Meeting Record

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Zakim IRC Bot: the conference code is 3468 (tel:+1.617.761.6200 tel:+33.4.89.06.34.99 tel:+44.117.370.6152), josema ←

Owen Ambur: I was planning to Skype into the telecon but don't see how to enter the conference code in Skype. If I can't figure out how to do it, I will only be dialing in for limited parts of the meeting on my cell phone. ←

Owen Ambur: I don't understand what "aacc" means in the phone number. I thought it might mean the access code but I tried it and got the wrong number. ←

Unknown Karen: Jose Alonso welcomes everyone and provides brief overview of W3C ←

excited that this work is starting because of Obama Administration's commitment to create open and transparent government ←

...about tracking accountability, and also economic development in terms of creating new jobs ←

Unknown Rick: I think there is a demographic to that, which needs to be well understood ←

Unknown Beth: I'm laughing because that's a true throw-down to the challenge of large IT systems ←

...conference call yesterday to talk about what the transformational efforts are ←

Owen Ambur: I contacted Skype and got instructions on how to enter the conference ID and am now listening via Skype. ←

John Sheridan, W3C eGov Co-Chair, Sytems Strategy for UK Public Sector Information ←

Daniel Bennett: btw I helped get US. legislation include lack of copyright by adding Dublin Core rights piece into the XML version ←

Kevin Novak: So these are very important issues, but need to stay on track with our speakers ←

Beth reads quote about collaboration, empowering people with mobile technology ←

...but [jokes] "most in Washington don't know the difference between a server and a waiter" ←

...We think openness will breed more trust in officials and gov't institutions ←

...it is not a non-profit's responsibility to create databases from gov't data ←

Owen Ambur: With respect to what we need to know, it would be good if lobbyists were required to post their goals and objectives on the Web in StratML format. ←

...we use Twitter to lobby members of Senate to post campaign finance reports online ←

Zakim IRC Bot: On IRC I see heatherwest, Daniel_Bennett, Rachel, Karen, ari, Owen, RRSAgent, Zakim, josema, trackbot ←

...We believe the time is right to push open the door The White House has given us ←

...When Sunlight makes a grant to an organization, we require that the data be in open source format ←

Owen Ambur: Having checked out Beth's pedigree, I looked for a strategic plan on IILP's site. Didn't see one but inferred one from the information on the site. It is now available in StratML format at http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm#EdInstitutions ←

...we fund a Sunlight team, or groups with long-standing reputation for developing data sets ←

Kevin Novak: Ellen made my life interesting for two years at Library of Congress ←

...but it's a separate question of trustin whether you are on a gov't Web site ←

...Verify what THe Constitution actually says, versus what someone else says ←

John, Sunlight Foundation: good to praise the CIO Council for putting out that memo ←

Daniel Bennett: hard to explain to people that lying about stuff is not a problem ←

Unknown Steve: I have so many hours in the day, but would welcome some other folks to hack with me ←

1. Participation and Citizen Engagement, Use of Social Media

Unknown Karen: Daniel Bennet: elected officials have an opportunity to better educate citizens about multiple roles and hats ←

Unknown Karen: ...for example, officials have to comply with laws and policies when wearing official hats using gov't resources ←

Unknown Karen: ...and they are thinking about how to use social media to communicate ith their communities ←

Kevin Novak: Are you hearing that those certain tools? [ Scribe Assist by Unknown Karen ] ←

Unknown Karen: George Thomas: what is W3C's role in social media, linking gov't data ←

Unknown Karen: ...looking forward to discussion later today on data integration ←

José Alonso: W3C has a Future of Social Networking Group [ Scribe Assist by Unknown Karen ] ←

Unknown George: interoperability standards to overcome walled gardens with social media is good [ Scribe Assist by Unknown Karen ] ←

José Alonso: Discussing my two hats last evening [ Scribe Assist by Unknown Karen ] ←

