Spanish Aporta Project Bridging the Re-use Cultural Divide

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Posted by Mary Gianoli on 01 Apr 2010

Madrid: 26 March 2010

What has been described as the cultural divide between the public and private sectors has been considered a formidable impediment to moving forward the PSI re-use agenda and the opening up of government data.

Win-win approaches to overcome this cultural divide are being adopted by Proyecto Aporta (Project Aporta), the Spanish PSI Information service and corresponding web portal.

Some steps already taken by Proyecto Aporta are having positive effects. For example, Aporta has developed resources such as the Guide to “re-using public sector information (English) (Spanish)” (video and report formats) and offered training programmes for the public sector to learn about PSI re-use.

Proyecto Aporta advocates the proposition that ‘the culture of re-use is here to stay’. In their work they reach out to and involve the business community, the re-users and the holders of the government data.

The latest and significant initiative by Proyecto Aporta is the publication of online, multimedia training resources addressing key issues related to the opening up of government data and its re-use. The development of these resources is based on the experience gained by Proyecto Aporta in delivering training courses.

These Aporta training materials are a unique European resource and offer a model for the European PSI Community.

Proyecto Aporta makes these training resources freely available and completely re-useable by others. The materials are available in three formats (pdf, ppt, odp) and the videos have source code – so that all can be disseminated and re-used as widely as possible.

Who would use these Training Resources?

The training resources are developed for diverse groups of learners and audiences. Aporta describes them as being relevant for government, businesses, citizens, entrepreneurs – or anyone interested in the rights and obligations entailed by re-use and making it work.

What is covered in the Training Resources?

The materials are comprehensive, well structured with professional and attractive presentation formats in video, PowerPoint and pdf formats.
The information is covered using a variety of techniques including case studies.
The training resources are designed to be useful in and complement the development of training courses. They are presented in two blocks.

Block 1: Background information re-use