Parallel session [B2: Open Up: Open Data in the Public Sector] run at the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2013 (IWMW 2013) event, University of Bath on 26 - 28th June 2013.

1. PUBLIC DATA
Opening up
MARIEKE GUY & TONY HIRST
PRESENTED BY

2. • Presentation – The wider perspective – what is open data, what can
you do with it, how did we get so interested in it?
- Marieke Guy, 20 minutes
• Discussion – your experiences of open data so far
- All, 20 minutes
• Presentation – Real projects - including LinkedUp and School of
data
- Marieke Guy and Tony Hirst, 20 minutes
• Hands-on – getting your hands dirty with open data
- facilitated by Tony Hirst, 30 minutes
Today’s workshop

3. The wider perspective

4. So what is open data?
“A piece of data or content is open if anyone is
free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subject
only, at most, to the requirement to attribute
and/or share-alike.”
http://opendefinition.org
``

5. 5 ★ open data
http://5stardata.info
 1. make your stuff
available on the Web
(whatever format) under
an open license
 2. make it available as
structured data (e.g.,
Excel instead of image
scan of a table)
 3. Use non-proprietary
formats (e.g., CSV instead
of Excel)
 4. Use URIs to denote
things, so that people can
point at your stuff
 5. Link your data to other
data to provide context

6. Open data can be any structured information but often focused non-
textual material. Examples include:
•Government data (data.gov.uk)
•Educational data
•Economic data
•Research data
•Wikipedia says: “maps, genomes, connectomes, chemical
compounds, mathematical and scientific formulae, medical data and
practice, bioscience and biodiversity”
Examples of open data

7. Open government data is already creating value, for example:
•Transparency and democratic control
•Participation
•Self-empowerment
•Improved or new private products and services
•Innovation
•Improved efficiency of government services
•Improved effectiveness of government services
•Impact measurement of policies
•New knowledge from combined data sources and patterns in large
data volumes
Value of open data

8. Pressure for open data is coming from many directions:
•Government – need to be seen to be transparent after recent fiascos,
tax payers money
•Research – drivers from funders, public generally
•Advocacy groups – including the Open Knowledge Foundation
•Hackers/developers – want to create products and tools around open
data
•Business – interested in commercial exploitation
•Education – for benchmarking and decision making
Who wants open data?

9. • Can allow comparison between individual HEIs and cluster groups
• Can inform decision making – based on empirical information
• Can help with transparency and accountability of public institutions
• Can allow the creation of innovative tools that bring together
different data sets and give offer a different perspective
[CHET, South African HE open data]
Potential of open data in HE

10. • Policy Exchange report - A Right to Data: Fulfilling the promise of
open public data in the UK (March 2012)
• “raw ingredients that help people make smarter decisions”
• Recommendations:
• Statutory right to data
• Leadership in the public sector – need to change mindsets
• Public task – public bodies define their public task and data
associated
• Any other key reports???
Policy exchange report

11. • Some of the key recommendations (May 2013)
o The government should produce and take forward a National
Data Strategy with a twin-track policy for data- release (data
doesn’t have to be perfect)
o We should have a clear pragmatic policy on privacy and
confidentiality
o Building on existing activities around capability, there should be
a focused programme of investment to build skill-sets in basic
data science through our academic institutions
o We should look at new ways to gather evidence of the economic
and social value of opening up PSI and government data
o We should develop a model of a 'mixed economy' of public data
so that everyone can benefit from some forms of two-way
sharing between the public and the commercial sectors
Shakespeare report

12. “We have opened up much public
data already, but need to go much
further in making this data
accessible. We believe publicly
funded research should be freely
available. We have commissioned
independent groups of academics
and publishers to review the
availability of published research,
and to develop action plans for
making this freely available”
Making Public Data Accessible
The Open Data Institute
(ODI) will be the first of its
kind, a pioneering centre of
innovation, driven by the
UK Government’s Open
Data policy
The research data push..

