Georgian College invited me to lead a session at their 2010 fundraising conference. Titled, “Getting the Most out of Your Tech Budget,” I share my three page list of free and low cost international tools like free and open source software and $10,000 Google Adwords Grants. Here’s the session description:
Now more than ever, fundraisers are looking for ways to maximize resources. Learn how new free and affordable web tools can help improve the ways you plan and organize events and learn about new resources, grants and programs that help engage and sustain funders and supporters in your community.
Open data is data that can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone – subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike.
Lifted from the Open Data Handbook, the key benefits to open data include:
Availability and Access: the data must be available as a whole and at no more than a reasonable reproduction cost, preferably by downloading over the internet. The data must also be available in a convenient and modifiable form.
Re-use and Redistribution: the data must be provided under terms that permit re-use and redistribution including the intermixing with other datasets.
Universal Participation: everyone must be able to use, re-use and redistribute – there should be no discrimination against fields of endeavour or against persons or groups. For example, ‘non-commercial’ restrictions that would prevent ‘commercial’ use, or restrictions of use for certain purposes (e.g. only in education), are not allowed.
Open data formats enable the interoperability of datasets across various operating systems, and tax payer funded research should be saved in open data format to ensure its use and access by the public.
