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 Two recent announcements from Canada prompt my mood this morning: Canada Joins International Open Government Partnership Conservative Cuts put half of Statscan jobs at risk A government can simultaneously be the most secretive, controlling Canadian government in recent memory and be welcomed into the club of "open government". The announcements highlight a few problems with the "open data movement" (Wikipedia page): It's not a movement, at least in any reasonable political or cultural sense of the word, It's doing nothing for transparency and accountability in government, It's co-opting the language of progressive change in pursuit of what turns out to be a small-government-focused subsidy for industry. In short, the open data movement is a joke. Those who are on the political left who lend their support to it have some hard decisions to make.

Nous avons le plaisir de vous annoncer le lancement du dossier de juin « culture papier, culture numérique », qui rassemble les contributions d'un certain nombre d'acteurs majeurs et d'observateurs privilégiés de cette mutation majeure qui affecte notre société. Ce n'est pas une problématique neuve pour la revue. Nous avions déjà par le passé consacré une semaine thématique à ce thème et dans le cadre de ses ateliers, un groupe de recherche se réunit sur ces thèmes (consulter le premier compte-rendu). Nous sommes cependant loin d'avoir épuisé en quoique ce soit ce thème, et au contraire, le sentiment qui s'en dégage est plutôt l'impression d'avoir ouvert des pistes.

MONTREAL - The Quebec government has pledged to increase transparency and turn citizens into decision makers by using the latest online tools and embracing a new culture of openness. In Wednesday's release of a long-awaited report into how to bring open governance to Quebec - billed as "historic" by advocates of open governance - the government said that by next month, it will launch a web portal that will make public data easily accessible. Another website, to be created later, will gather public opinion on how the government is run.

A project exploring openness in city development. Cities are where creativity and culture flourish. They are home to many of our proudest achievements - great libraries and hospitals, schools and parks, art and culture. Cities are synonymous with civilisation, civic governance and progress. The diversity, bustle and trade of civic life makes cities dynamic, surprising and exciting. But cities are arguably where we are also at our worst. It is in cities that our biggest challenges are to be faced - inequality, poverty, crime, violence, environmental degradation, exploitation, corruption. These all thrive in cities as much as learning and culture. In many modern cities the good and the bad live alongside one another, as neighbours. Cities encourage mass innovation as people learn new habits from one another, observing what their fellow citizens are doing. Everything propagates faster in cities: fashion, ideas, disease.

"Moves to allow the digitization of 'orphan works' and free up the metadata around 20 million cultural objects will benefit the public and could inspire a new wave of apps and web services. But the underlying motivation is fundamentally political."

Software is just the beginning … open source is doing for mass innovation what the assembly line did for mass production. Get ready for the era when collaboration replaces the corporation.

" was particularly inspired by the lunchtime keynote - Dr John Moravec, who was kind enough to share his presentation with me… He introduced the idea of knowmads. They… Are not restricted to a specific age. Build their personal knowledge through explicit information gathering and tacit experiences, and leverage their personal knowledge to produce new ideas. Are able to apply their ideas and expertise contextually in various social and organizational configurations. Are highly motivated to collaborate, and are natural networkers, navigating new organizations, cultures, and societies. Purposively use new technologies to help them solve problems and transcend geographical limitations. Are open to sharing what they know, and invite the open access to information, knowledge and expertise from others. Develop habits of mind and practice to learn continuously, and can unlearn as quickly as they learn, adopting new ideas and practices as necessary. Thrive in non-hierarchical networks and organizations. Are not afraid of failure."

Open government initiatives are either aimed at providing greater transparency, usually as a reaction to an accusation or perception of excessive secrecy, or at engaging citizens in specific problem solution as well as service delivery. It is probably fair to say that the US federal initiatives are closer to the former, while UK initiatives are closer to the latter. In both cases, though, there is a fundamental lack of confidence - or blatant distrust - in the government workforce. This is rooted in a mixture of reality and perception: laziness, risk aversion, self-preservation, lack of incentives, low salaries, a culture of job security, and so forth, do not contribute to creating a pretty picture of government employees. In countries that are struggling with their finances and economy, civil servants are seen as a cost to be reduced in order to recover resources that should help reignite the economy. At the same time many agree that the retirement or dismissal of experienced government workers may make the situation even worse in areas where government services will be in greater demand going forward (think about education, social care, health care, public safety).

Les licences libres et plus généralement la culture du libre pour la littérature, la musique et le cinéma, c'est très mal. Ça ne marche pas et ça fait crever des générations entières de pauvres auteurs naïfs. Démonstration du contraire, avec des artistes en chair et en os. Du concret.

Aujourd'hui, les habitudes de navigation des internautes sont souvent limitées à quelques propriétés web. La tâche est colossale pour tenter de les attirer sur nos plateformes. Alors que fait-on? Connaissez-vous le web sémantique ou les données ouvertes? Sachez que le web de demain en sera un de données. Est-ce que votre offre de service est disponible en données libres? Les données ouvertes ou Open Data sont un concept né de la culture web collaborative où l'on offre librement des informations à quiconque sur le web pour qu'il puisse les réutiliser à sa guise. Dans une optique marketing et plus précisément en tourisme, le stratège doit maintenant trouver des moyens pour que son offre puisse être consommée et intégrée dans d'autres propriétés web beaucoup plus établies que la sienne.

