Serdar Temiz

We had our final, closing conference of EU Funded Clarity project in Slellefteå. It was pleasure to be hosted by Skellefteå manicupality and as well as be part of the panelist at the conference.

You may check the conference webpage, to see other participants https://www.clarity-conference.com/en/
This is my answers to the questions that I was asked about open data and open government

Clarity Testimonials: Serdar Temiz from Clarity Project on Vimeo.

This is also a nice summary of the event

Clarity Project Conference from Clarity Project on Vimeo.

Palagarism is big issue. Due to vast amount of submissions universities decided to use special software to check whether content of the homeworks are novel or not. These software does not state that should be accepted as novel or not  but helps to know whether some part of the content is copied / pasted directly- without proper citation and referinging and also  helps the teachers to check origin of the text.

KTH used turnetin for a long time and I was happy with that, then KTH decided to use URKUND. Since I am PhD Candidate I was also using this tool for the text I was writing too. It is better to be safe than sorry, right?If you wonder how it works, let me share you a video:

The strange thing was, I was not able to delete the file from Urkund’s system. My midterm document also includes a recently published article which was not supposed to be available online at public sites. Besides that, It is midterm document, still needs development but if anyone cites similar document that I did, system could show that she/he used similar things with my document and give access to them to download my entire document. Is it the feature that I want?

I  prepare homeworks/ assignments and I want my students to be creative and free to answer questions the way they want to answer. If I use this software for my students’ assignments then their assignments will be in the system for ever. I do not think my students signed for this and I do not think it is fair to have a system that harvest our students all homework.

I informed our IT support about the issue and URKUND will manually remove the document from their system. How many other platforms will harvest users data without their content (or forced to consent?).

It seems,  turnitin had better policy “When a student or educator submits a paper to Turnitin, it is compared against a vast, secure proprietary database of licensed source material, including billions of periodicals, academic journals, books, and web pages. Turnitin also maintains a separate repository of student papers. Each educator (at the discretion of his or her school administrator) can determine whether or not to include student papers in the repository and whether or not to give students the option to opt out. We can remove student papers from the standard repository at the request of a school administrator. ”

Do you want your students’ answers to an assignment to hunt them until forever?

How Moocs are dealing with our students’ submissions?

We lecturers, researchers, citizens should be very careful with this trend.

I do not know what to do because I recall that I complained about it  via customer support but nothing changed. I think it is better that I write it publicly, I start to feel that it became only way to make you aware about the situation.  Let me be clear: I am happy from HSB and how fast they are to send me a new card when I loose it, how I could get my first loan from them, and how I was happy from their service, especially from Anna from then Östermalms Office.

I have a credit card and debit card from HSB. I use debit-card for my online payments and small amount of payments. Since I used it for the internet payments such as hosting, domain names etc, I do not keep big amount of money at this account, but I have enough money in my other accounts that are not associated to this card. What I want this debit card is to work as debit card. If there is not money, I do not want any withdraws to happen from this card. Of course, sometimes I forgot that I have auto payments associated to this card, such as some monthly insurances, so companies notify me they could not withdraw money then I transfer money from my other account at the same bank, afterwards they can withdraw.

The catch here is, lets say I had some money, e.g 1000sek and some auto payments are made and I have 200 left, and I forgot about these autopayments and I still consider that I have around 1000sek there, then I try to buy something for 210 sek.  What I expect the card to do is Not to approve payment. Instead, bank approves but then charges me 100sek for overcharge. which means, to pay extra 10sek, bank charges me 100sek!. It is insane!. This is might look like a scenario but this is the thing could happen and happened to me sometime ago, I notified HSB for this and asked them NOT TO DO prove any payment. What recently happened was this: 223 SEK extra payment happened and bank charged me 100sek for it. It is like 40% of the actual interest for 1 day!. I noticed this the next day and I directly transferred money. Has bank not approved, I would use my other credit card or could transfer money via  mobile bankid and this would not happen.

As I mentioned, I want to repeat: Debit card should work as debit card, if there is NO money, it should NOT approve any payment!. May be they think this as an service, help to the customer but when customer’s total cost for a product to 350sek instead of 250sek, then it is not a service, it is unfair charging exercise.

Another suggestion is: As soon as limit goes some amount that user can define, you can send them sms or email notification so they are aware of this.

These are my 2 cents about the case.

We received an email from  our divisions IT administrator, that there was an emergency situation and we should not go to city center, then I checked dn.se and saw what happened. I had just had a lunch with a friend of mine who was traveling at that direction and another friend who had coffee shop that area; I tried to reach them first. Of course, then I received calls from my family members told them that I am fine. Actually, since I am not an avid social media user anymore, I was not aware that city was center was blocked and I had scheduled master thesis meeting with my students at 17:00 via skype and just before that a friend visited me that she did not know what to do because all traffic is blocked and she had little son. Then I realized the impact and told her that I can drive her home after my meeting. I finished meeting earlier and then when we understood her husband is also stuck in the city, we decided to wait for him to walk- we could not got to city to pick him up. When we were walking to parking area, I thought it would be nice idea to twit that I can drive people. Husband also showed that  a bakeryshop gave him cakes free of charge when he was leaving there. How it is great action, right?