13. • Report by Royal Society, June 2012
• Analyses the impact of new and emerging
technologies that are transforming the
conduct and communication of research
• Recommendations:
• Scientists should make data available in data
repositories
• Universities have a major role to play in supporting
open data
• Learned societies and academic bodies should
promote open science
• Science journals should require data underpinning
article
• Industry sector and regulators should work together
to share data in public interest
Science as an Open EnterpriseMore pushing…

14. http://bit.ly/od-historyhttp://bit.ly/od-history
Open data: A little history…
http://www.practicalparticipation.co.ukhttp://www.practicalparticipation.co.uk

15. http://www.slideshare.net/louiscrusoe/open-education-datahttp://www.slideshare.net/louiscrusoe/open-education-data

16. • Set up 9 years ago in Cambridge by Rufus Pollock and others
• The OKF:
o works with and on behalf of citizens, CSOs and journalists
o challenges governments and corporations
o is driven to create empowerment, want to see real change in
knowledge "power”
o is independent and community driven
Open Knowledge Foundation
“From government to science to culture,
open knowledge is now on its way to being
established as an essential part of our
information environment”

17. • Flagship Projects:
o CKAN
o Openspending
o School of data
o Public domain review
• Other work:
o Open data handbook
o Open GLAM
o Open definition
o OKCon
o Crowdcrafting
Some OKF projects/work

18. • Set up in 2012 by Nigel Shadbolt & Tim Berners-Lee, with
government support
• Independent, non-profit, non-partisan, limited by guarantee
company
• Works for (or with) the UK government and aim is to promote new
profitable businesses and economic growth
• Will “catalyse an open data culture that has economic,
environmental and social benefits”
• Not currently that active in the HE space- role to play?
Open Data Institute (ODI)

19. …or your institution.
There are two ways you can play the open data game:
1.By making your (or your institution’s ) data available.
2.By using open data that is already available.
Open data and you…

20. http://beta.findtoilet.dkhttp://beta.findtoilet.dk

21. http://mapumental.comhttp://mapumental.com

22. http://www.locrating.comhttp://www.locrating.com

23. Discussion

24. In groups of 3 or 4 think about:
•Your experiences, so far, of open data
•Are you creating data for reuse in your institution?
•Have you been reusing external data?
•What data would you like to see made open?
Discussion

25. Real projects

26. • EUCLID: Educational Curriculum for the usage of Linked data
• European project facilitating professional training for data
practitioners, who aim to use Linked Data in their daily work.
• Curriculum delivered as combination of learning materials and
activities (eBook series, webinars, face‐to‐face training)
Southampton DataEUCLID Project

27. Data Case Study: Southampton
• Not big data
but small data
• Got to be
useful!!
• Chris
Gutteridge is
talking in
another room!
Chris Gutteridge - http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/data/
Southampton case study

28. • Places: Buildings, Rooms, Campuses, Counties, Disabled
Access
• Organisation Structure
• Products & Services: Coffee, Sandwiches, Library Services,
Recycle Points
• Points of Service: Coffee Shops, Swimming Pools, Libraries,
Receptions
• Teaching: Courses, Modules, Statistics, Student Satisfaction
• Travel: Stations, Bus-Stops, Bus-Routes, Bus Times
• Resources: EPrints, Videos, Learning Objects
• People: Contact Information, Experts for the Media
• Events: Open Days, University History
• Jargon
Southampton DataSouthampton open data

29. Southampton Open DataSouthampton tools

30. • Google docs, excel spread sheets, RDF, triples
• Grinder – github
• Graphite – php library
• Graphite (publishing RDF). Required skills:
o RDF structure
o RDF/XML
o XSLT
• Graphite (consuming RDF). Required skills:
o RDF structure
o PHP
Southampton Uses…Southampton tools

31. http://equipment.data.ac.ukhttp://equipment.data.ac.uk

32. • Loughborough University: Pedestal for Progression
• Roehampton University: fulCRM
• Southampton Student Dashboard at the University of Southampton
• tutees, directory info, whether coursework has been handed in, and
attendance.
• University of Derby’s SETL (Student Engagement Traffic Lighting)
• The ESCAPES (Enhancing Student Centred Administration for
Placement ExperienceS) project at the University of Nottingham
Student Attendance DataOther HE examples

33. Student Attendance DataHE research examples
https://orbital.lincoln.ac.ukhttps://orbital.lincoln.ac.uk
• University of
Lincoln
researcher
dashboard
• They linked
CKAN, the
Orbital bridge
application and
the Lincoln
repository using
SWORD