Pour apprendre, un individu n'a fondamentalement qu'à observer, questionner, expérimenter. L'apprentissage est une activité quotidienne spontanée : apprendre à parler, à s'habiller, apprendre des chansons, des procédures, des activités de plus en plus complexes... jusqu'au jour où un besoin est identifié et que rien ni personne dans son entourage ne peut y répondre de manière satisfaisante. L'individu choisit ou on choisit pour lui une institution, une référence ou un maître dans les limites de son environnement, de sa culture ou de ses moyens. Les écoles offrent une certaine accessibilité en réponse à ces besoins et favorisent les économies d'échelle. C'est le modèle qui a prévalu jusqu'ici; seule une institution pouvait transmettre massivement de grandes quantités de savoir. La fonction de transmission démocratique du savoir a occulté ses autres fonctions.

"The maker movement is gathering momentum. Slowly but surely people around the world are changing from passive consumer of the latest gizmo to active maker and modifier of existing designs. The promotion of an open source philosophy in the online era has given people access to myriad designs allowing them to make and modify almost anything. These days DIY not only applies to making simple home improvements, you can go online and learn how to build a robot if you feel up to the challenge! In America, MAKE magazine is the go-to publication for DIY and hack enthusiasts. Humans Invent spoke to MAKE's editor and overall hack guru, Mark Frauenfelder, to get an insight into how this movement is changing the nature of our consumerist culture."

"Drawing on an entirely new set of original research conducted with countless collaborators in fields such as healthcare, science, education, energy, government and the media, we tell the stories of some of the world's most dynamic innovators, from a global citizen's movement working to reverse the tide of disruptive climate change to for-profit startups that are turning industries ranging from music to transportation on their head. We argue that collaborative innovation is not only transforming our economy but all of society and its many institutions. Now the onus is now on each of us to lead the transformation in our households, communities and workplaces. After all, the potential for new models of collaboration does not end with the production of software, media, entertainment and culture. Why not open source government, education, science, the production of energy, and even health care?"

Inside the civic digital space, anyone can download a public dataset, build an app, share it with others. There are no permit fees, no regulations to research, no paperwork to file. You don't have to trudge to City Hall. Everything is (or at least, it should be) open. In this way, the digital world is vastly different from the physical one. Want to make use of a transit dataset at a hackathon? Have at it. But want to hack the physical space at the actual train station, maybe plant a few flowers, throw up a bike rack? Well, good luck with that.

Le mouvement des REL (Ressources éducatives libres ou OER en anglais, Open Educative Resources) se porte relativement bien, surtout dans le monde anglo-saxon. Non seulement les OER sont mieux répertoriées que leurs homologues francophones, mais elles sont également produites par des institutions de grand renom qui, au-delà de la stratégie marketing et de visibilité que décèlent les esprits chagrins dans ces initiatives, assument leur responsabilité de leaders mondiaux en matière d'excellence éducative.

Le format MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) tend à prendre de l'importance dans l'offre de cours en ligne. Du moins, un nombre grandissant de cours ouverts, gratuits et en ligne sont-ils qualifiés de MOOC. Les récentes initiatives du MIT et de Stanford, que nous avons présentées dans un récent article, sont ainsi assimilées à des MOOC par Christine Cupaiuolo dans un billet publié sur le blog Spotlight

"Voici quatre étudiants pris au hasard : On Chi Tang libraire à Kuala Lumpur, Dimitri Popoulas fonctionnaire à Athenes, Shagun Gupta femme au foyer à New Delhi et Michelle étudiante à Sheffield. Des hommes et femmes ordinaires, citoyens du monde, que rien ne devait à priori réunir. Depuis le 27 aout, ils sont pourtant assis sur les mêmes bancs virtuels du cours "Gamification" dispensé par Kevin Warbach, professeur à l'Université de Virginia (USA). Pendant les 6 semaines que compte ce module et comme les 65 000 inscrits de par le monde, ils suivront à l'heure et dans le lieu qui leur conviennent 2 cours hebdomadaires d'une heure en video. Ils pourront s'exercer avec des quizz. A la fin du module, si tout s'est bien passé, ils recevront une certification de Coursera MOOC, émanation de l'université de Standford. Fait étonnant, pour suivre ce module de cours et obtenir la certification, aucun n'aura déboursé un centime !"

"Beck (Beck Hansen) is famous for his underground, anti-folk, alternative, dreamy-yet-hook-driven music. His first biggie was "Loser" way back in 1994. But his ability to understand and reach his audience just went cosmic. He released a new album, but it's not a record or a CD or a series of MP3 files. Something way better. From the promo site: "In the wake of Modern Guilt and The Information, Beck's latest album comes in an almost-forgotten form-twenty songs existing only as individual pieces of sheet music, never before released or recorded.""