Overview

What is AusGOAL?

AusGOAL, the Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing Framework, provides support and guidance to government and related sectors to facilitate open access to publicly funded information. AusGOAL makes it possible for organisations to manage their risks when publishing information and data in a way that drives innovation and entrepreneurial activities; providing enhanced economic and social benefits to the wider community.  AusGOAL is aligned with numerous open government initiatives around the world and supports the Australian Information Commissioners Open Access Principles (HTML).

What does it do?

Organisations implementing AusGOAL:

  • Reduce risks associated with the public release of information by establishing practices to identify and protect personal and other confidential information, third party copyrights, and other intellectual property rights in material
  • Reduce risks and enhance efficiency by standardising the number and type of licence formats they use
  • Reduce the need for specialist 'memoranda of understanding' for the transfer of information and data between government departments 
  • Reduce duplication of publicly funded information by enabling re-use and sharing of information across jurisdictions
  • Can participate in practitioners networks to drive the open access agenda and AusGOAL cross-jurisdictionally
  • Deliver the requirements that underpin the various data.gov implementations in Australia
  • Deliver the full policy intent of the 'right to information' laws that exist in a number of Australian jurisdictions

What does it include?

AusGOAL incorporates:

  • A licence suite that includes: the Australian Creative Commons Version 3.0 licences, the AusGOAL Restrictive Licence Template and the BSD 3-Clause software licence
  • Licensing tools: an AusGOAL Microsoft Office App (coming soon), the Licence Chooser tool, and 'Licence Manager' licence injector software
  • Resources: this website, discussion forums, resource library, blog, LinkedIn Group and YouTube Channel 
  • An emphasis on open formats and open access to publicly funded information
  • A policy requirement to choose the least restrictive licence appropriate to the material being published

More Information

If you would like to hear more about how AusGOAL operates to reform the management and reuse of Australia's publicly funded information, please have a look at the brief video's from our YouTube Channel.  You may also wish to view the "Launch of AusGOAL" post from our Blog.