Sessions

A Web-GIS Building Permit Tracker Built with Open Technology Using a Participatory Approach

Tim Clark , Juna Goda Papajorgji

The Building Permit Tracker consists of a suite of web-based geospatial applications which support the operations of the building permits and building inspections. In real-time, the Tracker uses a geospatial web framework to integrate the field activities of the building inspectors, the administrative activities of the office staff, and an Automatic Telephone Inspections Request system that is available to the public.

Builders, contractors, homeowners, and homebuyers can monitor the entire process of construction, from start to finish, in real-time from their homes or offices. They can view the results of plan examinations, schedule and view inspection results and identify staff assigned to their construction site, to name only a few features of the Tracker. For each of the last 25 years, and up to the minute, anyone can create maps that are dynamically linked to the full history of building permits and inspections in Alachua County. For each of the last 25 years, and up to the minute, anyone can download a rich variety of reports in Excel, PDF, HTML, or Text format for building activities, inspections, field entry results, and telephone messages.

The Building Permits Tracker was developed entirely in-house by the GIS Division of the Growth Management Department, with Open Technology and using a Participatory Design approach. The Tracker is non-proprietary software.

Applying Open Source Methodologies to Build Public Health Software Collaboratively

Mike Herrick , David Jackson

A discussion of the collaborative model and software development best practices used to deliver TriSano, an open source infectious disease surveillance and outbreak response application. Collaborative Software Initiative, Inc. and the state of Utah teamed up to create a “citizen-focused” application that enables practitioners, public health officials, epidemiologists and others who are on the front line to capture, monitor, and act on disease-management data on a day-to-day basis while seamlessly reporting to appropriate agencies. Both Collaborative Software Initiative and state officials will present their perspectives on the collaborative model, how it works in practice, and the lessons they have learned from this experience.

Case Study: Open Source in the Data Center

Mark Reyer, Oregon State Data Center (SDC) Director. The SDC is a 24/7 operation housed within a tier III certified facility that provides shared information technology (IT) infrastructure services to thousands of state and local government programs. At the end of last year, the SDC completed a multi-year network consolidation of 11 separate agency data centers into a single data center to save time, money and energy, as well as reduce carbon emissions. The effort was the most far-reaching technology initiatives undertaken by Oregon. Today the SDC is reviewing investments in software tools and applications and includes open source software as a complementary strategy.

This session will cover: Drivers for considering open source software in an enterprise environment which delivers state agency-wide centralized services; How open source applications and tools were identified and evaluated; Experience with sourcing installation and support including vendors, consulting, open source community and internal staff; What applications and tools are in place today, plus future plans; Economic and technical benefit; Key lessons learned.

Closing Keynote | Building a Culture of Innovation and Productivity through Collaboration

The economic slowdown is pressuring governments to do more with less. In this session, Virginia's Secretary of Technology will detail how collaboration is redefining how IT applications are developed and a broader vision for more tightly aligning IT with public sector outcomes.

Cracking the Code on Government Procurement Requirements; Open Source BI Fuels Jet Propulsion

Terry Himes , Nick Halsey

While open source software has become mainstream in many markets and has been deployed on a large scale by European governments, some pundits argue that the U.S. government and agencies have been slower to adopt. Lead engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Terry Himes, and Jaspersoft's Nick Halsey will share with GOSCON attendees how JPL navigated the procurement process for open source software and how open source BI is informing the group's critical decisions day in and day out.

JPL's Himes will share how the Laboratory navigated the regular procurement process to deploy Jaspersoft's open source business intelligence tools. Himes will give the customer's experience and lessons learned during this process, while Halsey will share how Jaspersoft partnered with this important government customer to make the process as seamless as possible. Halsey will also include tips for other open source vendors who are experiencing demand from government agencies but need to better understand how to tailor their processes to meet their specific procurement requirements. > Read More

Creating Successful Public Private Partnerships in Education Collaboration

Susan Castillo , Greg Lund-Chaix

Superintendent Castillo will present the value of public private partnerships for Oregon schools and the success of open applications in Oregon’s classrooms. Ms. Castillo will focus on the financial benefits, the educational value to schools of Oregon’s open approach to teaching and learning and how the implementation of our new graduation requirements will be supported through technology and collaboration.

Superintendent Castillo’s presentation will be followed by a technical overview of the Oregon Virtual School District teaching and learning portal presented by Greg Lund-Chaix of the Oregon State University Open Source Lab. Greg will provide a demonstration of the Open ORVSD platform and OSU’s current effort to integrate open applications into education’s proprietary teaching platforms.

