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19th November - 25th November
\r\n
\r\nI read two papers about ontology development methodologies.
I read two\r\narticles by Bennett Haselton about decentralized\r\nsocial networking, which happened to pretty much sum up and beautifully\r\narticulate everything about that that has been floating in my subconscious for\r\na couple of weeks. I saw links to them in the latest\r\nCircumventor email, which I've been subscribed to\r\nsince High School for bypassing the internal blacklist, and remain subscribed\r\nto because the jokes at the end are always laugh-out-loud funny.
\r\nI attended an all day course entitled 'practical project management for\r\nresearch students'.
\r\nI booked a place at the 1st International Open Data Dialogue in Berlin, and necessary\r\nflights.
\r\nOntologies with a View took place at a different place and time to usual.
\r\nI started preparing for presenting at Digital Methods as a Mainstream\r\nMethodology in London in a\r\ncouple of weeks.
\r\nI made a plan for the two weeks following the 20th.
\r\nRead my complete notes from day one, and complete notes from day\r\ntwo.
\r\nThe 1st International Open Data Dialogue in Berlin in December was broadly a\r\ndiscussion about real-world applications of Open Data. Lots of practice, less\r\ntheory. Despite this (or perhaps because of this, now I think about it) it\r\nwasn't as technical as I expected. Felix Sasaki [1] talked about some basic\r\ntechnicalities of Linked Data and the Semantic Web, kind of the first things\r\nyou'd learn if you were studying it in a structured way, and I heard a lot of\r\npeople afterwards complaining that that had been too technical.
\r\nImportantly, there was a real message of getting things done at this event,\r\nand plenty of evidence that a world built on Open Data is not an idealistic\r\npipe dream, but a reality right now. Challenges are being articulated, and\r\nsolutions are being created, and problems are being overcome.
\r\nI stress this particularly because a couple of sceptics who weren't at the\r\nconference tweeted things along the lines of "Sounds like your conference is a\r\nbunch of idealist hippies preaching to the choir…" A genuine concern, but\r\nwhat's really exciting is that this definitely wasn't the case. It was\r\ninstead a bunch of realist technologists with the expertise and influence to\r\nactively overcome barriers to improving the world.
\r\nOpen Data is about social change and empowerment. It is about\r\naccountability of organisations with massive influence over the lives of\r\nordinary people. It is not about an abandonment of personal privacy, or\r\neverybody knowing everything about everyone else.
\r\nIt should go without saying (yet it still needs to be said) that it is not\r\nappropriate to blindly make all data available to everyone about every aspect\r\nof everybody's life. But what if you had access to all of the data anyone\r\nhad ever collected about your life? Think about purchase history (shop\r\nloyalty cards, travel tickets), online activities (searches, browsing history,\r\nsocial networking). All this stuff is being stored anyway, all over the\r\nplace. Often by organisations who fully intend to profit from it, presumably\r\nwith your unwitting consent. They went to the trouble of collecting it, but\r\nyou went to the trouble of providing it. It's your data too. What could you\r\ndo with it (or hire a software developer to do with it)? Then imagine you had\r\naccess to the same data from everyone in your town, aggregated and anonymised,\r\nand visualised in a nice way. Maybe you could team up with your neighbours\r\nfor cheaper bulk food purchases? Maybe you'd realise that others had similar\r\nhobbies or problems nearby, and could form special interest or support groups?\r\nReduce costs by sharing transport to similar destinations (or just have some\r\ncompany on the journey)?
\r\nThere's so much potential within data that's already held.
\r\nThe UK government's Midata initiative is a massive step in the right direction\r\n[3] toward compelling commercial enterprises to hand over machine-readable\r\ndatasets to consumers upon request.
\r\nIn Slovakia and Kenya (and possibly others, but these were the ones that came\r\nup), there is a constitutional right to data held by the government. Not\r\nwithout loopholes and other problems, of course [5, 2].
\r\nOne of the obvious problems is convincing large organisations that hold lots\r\nof data (like commercial enterprise and governments) of the circumstances in\r\nwhich it would be in everybody's best interest to release (some of) it.\r\nReasons they don't include a lack of understanding of the benefits;\r\ndisproportionate assessment of risks; aversion to change; a lack of technical\r\nexpertise and infrastructure; "data hugging syndrome" [2]; licencing issues;\r\noutdated business models.
