Heather Morrison provided great leadership on this submission on open access to the digital economy strategy consultation. I was pleased to add my name to it.
Open Access Promo Material by Biblioteekje (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Open Access
The Digital Economy Strategy Consultation: My Submission
Last night I submitted my response to the government’s digital economy strategy consultation. A text version is posted below. A PDF version can be downloaded here.
The submission touches on a wide range of issues, including general concerns such as who leads the strategy, who pays for it, and the value in identifying openness as a general principle. It then discusses specific concerns around infrastructure (broadband networks, net neutrality, digital television transition, foreign investment), capacity to innovate (spam, security breach disclosure, Privacy Act, lawful access), and digital content (copyright reform, open data, open access, digitization, domain names).
Update: The submission has now been posted on the consultation website.
Pelmorex Calls on Government To Open Data
Pelmorex, which owns the Weather Network, makes the case for open data in its submission to the Digital Economy Strategy: The Government of Canada should continue and expand it practice of adopting digital technologies and making its own digital content freely available. An example of government’s success in this area […]
Opening Up Canada’s Digital Economy Strategy
The federal government’s national consultation on a digital economy strategy is now past the half-way mark having generated a somewhat tepid response so far. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) argues the consultation document itself may bear some of the blame for lack of buzz since the government asks many of the right questions, but lacks a clear vision of the principles that would define a Canadian digital strategy.
One missed opportunity was to shine the spotlight on the principle of "openness" as a guiding principle. In recent years, an open approach has found increasing favour for a broad range of technology policy issues and has been incorporated into many strategy documents. For example, New Zealand identified "openness is a central principle of [its] Digital Strategy 2.0."
The consultation document includes a brief reference to open access for government-funded research, but it seemingly ignores the broader potential for a strategy with openness policies as a key foundational principle.
Where might an openness principle make sense?
Opening Up Canada’s Digital Economy Strategy
Appeared in the Toronto Star on June 14, 2010 as Opening Up Canada's Digital Economy Strategy The federal government’s national consultation on a digital economy strategy is now past the half-way mark having generated a somewhat tepid response so far. The consultation document itself may bear some of the blame […]
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