[euopendata] eurostat hackday

Mon Jan 31 13:43:44 UTC 2011

I'm just catching up on this thread now, apologies for the delay. I
would suggest, in the interest of keeping this list as a low-traffic
list for updates, announcements and legal/policy/technical discussion
of general interest, that if people would like to continue this thread
then we can:

  * continue discussion about logistical details of the Eurostat
Hackday event in December off-list (please email me as a first point
of reference, and we can take it from there)
  * report back here with a summary of findings

Like Ton, as a co-founder of this list I'm very keen to make sure that
people don't unsubscribe or stop reading as traffic is too high, or
not relevant to them!

I am happy to act as a go-between for anyone who wants any further
information, so if anyone wants to continue this discussion please
email me at my personal address (jonathan.gray at okfn.org) and I can
help introduce them to relevant people to find further information.

Responses on specific points from my end are included below!

All the best,

Jonathan

##

As a bit of background, the Eurostat Hackday was intended to be a
small informal event, which grew to include more people in different
locations. The initial idea was to gather a smal group of people
(interested friends and colleagues) and have a look at what
interesting and useful things we could make using the Eurostat data.
We then thought 'why not open this up to the public?' and invited
others to join in. Each event was organised by someone at that
location (hence it was relatively decentralised). E.g. the Liverpool
event was hosted by the folks at Scraperwiki, the Athens event was
coordinated by some folks who are doing open government data related
stuff with the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit. And so on.

As such there was no central decision-making process about who was
supported to travel where. As far as I know this was the prerogative
of respective organisations/projects who were involved to determine on
a case by case basis, and certainly not something that any one
organisation or individual would be able to dictate or coordinate
(perhaps next time we can try). I know that there were a few people
gathered in a few other locations, who participated virtually, e.g.
from the Netherlands, and elsewhere.

The initial call for participation was put out on late November on this list:

  http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/euopendata/2010-November/000309.html

In terms of what we achieved, I've been very busy, but I will
hopefully send out a comprehensive round-up in the next few weeks
(partly as feedback for all who attended). We urged all involved to
send links/notes on outputs to eurostat at okfn.org, but not much has
come in at this address (I expect due to the Christmas rush as this
was on a weekend, and the following week was the last week before the
holidays). I own this action item and I apologise for the delay.
Incidentally I promised the very nice people at Eurostat who helped
provide support and expertise (via phone and email) that I'd send them
a report on this soon. So far from our end, you can see:

  http://blog.okfn.org/2010/12/06/eurostat-hackday-16th-december-2010/
  http://eurostat.dev.okfn.org/

There are a few other ongoing (and exciting!) things related to energy
data that came out of the Hackday that will be released later this
week. For these you'll be pleased to know that all follow up work has
been conducted virtually, from a variety of different locations.

As an aside: I am personally a big fan of reducing unnecessary travel.
I don't particularly like travelling myself, and try to use the
coach/train instead of flying wherever possible. If anyone has any
concrete ideas or specific links about how the OKF can strive to
reduce its carbon footprint as an organisation, I'd love to pass this
on (again: please email me directly). I'd be particularly interested
in hearing about best practices and experiences from other
organisations who have attempted this kind of thing. E.g. I wonder if
people might even be interested in proposing guidelines for reducing
CO2 impact for hackdays and other events?