34. • Loughborough University: Pedestal for Progression
• Roehampton University: fulCRM
• Southampton Student Dashboard at the University of Southampton
• tutees, directory info, whether coursework has been handed in, and
attendance.
• University of Derby’s SETL (Student Engagement Traffic Lighting)
• The ESCAPES (Enhancing Student Centred Administration for
Placement ExperienceS) project at the University of Nottingham
Student Attendance DataOther HE examples

35. • FP7 coordination and support action running from 1 November 2012
- 31 October 2014
LinkedUp project
“Pushes forward the
exploitation and adoption
of public, open data
available on the Web, in
particular by educational
organisations and
institutions”

36. • Three main objectives:
o Open Web Data Success Stories - Gathering innovative and
robust scenarios of deployed tools integrating and analysing
large scale, open Web data in the education sector.
o Evaluation Framework for Open Web Data Applications -
Providing a complete framework for the evaluation of large-scale
open Web data applications.
o Technology Transfer in the Education Sector - Demonstrating
and promoting the benefit of open Web data technologies in
education, and provide a reusable testbed in this domain.
LinkedUp project

37. Project partners
• Web site: www.linkedup-project.eu
• Twitter: @linkedupproject
• Hashtag: #linkedupproject

38. • A series of three competitions promoting the innovative use of
linked and open data in an educational context
• About finding ways to link and mash up educational and cross-
domain linked and open data to provide novel applications and
services for open and distance education
• Looking for educationally relevant demos, protoypes and tools
which use open or linked data
• Can use any open data (not just what is in the LinkedUp
catalogue) and open to all!
• Benefits: cash prizes; showcase ideas; networking opportunities,
develop for real world settings; kudos, work with real data sets;
data and development support
LinkedUp challenge

39. • First competition: Veni (March 2013 - October 2013 – Deadline
today!!): Innovative prototypes and tools for analysing and
integrating open educational Web data
• Second competition: Vidi (November 2013 - April 2014):
Challenging and innovative, mature data-driven applications
• Third competition: Vici (May 2014 - November 2014): Robust
applications for large-scale educational use-cases, offered and
provided by LinkedUp
LinkedUp comps

40. Available datasets
http://data.linkededucation.org/linkedup/catalog/http://data.linkededucation.org/linkedup/catalog/
The Linked Education Cloud is a
repository/catalogue of Web datasets
relevant to educational applications. It is
provided according to the standard of the
Web of Data, and is constructed based on
input from the LinkedUp Community.

41. The following key people will be leading the evaluation committee:
LinkedUp reviewers

42. • Led by the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) and Peer 2 Peer
University (P2PU)
• Financially supported by Open Society Foundations: the Hewlett
Foundation and the Shuttleworth Foundation
• Aimed at ‘civil society organizations, journalists and citizens’
• Teaches ‘data skills’
• From basic level to technical
• All materials under CC-BY-SA licence
• Working with OpenBadging community to deliver lightweight
accreditation
• Adopts a ‘pragmatic not fanatic’ approach to the issue of open
source software
School of data

43. School of data courses

44. • Data Expeditions are quests to map uncharted territory, discover
hidden stories and solve unsolved mysteries in the land of data.
• Recent expedition: Why garment retailers need to do more in
Bangladesh
School of data expeditions

45. • School of Data Handbook – data recipes
• Data explorer missions
• School of data community and forum (ask school of data)
• Links to online resources (Google scraper, Google spreadsheets,
scraper wiki)
• Web site: http://schoolofdata.org
• Twitter: @SchoolOfData
• Hashtag: #SchoolOfData
School of data resources

46. Getting your
hands dirty
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timsamoff/252370986/

47. As part of LinkedUp project we are thinking of:
•Setting up an Open Education Working group
•Writing an Open Education Handbook
Any thoughts?
Resources:
•The Open Knowledge Foundation web site: http://okfn.org
•The Open Data Handbook: http://opendatahandbook.org
And finally…

48. • Tony Hirst – tony.hirst@okfn.org
• Marieke Guy – marieke.guy@okfn.org
Moving to the bright side…