\r\nNigel Shadbolt's experience says that large organisations who open data\r\nalways see benefits. It's always worth the effort. When the data is there,\r\nsuddenly developers start doing things with it; applications appear, many\r\nunexpected, and usually free. He stressed that it's important to have a\r\nstockpile of success stories in case you need to convince someone in charge of\r\nthe value of Open Data, and his favourite one was the publication of MRSA\r\nrates in hospitals (resulting in sharing of good practice, and an 85%\r\nreduction in MRSA over two years). See a list at the end of this post for all\r\nof the success stories I came across over the course of the two days.
\r\nThere were lots of discussions about the users or audiences of Open Data, and\r\nthe various different roles people can have. Most consumers of Open Data are\r\ndevelopers, and 'ordinary people' see the data via an application. Many won't\r\nknow (or care) about the source of the data that powers the app, even if it\r\nabout them. Many will, and trust must be built for people see the value that\r\nsuch apps could bring to their day to day lives. Ideally, releasing a dataset\r\nwould be part of an ecosystem, rather than a one-time thing. Data providers\r\nshould value consumer feedback, and commit to good quality, up-to-date data.\r\nRufus Pollock wonders why every dataset doesn't have a public issue tracker,\r\nand notes that poor quality data creates wasted time, especially at hack\r\nevents [4].
\r\nA successful Open Data world needs partnership between the public, media and\r\norganisations. All of these parties need educating on appropriate\r\ncombinations of the realistic potential of Open Data, and the technicalities\r\nof releasing and using it. Michael Hörz [6] discussed the journalist\r\nperspective on Open Data; they're desperate for data about everything, and\r\noften manage to get hold of it. But they find themselves begging for\r\nspreadsheets or CSV files, because what they get given are PDFs. Eugh! Yet\r\nthey're not asking for Linked Data formats? Which means, presumably, that\r\nafter they've been through the trouble of extracting data from PDFs, they're\r\nputting it in a spreadsheet or something, and there's still a whole level of\r\nusefulness missing. And I assume that's because they don't know otherwise, or\r\nperhaps don't have the resources to learn even if they're aware of the\r\npossibilities. Similar sorts of reasons that they're being given PDFs by\r\norganisations in the first place.
\r\nSo awareness, and easily digestable educational resources (how about\r\nSchoolOfData.org) need to be promoted.
\r\nNow then, about those success stories... This list includes data publishing\r\nprojects, groups and apps that have been built on Open Data.
\r\nThat'll do for now. Lots of the portals and competitions have links to app\r\nexamples etc. There's lots to explore.
\r\nFinally, I highlighted in my notes quite a lot of things that I need to find\r\nout more about. A lot of them are technology or platforms for publishing or\r\nsharing Open Data, and various standards or studies I need to read in more\r\ndetail.
\r\nI have a couple of questions to ponder on, too:
\r\nThere's a massive focus around hacks (more often than not one off events) as a\r\nway of using and promoting Open Data. What other ways are there? What will\r\nthe path to a deeper integration of Open Data in society look like?
\r\nThere are lots of datasets and vocabularies about public services and society,\r\nas well as science and education. What arts, culture and media datasets are\r\nout there? (And what has been done with them?) Ooh, or online social\r\ninteractions? Maybe I'll do a survey.
\r\n[1] Prof. Dr. Felix Sasaki, keynote: "Linked Open Data @ W3C-Vocabularies,\r\nWorking Groups, Usage Scenarios."
\r\n[2] Prof. Dr. Simon M. Onywere, talk: "The Kenya Open Data Incubator Project –\r\nOutreach to Research Community."
\r\n[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/midata-2012-review-and-\r\nconsultation via Nigel Shadbolt
\r\n[4] Dr. Rufus Pollock, keynote: "Open Data, Building the Ecosystem"
\r\n[5] Peter Hanełák, talk: "Open Data and Open Government Partnership in\r\nSlovakia."
\r\n[6] Michael Hörz, talk: "Open Data in Local Journalism: An Excel file?"