On the way, we saw hundreds of people walking and I thought I could drive more after I leave this couple but then I saw the traffic jam on the return road that presented me that it is almost impossible to drive people on this direction. After I drop the couple and saw their union with their kid, I felt good and twitted my location and asked if someone needs a drive back, after a while, I drove back, and instead of going to university, I changed my mind to go where I live, which is close, and decided to have where I live as a base to location to help people, then considering that I felt thirsty I decided that I can go to shop, buy drink and just distribute car drivers that are almost stuck in their cars. Finally when I could made to home, I left my stuff home, went to shop, tried to find something then I saw small energy drink. May be I was a bit in hurry but I could not find see or notice small cakes etc. Energy drink, I am not fun of it but it is better than nothing.

I went to järvakrog and there was a part where cars split to Scandic hotel direction or go to directly city, my plan was to go to corner and distribute to the people. I know it is not optimal place to stay but today was extraordinary and I assumed traffic police and others would understand that is OK to distribute. I went there but then I saw that, people thought I was selling it, some slowed down asked me : “Vad säljer du”. I answered : “Gratis”, It is free. A girl slowed down and then she asked I tried to give her and said Gratis but then she smiled and left. Anyhow, I was not prepared to situation that I would be thought I was “selling” something because, to me, it is a moment to share not to gain benefit from. I went to oil station and tried to find something to write: Gratis and Free. I wrote it, but at the same time, being in the split section, not a good place to stand, I did not know what to do be more helpful. I just stopped sat on the grass, at the corner of the road between scandic hotel and main road, tried to think. I thought, maybe I can stand at bus station and give to cars. Of course, then I saw, cars do not enter there since it is “bus” line but there were lots of people left there since airport couches could not go to city center. While I was thinking what to do with all these drinks, I decided to leave all at the station and put the text next to it: Gratis/Free. While I was there one took it and I saw people were wondering how to go to penteldåg train station because according to sl.se trains were working, then it was an opportunity to show them how to go because, even though it is close, it is not easy to know how to go there from järvakrog to train station. We were four people walking there. One asked me if I have a car, I said yes, and asked me if I could drive. Direction was in south then I said, if trains are not working, you are welcome to be guest for couple of hours and then I drive them to their location. One’s card did not work, I helped. I gave my number to one of them in case trains does not come, they can just call me. I had to leave instead of waiting at station to see if I can be more useful. Meanwhile I was checking if anyone wrote me, until then my hashtag was #drottninggatan name of the street but when I checked that hashtag I saw #openstockholm and decided to use this hashtag, I gave my location and said, if anyone needs a place to stay we have food, friendship and sofa. I Norwegain guy was stuck there did not know how to go to somewhere in Solna, I knew a shortcut to there where I assumed there would not be traffic jam. We met next to Ibis hotel and I drove him back, he wanted to give me snuss but I said I do not use and I do not need, it is just the moment that we should help each other. When I was driving him, I saw some people at bus station close to ulriksdal center and slowed down to ask where they were going then they were 4-5 people, I decided to return back to them after I leave this guy. I left him, moved back, on my way saw a guy stopped next to him if he needs lift, he did not and at ulriksdal, the group was not there and did few rounds to ask people if they need a drive. I assumed if they are walking on few location, they might have arrived by train, were tried, I could save them to walk 3 to 5 km of walk since buses did not work. One guy was so happy that I offered help but he said he almost arrived.

When I was at home, I saw someone was offering flat in uplands väsby and someone else were stuck there and it seemed they did not see eachother’s message, I combined them, prospective host was very proactive lady and she was asked me to tag their twitt. Then I saw a guy’s message that his family was stuck in central. I was not sure I could go there due to security measures but I offered him that we can host them if they can make to Ulriksdal. I assumed central traffic would be blocked but may be they could take train to there as other people that I left to Ulriksdal station.

Anyhow, noticing compassion and open hearth of people at #openstockholm I felt so nice that we do not only rely on state and ask state organizations to help but we could help ourselves. What I did was nothing compared to other peoples’ help ( in addition to police, doctors,nurces, security personal, officers ). Imagine, people opened their offices, their homes, shared what they have in their stores, cookies, cakes, pizzas, I saw people offering help to drive people with their cars. Compared to what they did, I did nothing because no one stayed as a guest and asked more help from me. I just share this not do say I did anything but just to show how it is important that our little help can change peoples’ day.

To be honest, from my point of view, I felt very good to be able to help and at least offer help and respond some people, I think what I gained from this experience is much nicer than the people that I could do a little help. I slept very late after I followed twitter if I could help anyone else around my vicinity by monitoring discussion at #openstockholm, then I had fallen asleep but with very optimistic feelings about the Swedish society . I woke up a bit late and started to write this blog post, meanwhile I found out that Jenny Nguyen started this hashtag. Salut to her.

Now, I feel very tried but better than 17:00 pm yesterday and I am glad that #openstockholm was more actvive than #stockholmattack. I hope we will never ever experience anything like this and I wish power to victims, relatives and friends of victims and to all Stockholm and Sweden.

