charter
... June 24 as a deadline to coincide with group call

Charter plan

Kevin: I agree. and read through comments. I think that the action item is for chairs to compile into one pager

<daniel> +1

<josema> current charter: http://www.w3.org/2008/02/eGov/ig-charter

<john> sounds good

<josema> ACTION: kevin to draft a 1-2 initial pager re: charter, john and jose to help [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/05/27-egov-minutes.html#action02]

<trackbot> Created ACTION-65 - Draft a 1-2 initial pager re: charter, john and jose to help [on Kevin Novak - due 2009-06-03].

<john> think we're done

Daniel: times up

Jose: agrees

Gov 2.0 Summit

<aharvey> I'm trying to get an invite to that summit

Kevin: we have an opportunity for Gov 2.0 summit. we can put together case study.
... Daniel and Joe, you can put together Rosetta Stone [and Repository Schema] for 20 min presentation.

<josema> [kevin offers invites :)]

Kevin: i'm done

[ADJOURNED]

<john> thanks everyone :)

<aharvey> This was very informative. Thanks!

<joec> good session