Canberra, 7 July 2011

(by Ton Zijlstra)

The cross-jursidictional CIO committee of the Australian government has launched AusGOAL, the Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing Framework.

AusGOAL builds on the earlier work of the Queensland Government Information Licensing Framework from 2008, which was nationally adopted by the CIO committee in 2009. The new name AusGOAL is meant to indicate this new national focus.

AusGOAL is not focussing merely on PSI, public service information, but on any information that is publicly funded. "We are partnering with organisations across a range of sectors that produce or administer publicly funded information, with the ultimate aim of uniting all of Australia’s publicly funded information, including PSI, under one open access and licensing framework."

The blogpost by Baden Appleyard, the national program director for AusGOAL, announcing the launch of AusGOAL says "AusGOAL embodies a recognition that to fully implement open access, significant cultural reform is required in Australia’s public service. AusGOAL is establishing and supporting communities of practice in government and allied sectors to drive this cultural change. Increased efficiencies in the transfer of information, significant reductions in costs and faster information access have been realised where these communities are already in place. That work will continue for the benefit of all Australian’s."

"We have updated the suite of AusGOAL recommended licences", and also work on new tools will continue (such as a new version of the licensing review, a MS Office AusGOAL plug-in, and developing functionality to federate the various data.x.gov.au implementations. This next to already available tools and training materials. The site is also host to practitioners, serving as a platform for communities of practice. A video channel will also be used to disseminate material.