I know one thing now: we are more united than ever in Stockholm, as Stockholmers from every background #SharingisCaring

P.S: #openstockholm hastag would be used much better if we could have two hashtags one for #offeringasking for help one for #sharing feelings and other information, but in any case, it was a great momentum where people could help each other.

This the post that is we submit to OKI website.

Year 2016 was a productive year this year. We would like to list some of these projects below.

Open Knowledge Sweden  (OKSweden) collaborated with KTH- Royal Institute of Technologies Industrial Marketing and Entrepreneurship Division and Wikimedia sponsored us and we held award ceremony at KTH ITM Schools Indek Building. Project Manager was Asmen Gul and we are planning to have it every year.

We received much positive feedback and there were several press releases after our event. We can easily say that it was the event we received the most attention. You can get more information regarding the award, jury, categories, and winners from here. http://okawards.org/.

Third of May we launched first FOI website, FragaStaden.se (AskTheState). Mattias Axel was project manager. It is important for us because we launched it at the anniversary of FIO Act, which dates back to 1766, it is the first freedom of information legislation in the modern sense. which is called the Principle of Public Access (Swedish: offentlighetsprincipen) in Sweden. 24^th of August, we have presented our platform in Umeå Hacker Space and we took part in the sestercentennial – 250^th! – Anniversary for the adoption of legal guarantees for freedom of information and a free press in Sweden. It was run by Swedish National Library. If you would like to read English translation of Anders Chydenius FIO text, Swedish parliament abolished censorship of books and newspapers and required authorities to provide public access to all official records with the passing of ”His Majesty’s Gracious Ordinance Relating to Freedom of Writing and of the Press” please click here. You can also see other contributors’ articles on the same topic.

We created training materials for Open Data with CC license with the help of Wikimedia Sweden, Asmen Gul and Valentin Brutaru run the project and we are glad to have this materials that will be base for our future education activities.

We have new project members Malin Isaksson and Julia Navrén. Both will work for the Undervaka.se – A Digital Quality Index for Press Freedom and Freedom of Information Act. It is about digital journalism and about to build relationships and networks and infrastructure for media organizations and the public in Sweden make it easier to view the quality of the principle of public access. It is funded by InternetFund (internetfonden). You can follow progress of this project via www.undervaka.se

In both projects, OKAwards and FragaStaden.se, Merxhan Emini was our lead in our IT team. His IT and software development skills added lots of value to our team.

A twitter during Serdar Temiz’s presentation

OKSweden joined Engaging Privacy, ISOC-SE, OKSE, DFRI, och IIS and prepared  two days program on  privacy and integrity tracks at Sweden’s Biggest Internet event, Internet days organized by The Internet Foundation In Sweden. The keynote speaker of the event was Edward Snowden, of course, he could not be present in Sweden in person, but thanks to digital technologies he could deliver his speech. In one of parallel tracks the team had, Chairman of OK Sweden did presentation on Data Privacy, Corporates, and States http://www.slideshare.net/SerdarTemi/privacy-corporates-and-states.

and OKSweden member FragaStaten’s Project Manager Mattias Axell facilitated workshops for better privacy practices in business and public organizations on both days of the event on 21^st and 22^nd of November. You can read more about the schedule of the event from here. https://internetdagarna.se/program/engaging-privacy-offentlig-sektor/

We are part of a pan EU project CLARITY and we are in the first year of two-years of the project. Its name is CLARITY where project will support European Member States in their pursuit for greater trust, transparency, and efficiency within their open eGovernment initiatives and highlight best practice within this field. We have worked hard and in the first year we were team leader of several tasks. Serdar Temiz is Project Manager of OKS part of the packages and in addition to him OKSweden’s Outreach Manager, Toni Mickiewicz who is expert in these type of EU projects,was the most active person in the project at OKSweden

Discussion during workshop

Until now we have several deliverables and conducted many activities in regards to project as listed below. Please do not hesitate to read and give us feedback and feel free to join us on our website, as well as social media – twitter and LinkedIn group. If you are interested to be in our contact list, drop us a line. This is what Clarity Team has done:

• We have conducted a stakeholder analysis within the open eGovernment ecosystem.
• We have analysed the key drivers in the up-take of open eGoverment services in Europe
• We have conducted a needs assessment of societal, public sector and industry and market needs when it comes to the up-take of open eGovernment services.
• We held a Development Sprint Event in Amsterdam in December 2016, where four teams developed blueprints for 4 new open eGoverment services.
• We have held two foresight focus groups with stakeholders in Sweden and Spain, and will host a third group in The Netherlands in March. Results will be in a forthcoming briefing paper on “Considerations for the take-up of open eGovernment services in Europe” – due in March 2017

White board with session results

We also have an announcement, we are working on our new organization, now we have our first Executive Director, Fredrik Sjöberg, who brings his many years of project and team management skills to our team. OKSweden believes that with Fredrik’s management and contribution; we OK Sweden will be more effective and productive.

What are we planning great projects for 2017, you will hear more from us, more to come.

Stay tuned!