Unknown Karen: ...W3C work for eGov, and consulting work for my CTIC institute ←

Unknown Karen: ...what I am seeing is a lot of gov't people coming to our institute ←

Unknown Rick: So here is a suggestion for a social media use case [ Scribe Assist by Unknown Karen ] ←

Unknown Karen: ...meme is a unit of cultural information that is copied from place to place ←

Owen Ambur: If a strategy is drafted for addressing the use of social media by .gov folks, I will be glad to render it in StratML format. ←

...so in the financial community, there is a huge lack of trust all the way around ←

...what we are looking to do is bridge conversations between policy and technical peop;le ←

...you still need someone who is listening and pointing people to where the data is ←

John Sheridan: so there is a view that gov't's role is just to push the data out ←

...a big role of gov't is to provide a mirror and part of its social contract ←

...we have been asked to link what we as employees do to further our strategic goals ←

...I asked whether gov't employees should have a wiki or blog to publish what I do for my agency ←

Unknown Brand: we are strongly encouraged to keep a record of our goals and accomplishments in electronic form ←

John Wonderlich: So a good question, but being silly, it sounds like question of "how much should people talk at work" ←

...if social aspect is open to the world, how do you ensure that the change is good for gov't putting it out ←

...but rule tends to be they listen entirely to people in their jurisdiction ←

Scribe problem: the name 'Ben' is ambiguous. It could be any of: Daniel Bennett Benjamin Nguyen Laila Benhlima . Either change the name used or insert a 'PRESENT: ...' line to restrict the active names.

...I personally would not like to see gov't employees putting things into walled gardens ←

...in several countries, there are discussions about how these networks should be used by gov't employees ←

...there is an EU use case about creating something that only a few people use ←

José Alonso: so the gov't has power to help push the social media companies to do the right things ←

John Sheridan: show of hands for gov't pushing private sector providers to push ←

...we have procurement laws that say we cannot buy platforms that are not accessible ←

John Wonderlich: I don't think gov't should regulate how people make Web sites ←

Joe Carmel: not one us federal department website conforms to validator.w3.org ←

Daniel Bennett: you have brought up an extraordinary thing that makes a good point ←

...if there are technical means to capture the record information, that will help ←

...we have been active participants in contributing to linked data databases ←

...provides way to surface info and adapt Web site to be an API and serve the data ←

RRSAgent IRC Bot: I'm logging. I don't understand 'draf minutes', josema. Try /msg RRSAgent help ←

...is we can aggregate data on the Web without building new systems underneath ←

...it has things like traffic notices, planning notices, move parking places on a street ←

...Back to some of challenges: helps us with discovery, legal, technical, intelligibility, and dependencies ←

John Sheridan: it helps that part of gov't does this, also has the policy responsibility ←

Unknown Brand: is there a broader strategy to move from print to electronic delivery? ←

Zakim IRC Bot: On IRC I see josema, Karen, markthomas, heatherwest, OAmbur, joec, Daniel_Bennett, Rachel, RRSAgent, Zakim, trackbot ←

...this is about spending some of money in a different way to release data as part of an ecosystem ←

...understanding of what it means to publish has been transformed by the Web ←

...new revolution is that when you publish on the Web, the data has to have Semantic information ←

John Sheridan: if you do the RFF, you are a long way toward achieving what you want to do ←

John Sheridan: challenge to get people who only know the human-readable Web to understand the data Web ←

Joe Carmel: we definitely need a solution that allows human and machine readability in one package otherwise the data is duplicative and possibly not identical. ←

...and they tried to do all themselves instead of from places that create the data ←

...governments are in a unique place because they can start to boot strap things ←

John Sheridan: there was a level of risk for starting to operationalize RDFa ←

...this is a compelling message to help people introduce this thinking and technology ←

...in real world, I'll take your word for it this time for a certain level of investment ←

