Do you like order and tidiness in public sector and want to help as a Database Administrator?

Handlingar.se from Open Knowledge Sweden

At Handlingar.se we maintain what we believe is the largest existing database of Swedish public bodies. This database underpins our service which enables people to request information from these public bodies according to Freedom of Information and the new Data law from August 1, 2022.

What will you be doing?

Public bodies are created, merged, and closed at a surprising frequency. Keeping our database of almost 2,500 bodies up to date requires a significant amount of work. We are seeking volunteers to help us with this task. We are particularly interested in people who can assist us keep our database in-line with official data on, for example schools, state agencies, regional bodies, municipalities, public sector companies etc.

Better management of our public bodies database could assist us in providing specific advice to those seeking to make requests to certain bodies, and help us guide people to organisations with certain responsibilities. We would also like to improve the geographic data within our database, so we can link bodies to towns, cities and areas.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for people with skills with spreadsheets, databases, and web-based systems. Some programming, web-scraping / scripting skills may be useful.

What difference will you make?

As the public body database underpins our service a direct benefit to our users arises from having that database as comprehensive and up-to-date as possible. If a journalist, activist, or indeed anyone, wants to request information from a public body - ideally it will already be listed on our website.

We are keen to make our service sustainable. The service is volunteer run on a day to day basis, and we would like to develop more efficient systems to reduce the administrative burden. More efficient working will, we hope, enable us to attract, and retain, more volunteers, who can then focus on campaigning, assisting users, and developing the service.

What's in it for the volunteer?

This is an opportunity to work with the team at Handlingar.se. The team includes volunteers committed to transparency and freedom of information and volunteer staff at Open Knowledge Sweden who work as developers, system administrators, designers, communications professionals and more.

We are providing a service which empowers a broad range of individuals who want to obtain information from public bodies. We hope the impact of our service will continue to grow as we help tackle the issues of fake news and spin.