Defining the Real Value of Open Source within Government IT Systems

John M. Weathersby , John M. Scott III

Open Source Software can provide great value to government IT systems. But not for what appears to be the most obvious reason. Learn to define and leverage the real value proposition by adopting and using open source within public systems. > Read More

Executive Panel: Macro Trends Set the Stage for Open Source in Public Health

Rick Howard , Bernard Golden

Explore and discuss the trends, issues, and key developments that are happening at the macro level and which will have an impact on how public health agencies consider the business and IT models that support health and human services. > Read More

Executive Panel: Macro Trends Set the Stage for Open Source in Public Health

Rick Howard , Kathleen Connor

Explore and discuss the trends, issues, and key developments that are happening at the macro level and which will have an impact on how public health agencies consider the business and IT models that support health and human services. > Read More

Health Atlas Ireland: Integrating data sets, GIS, statistics for health service planning, epidemiology, and incident management.

Mel McIntyre , Howard Johnson

A project from the HSE, Health Atlas Ireland has been developed to bring health-related datasets, statistical tools and GIS together in a web environment to add value to existing health data. Health Atlas Ireland enables controlled access to maps, data and analyses for service planning and delivery, major incident response, epidemiology and research to improve the health of patients, their families and the population.

> Read More

International Distributed Panel | Global Dialogue on the Impact of Open Source Software in Transforming Government

Andy Stein , Dr. Shahani Weerawarana

A special two hour international discussion brings five continents together via videoconfercing. for information technology dignitaries and a diverse audeinces from around the world will convene in person and via video conference to discuss their “Global Perspective on the Interest and Impact of Open Source Software in National, Regional Governments”. This special event, produced in collaboration with the World Bank, will kick off the four-day Government Open Source Conference. > Read More

International Lunch Keynote | Open in Oregon

What is the Open Source phenomenon in Oregon that draws visitors – companies, researchers, educators, trade delegations and the media - from around the world to visit and what are they learning?

Curt Pederson, Vice Provost for Information Services & Chief Information Officer at Oregon State University - and Government Open Source Conference chair - shares the Oregon story and also his perspective as a former state government chief information officer on the value of open collaboration to government.

Keynote | A Global Perspective on the Interest and Impact of Open Source Software in National & Regional Governments

As co-founder of the Linux Greenhouse, which nurtures collaborative innovation in the private and public sectors, Mr. Ney has advised governments in Brazil, Chile, Korea and Spain on IT strategy and will share an essential view on what is motivating governments throughout the world to consider changing the way they think about information and communications technology development and acquisition. > Read More

Keynote | Open Tools, Web 2.0 and Innovation for Government

The digital public square shifts power from a few government officials with access to public data to “we the people.”

In ancient Athens—the model for the democracy envisioned by the framers of our constitution--citizens met in the public square to conduct business, debate civic issues, and drive the decisions of government. The world has changed significantly since that time.

The District has built a digital public square, which is at the heart of our efforts to make government services more effective, accessible, and transparent. By advancing this model aggressively, we'll continue to transform government for “we the people.” > Read More

Keynote | Participation in a World of Choice: Open Source and Microsoft

Bryan Kirschner

This talk will describe the principles underlying Microsoft’s open source business, technical, and community participation strategy, summarize key milestones to date, and share a vision for the relationship between Microsoft and open source communities and technologies in the future. > Read More

Keynote | YouGov II: Why MTV isn’t, why radio is a pandora’s box and why government service delivery will never be the same

As the Internet returns to its social roots, governments face the challenge and opportunity of a second chance to realize the promise of what was once popularly known as e-government – where the end goal was and is a relationship between one government and one person on the person’s terms. Some of what comes next will be home grown, some will be off the shelf, some will be community built and some will come from where we least expect it. > Read More

Open eGov

An open source web CMS for government based on Plone, available as free download. Winner of the 2008 Havlick Award for Innovation.

Open Forum Europe

OpenForum Europe's non-exectutive director Mel McIntyre will discuss the not-for-profit, independent organisation launched in March 2002 to accelerate, broaden and strengthen the use of Open Source Software (OSS) in business and government. OFE is supported by major IT suppliers and works closely with the European Commission and National Governments, both direct and via National Associates. > Read More

Open Source Development in the Department of Corrections

Arup Patranabish , Brad Alvaro

Analyze Soft, Inc has been involved in developing free, open source
software for Idaho Department of Corrections that aims to facilitate
communication between local, state and national law enforcement
agencies. One of the challenges faced by the project has been to
develop a modular system so that, in the future, any state corrections
department can adopt the core software or pick and choose among the
various modules. These challenges will be discussed in this session,
as will the potential significance of strengthening interagency
cooperation in the law enforcement arena.

Open Source in Government Contracting

Jason Haislmaier

Open source software licensing can present unique legal implications and challenges for both the government and contractors doing business with the government. This session will examine these implications and challenges for governments and government contractors at the federal, state and local level, and present solutions and strategies for successfully dealing with them in actual procurement situations.

OSS Open Lab, the New Service for OSS Promotion in Japan

Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA), Japan started a new public service, "OSS Open Lab" to provide a "rich software development environment" and "software showcase" for people. "OSS Open Lab" is a server system running in a data center and provides a virtual desktop environment for users, potential users and developers of OSS via the Internet. Thin-client technology equipped on it enables people to use various applications, tools and middlewares running on it in the environment chosen from various versions of Linux provided on it, from their own desktop environment.