...but some are going online and recreating as community building information ←

John Sheridan: I want to help spend x amount and you will get better schools ←

...that's the connection to take these things back to the outcome the gov't is trying to achieve ←

...now you enable banks, other gov't agencies to more cheaply digest the data ←

...we should have laws that say, put stuff on Web, and make human and machine readable ←

...I don't think you want to do an ROI argument to make things machine and human readable ←

...investment is on behalf of the people of the USA, not just a single agency ←

Zakim IRC Bot: On IRC I see Owen, josema, Karen, markthomas, heatherwest, joec, Daniel_Bennett, Rachel, RRSAgent, Zakim, trackbot ←

Owen Ambur: For rapidly changing technology, ROI is not the most appropriate metric. Pay-back period is. How long does it take to get back the cost -- bearing in mind the investment is being made by We the People, not just the agency in question. ←

Unknown Ken: the amount of public good created also linked to their enthusiasm ←

Unknown Brand: so taxpayer says we'll give you money to create public good for IT ←

[more summarized now, due to scribe skills and participation in the session] ←

[there's underlying data in some cases, but releasing that data is still being moved to the publication workflow] ←

Daniel Bennett: all government Web sites should be accessible, but more importantly don't lie about it ←

[Diane on the need of having a common taxonomy across government to do this sort of transformation more automatically] ←

Unknown Diane: how do you get domain knowledge from the spread sheets? [ Scribe Assist by Unknown Karen ] ←

Unknown Brand: We put spread sheets into natural groupings into domain [ Scribe Assist by Unknown Karen ] ←

Design Pattern for publishing gov. data which is held as spreadsheets. Use the spreadsheet natively and expose the data as RDF ←

Unknown Karen: ...Tool we have uses whatever data dictionary information you put in, or it will crank out ontology as best it can ←

tool uses a data dictionary, to build ontology, or will build ontology as best it can. ←

John Sheridan: I really like what you just described as a process for government data in spreadsheets ←

Unknown Brand: Brian Donnelley with Semantic Discovery has done this in the UK ←

...we are going to present this at the Semantic Technology conference in June in San Jose ←

...this came out of a W3C Workshop Tim Berners-Lee invited us to on RDB to RDF data ←

...have each column have links to various repositories to sources of information ←

...but it gets you to place to find a way to ifnd info in various repositories ←

Christopher Testa: so you are really talking about facilitating data discovering and integration ←

...you are talking about an important but separate process of interoperability ←

Unknown Diane: I have been living in Excel spreadsheet "hell" for many years ←

...the new formats available and new Web 2.0 formats will help break that grip ←

...this is where we will see that shift from rows and columns to hyper cubes and rich visualizations ←

...if they could just convert the data to something that is interoperable across agencies, they would do it ←

...get the data out and make it accessable; round trip it and make it useful ←

...MS made a huge mistake trying to do it themselves, but the idea was ahead of its time ←

...we are in violent agreement about some of the issues around interoperability ←

...if you are this place, then we will find someone who has attacked this problem ←

...what we want to do is to get to the granular detail in those spread sheets ←

Daniel Bennett: someone whispered that there were some amazing schemas for UK legislation ←

...it would not be that difficult to use these schemas to validate what shows up in the Gazette ←

...what Joe is showing gets to a type of interoperability that does not happen through ontologies ←

...everyone understands you are supposed to have good URLs, but don't understand why it's important to interoperability ←

Daniel Bennett: it's a short, sweet explanation of why URIs should be human readable ←

...I think for a group at W3C to say these are reasonble things to do and provide guidance ←

...we need to use all of the strategies we talk about in one situation or another ←

...better to start doing some good stuff now, and not do everything prefectly ←

...from where you are starting, like Excel or Access, or mainframe or SQL, or different scenarios ←

eGovernment Interest Group Teleconference

Minutes of 12 March 2009

1. Participation and Citizen Engagement, Use of Social Media

2. Interoperability