Thursday 12 July 2012

Edmonton's move to Google Apps

Well, it's finally happened.   A large Canadian municipality, Edmonton, has decided to make the jump to Google for email and office productivity.  In the past, City of Toronto staff raised concerns about how this would benefit service delivery and what security risks this might bring.
According to Edmonton's press release, benefits include the ease of accessing these tools from any desktop or mobile device, real-time collaboration capabilities, expansion to staff currently without email, and reducing anticipated future costs, so "staff will spend less time maintaining systems, allowing them to dedicate more resources to the important mission of serving the citizens of Edmonton".  They also note that "Google Apps has completed a rigorous security certification and accreditation with the U.S. federal government."

City Clerk's Office staff will naturally have more questions about privacy, access and security.  This Edmonton Journal article  provides some additional context on security and dismisses the issue of storing data in the US.   According to Edmonton's CIO Chris Moore, Edmonton will continue to own all their data.  He adds that concerns about the Patriot Act are a red herring since Edmonton's email traffic already travels through the US.   The University of Alberta (with 125 000 users) has also begun shifting to Google apps, and their vice-provost of IT notes that "during 18 months of study, he determined the company's information security and privacy is far tighter than anything he could afford to provide."

For a more critical analysis, I recommend this 2-part blog post and interview with Edmonton's CIO  here.   The interview includes discussion of legal implications, Edmonton's completed Privacy Impact Assessments, the City Clerk's Office and Freedom of Information and Privacy Office.   In the interview and part 2 post, the author questions why the City of Edmonton's Privacy Impact Assessments have not been submitted to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada for advice and recommendations.  This is not mandatory, but was voluntarily submitted by the University of Alberta for their project.   Recommendations from the Commissioner included notifying all staff and students that their email is now under US legal jurisdiction, the university cannot guarantee it will be protected from disclosure and to carefully consider what information they chose to send.

I have to admit (if it wasn't obvious already) that a compelling case has been made, with some reservations.   The collaboration capabilities and mobile access of Google apps are impressive.   From an information management perspective, the integration with Google's Vault feature, providing retention, archiving and legal hold functionality, is very appealing.   The project is clearly being driven by Edmonton's IT department, but is being carried out in consultation with their City Clerks' Office and Legal partners.  I would love to hear their thoughts on the project, especially regarding the decision not to solicit further advice on their Privacy Impact Assessment.   As the City of Toronto sets out on its own more traditional implementation of EDRMS, we should monitor Edmonton's progress closely and evaluate how it could inform our own approach.

Thursday 5 July 2012

Liberation Technology - #OLITA 2012 Conference #opengov

A few weeks ago I attended the Ontario Library Information Technology Association's 2012 conference here in Toronto, hosted at the Toronto Reference Library. The focus of the conference was the use of technology to deliver social goods and social justice. Sessions included open data in a library context, inclusive and accessible design research, and the need for copyright to enable creativity and reuse. While I don't work in a public library (or in IT, for that matter), the topics jumped out at me with connections to projects I've been working on. The full conference program is here.



Open Data is dead! Long live Open Data! - MJ Suhonos

Suhonos advocated for open data as a natural evolution of the world wide web, with network effects that enable people to do new, unexpected things with existing resources. Unreleased data is really unrealized potential that can only be unlocked by sharing, combining, and using it in new ways. These arguments were familiar to me, and this really reinforced how successful the City of Toronto's Open Data program has been. Open Data in public libraries appears to be at an earlier stage. One useful open data evaluation tool I hadn't heard of before was Tim Berners Lee's 5 star system for ranking Open Data programs. It provides a concise evaluation framework for data providers and advocates to make open data programs as useful as possible.

Citizen Archivists: Transcribing History for Future Generations - Rebecka Sheffield

Since my position has recently been transferred to the Archives, I've become more interested in how we can better capture contextual information about images, graphics and design projects, to support archival descriptions. This talk re-inforced the value of distributed, public annotation and sharing while acknowledging that we are still challenged how to best incorporate this information into standard structures such as the Rules for Archival Description.

Outside In - Jutta Treviranus

Treviranus is the director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) at OCAD University. She delivered a wide ranging talk on the value of inclusive, accessible design and the work of IDRC. Much like the principles of privacy and access by design, inclusive design should include the needs of all users at the design phase rather than attempting to bolt on or modify near the end of design work. I was intrigued by the proposed open model of portable user preferences (font size, screen reading) allowing any system to seamlessly recognize and adapt. "By Design" is an excellent principle, but I can't help wondering if it means a (necessary?) brake on the culture of creativity, experimentation and fast prototyping of open data and hacker culture encouraged by other conference speakers. Reusable models and tools can hopefully streamline the incorporation of these inclusive design.

A Critical Account of Copyright in Canada - Carys Craig

Improving reuse of content is a key goal of the project I am working on, so I was very interested in getting a better understanding of copyright in Canada. Professor Craig delivered a fascinating and wide ranging talk which questioned some underlying assumptions and narratives about copyright. She was particularly critical of the rising narrative of copyright as total ownership, expanding and strengthening protections. In fact, the origins of copyright are in encouraging creative expression and intellectual dissemination. Expressing concerns about the direction of the Canadian copyright bill, C-11, she encouraged us to advocate for a more balanced approach, calling the digital locks provisions "electric fences" against use. As I work towards an improved model for access and reuse inside our DAM, I'm particularly trying to avoid an overly restrictive, technical approach to rights management. Copyright should reward creativity by respecting ownership, but it must also protect the public good by enabling fair use and creative innovation. Craig has recently published Copyright, Communication and Culture: Towards a Relational Theory of Copyright Law which I look forward to reading.

Big thanks to the organizers for putting together a broad ranging and affordable conference. I especially appreciated the mix of theoretical and practical content, examining challenges and opportunities inside and beyond Ontario libraries.
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