transparency

Transparency tools: Extensive list of ICT tools that could be used by organisations that work towards promoting greater transparency and accountability in governments.

Open Data: Empowering the Empowered or Effective Data Use for Everyone?: In the context of digital-divide, will open data empower the empowered, asks this article.

Open Knowledge Foundation Blog

TheyWorkForYou.com: Are your MPs and Peers working for you in the UK’s Parliament? Hansard++: Website that provides information about the functioning of the English parliament and assemblies, including the activities of individual members.

Chilling Effects Clearinghouse: The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse collects and analyzes legal complaints about online activity, helping Internet users to know their rights and understand the law. Chilling Effects welcomes submission of letters from individuals and from Internet service providers and hosts. These submissions enable us to study the prevalence of legal threats and allow Internet users to see the source of content removals.

Anti-Corruption Research Network – ACRN: ACRN is “a podium to present innovative findings and approaches in corruption / anti-corruption research, a sounding board to bounce off ideas and questions, a marketplace to announce jobs, events, courses and funding. The periodic spotlight section also looks at specific corruption issues and highlights key research insights and contributions on the selected topic”.

Corporate Watch UK: small independent not-for-profit research and publishing group which undertakes research on the social and environmental impact of large corporations, particularly multinationals

Anti-Corruption Resources: Transparency International UK’s page with links to articles and websites of other organisations working on corruption. There are detailed case studies from different countries on anti-corruption measures.

Public Database Indexing Guidelines: North Carolina is mandated by law to maintain an index of all electronic public records with description of available data. This is a guideline prepared by the State government to prepare an index of the databases

Technology for Transparency Network |: A collection of projects that use technology for promoting transparency. The case studies can be accessed by the country.

MyNeta – Candidate Affidavits for Elections in India: Information on all Members of Parliaments of India based on the affidavits they file with the election commission. Visitors are permitted to point out inconsistencies between the given information and the case on the ground.

Sunlight Foundation: The foundation is, “a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for open government globally and uses technology to make government more accountable to all. We do so by creating tools, open data, policy recommendations, journalism and grant opportunities to dramatically expand access to vital government information to create accountability of our public officials”. The website is a great source of information on open data policy, political financing and a range of other topics in the intersection of technology and transparency.

This We Know: Explore U.S. Government Data About Your Community: Collates data from various US Government databases and presents them at the community level that can be searched by zip code.

School Report Cards: NUPA’s school monitoring system that has recent school level data for more than 1.2 million schools in India.

Open data catalogue: A spreadsheet containing links to websites around the world providing open government data.

Corruption & Integrity Improvement Initiatives in Developing Countries: A book on corruption and anti-corruption initiatives by UNDP with case studies from different countries, along with a discussion of anti-corruption initiatives.

Government Records Branch of North Carolina: Contains detailed formats, guidelines and other information on public records and its management that is useful for RTI activists.

Open Government Guide: A complete compendium of information on every state’s open records and open meetings laws in the United States. Each state’s section is arranged according to a standard outline, making it easy to compare laws in various states.

Sunshine Review: Sunshine Review is a non-profit organization dedicated to state and local government transparency in the United States. The Sunshine Review wiki collects and shares transparency information and uses a 10-point Transparency Checklist to evaluate the content of every state and more than 5,000 local government websites.

Google SMS Channels: An SMS based newsletter service where subscribers can opt in to receive SMS messages and free messages can be sent by the publishers of these lists. This can be a great tool to use for those involved in monitoring of village level expenditure, etc.