Panel: Government Open Collaboratives

A panel of experts from government and the private sector will discuss the key elements of successful cross boundary projects. Governments have a strong interest in sharing the cost of deploying similar capabilities across jurisdiction or state lines, but there are still few success stories. We will present some of the more successful initiatives and copy their model to engage the audience and the panel in identifying additional communities of interest.

> Read More

Plinkit: Using Open Source Software for Public Library Websites in Oregon and Beyond

Plinkit (Public Library INterface KIT) provides both content and functionality that are exciting and useful to library patrons and staff alike. This talk will cover how Plone, a popular open source content management system, is being used by the Oregon State Library as a web-hosting solution for small and medium-sized public libraries throughout Oregon as well as in three additional states as part of the larger Plinkit Collaborative.

Ruby City MATSUE Project: Regional Industrial Promotion through Open Source and Industry-University-Government Cooperation

Tetsuo Noda , Terutaka Tansho

In 2006, Matsue City, Japan initiated the Ruby City MATSUE Project, recognizing the Ruby open source programming language as an important regional resource. The Shimane Open Source Society is playing a key role in the community and the project, connecting people, information, technology and businesses. The society conducts activities such as monthly seminar meetings – the “Open Source Salon”, the “Ruby Study Meeting”, and the “Business Meeting”, to name a few. In order to promote the project and broaden its activities, a U.S. study tour was conducted in 2007 and 2008. Open source Ruby led to further regional industrial promotion by implementing research projects and personnel training in Shimane University, with support from Matsue City.

In this session, we are going to explain the background of this regional promotion plan put in place to foster local economic development. Two years on, we are going to analyze a number of influencing factors which affect and execute this OSS-related project.

Taking Public Diplomacy to the Web: Open Source in the Department of State International Information Programs

DoS IIP manages several websites with a very geographically diverse stakeholder base and target audiences worldwide. This session will review the approach taken by IIP to implement its information system using a variety of open source tools. History of the project, challenges faced, lessons learned, and benefits gained will be discussed.

The Latin American Free Software Movement

The largest and most dynamic regional movement of government open source initiatives has been evolving throughout Latin America for the last 7-8 years. Governments there have given support and been supported by a phenomenal community base while progressive state policies have added to the momentum. > Read More

Transforming Healthcare through Open Source

Edmund Billings MD

Despite evidence that clinical systems can help improve care, save lives, reduce costs and increase revenue, the unfortunate fact is that in 2008, only 15 percent of health organizations use advanced clinical systems and electronic medical records. Furthermore, 85 percent of hospitals, ambulatory clinics and physician office practices have yet to automate their care processes. Why? The answer lies not in technology offerings, but in the proprietary, closed software business model that fails to service adequately the mainstream health care marketplace.

The Open Source business and development model, on the other hand, offers health care an opportunity to transform itself and deployments now live across the country support this hypothesis. This session will explore how the acceptance of the open source business model across other industries -- from Linux, Redhat, MySQL and Jboss just to name a few -- have resulted in more affordable, more stable, more secure and more customizable software systems now being leveraged for healthcare. The session will go on to examine the standard-bearer in open source healthcare IT, the Veterans Administration's clinical open source information system and electronic health record (EHR), called VistA, and how this technology has helped take the VA's health system from "Worst to First" in quality healthcare. A proven, successful and highly interoperable system developed over the course of more than 20 years, VistA has been used by close to 65 percent of all physicians during their VA training rotations. Finally, this session will introduce attendees to new, commercially-supported and enhanced solutions based on VistA, released in open source and now available to healthcare organizations across the country, as well as examples of hospitals using this technology and the benefits experienced. > Read More

Transitioning from Proprietary to Open Source Software: Issues and Lessons Learned through OpenELIS

How the Oregon State Public Health Laboratory (OSPHL) considered the transition from proprietary to open source software, steps taken and lessons learned from their experience with the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).

Xpert - Open Source Financial Management, HR & Revenue Management Software for K12 and Local Government

The demonstration will overview the open source business software that is making a difference in over 145 K-12 and local government organizations in 8 states. These open source products have been in production for over 7 years saving these organizations tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars in licensing fees. Modules include: Financial Management, Budget Preparation, Bank Reconciliation, Purchase Orders, Vendor Payments, Fixed Assets, Position Tracking, Personnel, Employee Application Management, Payroll, Leave Management, Substitute Management, Tax Management (Real Estate, Personal Property, Business License, DMV, Building Permits), Utility Billing, Miscellaneous Billing & numerous utility tools like the F.A.S.T. (File Archive Storage Tool) document management system. Some organizations take advantage of the Xpert Application Development Tools. 99.9% of the applications listed above were built and are maintained with these open source GUI tools. No programming experience is required and no compiling is necessary when changes are implemented with these tools. This is not theory, this software works very well and consistently has a customer Net Promoter Score of 9+. Open Management and Open Implementation would be logical tracks for this topic. This presentation would recognize how open source can and, more importantly, does play an important role in government technology initiatives with-in real world environments.