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 1:29 PM, Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks Michael
>
>
>
>
>>
>> > There was virtually no advertising, the event just sprung out of the
>> > blue,
>> > with one announcement only the day before,  and very few local people
>> > knew
>> > about it (outside the circle of our linkedata community locally which
>> > Keith
>> > is co=leading).
>>
>> I would question this statement. IIRC the OKF did a good job in
>> advertising
>> it (well, obviously not a year in advance, but enough time allow people to
>> plan ahead). I, for example, pointed it out (and I was definitely not one
>> of
>> the first people to do so) on 8 Dec [1].
>>
>
> I meant here in Edinburgh, at local level, the hackday info was circulating
> to the public (so outside the project partneers and their
> immediate circle) only one or two  days before the event, as far as I know
> (and I follow most  of them)
>
> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/ok-scotland/2010-December/subject.html
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> > After I collect all the data (provided I get it) I ll compile a fact
>> > sheet
>> > and circulate it for further inputs on how to mesh it
>>
>> Fact sheet is good. Open *data* is better.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>      Michael
>>
>> [1] https://twitter.com/#!/mhausenblas/status/12460414994481152
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Michael Hausenblas, Research Fellow
>> LiDRC - Linked Data Research Centre
>> DERI - Digital Enterprise Research Institute
>> NUIG - National University of Ireland, Galway
>> Ireland, Europe
>> Tel. +353 91 495730
>> http://linkeddata.deri.ie/
>> http://sw-app.org/about.html
>>
>>
>>
>> > From: Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio at gmail.com>
>> > Reply-To: <paoladimaio10 at googlemail.com>
>> > Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:59:08 +0000
>> > To: Michael Hausenblas <michael.hausenblas at deri.org>
>> > Cc: euopendata <euopendata at lists.okfn.org>
>> > Subject: Re: [euopendata] eurostat hackday
>> >
>> > Michael
>> >
>> > thanks for your detailed reply and for sharing the rationale,
>> >
>> > So are the outcomes of the hackday also tied in /related with your LATC
>> > deliverables?
>> > What is LATC relationship to OKFn, if any?
>> > (just wondering).
>> >
>> >
>> > I'd like to know if in other cities as well if  the participants
>> > attendance
>> > is somehow orchestrated around
>> > EU funded projects,
>> >
>> > Obviously its good to leverage synergy,
>> > but I dont think I would call that bottom up self organisatiom stricly
>> > speaking :-)
>> >
>> > There was virtually no advertising, the event just sprung out of the
>> > blue,
>> > with one announcement only the day before,  and very few local people
>> > knew
>> > about it (outside the circle of our linkedata community locally which
>> > Keith
>> > is co=leading).
>> >
>> >
>> > The very bottom line question is: could the same  Eurostathackday
>> > outputs
>> > have been generated with the people working remotely, via IRC?
>> >
>> > re.mashup
>> > Yes, generally speaking we should increase our awareness of the cost to
>> > the
>> > community (vs the benefits) of these exercises, so that we can
>> > strive to improve the collaboration system among EU research partner
>> > without
>> > taking a toll both in terms of costs to the public, as well as
>> > environmental
>> > costs
>> > (a bit of common sense now and then shouldnt hurt scientific endeavors
>> > :-)
>> >
>> > After I collect all the data (provided I get it) I ll compile a fact
>> > sheet
>> > and circulate it for further inputs on how to mesh it
>> >
>> > Thanks a lot
>> >
>> > PDM
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 8:33 AM, Michael Hausenblas <
>> > michael.hausenblas at deri.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Paola,
>> >>
>> >> I can only speak for LATC (in my role as LATC co-ordinator). Yes, I
>> >> think,
>> >> in order to be credible, we need to walk our talk; heck, we're trying
>> >> to
>> >> convince governments that transparency is good for them, so we need to
>> >> eat
>> >> our own dog food, right?
>> >>
>> >>> a) what have been the outcomes/benefits
>> >>
>> >> AFAIK there will be a report on this. Please be patient.
>> >>
>> >>> b) how money did it cost EU taxpayers to fly around people to attend
>> >>> the
>> >>> respective sessions, in the case these were not participating in their
>> >> local
>> >> hometown/region
>> >>> c) a breakdown of which  EU projects covered for the travel costs
>> >>
>> >> As for LATC, the participation in the Eurostat hackday was sort of a
>> >> (welcome) and synergetic side-effect. In fact, what we really had was a
>> >> joint LATC WP1/WP2 technical meeting. The LATC's WP1 assembles and
>> >> delivers
>> >> the 24/7 Interlinking Platform, and in WP2 DERI and Talis take care of
>> >> (amongst other things) to RDFise and interlink the Eurostat dataset. G
>> >>
>> >> Given that Keith Alexander (Talis) is located close to Edinburgh and
>> >> had to
>> >> meet with Richard Cyganiak and Aftab Iqbal (both DERI), I found it
>> >> sensible
>> >> to propose to meet there - this is the cheapest and closest location
>> >> from
>> >> Galway POV - in order to leverage the communication and sharing with
>> >> others
>> >> (incl. PlanetData liaison partner Andreas Harth). As you can see, we
>> >> tried
>> >> everything to cut down costs as much as possible and maximise outcome
>> >> in
>> >> the
>> >> realm of things we're contractually obliged to deliver in LATC.
>> >>
>> >>> d) some kind of carbon footprint for the day
>> >>
>> >> A very good idea! How about you go ahead and provide a mashup of this?
>> >> I'd
>> >> be interested in this showcase of open data.
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >>      Michael
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Dr. Michael Hausenblas, Research Fellow
>> >> LiDRC - Linked Data Research Centre
>> >> DERI - Digital Enterprise Research Institute
>> >> NUIG - National University of Ireland, Galway
>> >> Ireland, Europe
>> >> Tel. +353 91 495730
>> >> http://linkeddata.deri.ie/
>> >> http://sw-app.org/about.html
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>> From: Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio at gmail.com>
>> >>> Reply-To: <paoladimaio10 at googlemail.com>
>> >>> Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:59:40 +0000
>> >>> To: euopendata <euopendata at lists.okfn.org>
>> >>> Subject: [euopendata] eurostat hackday
>> >>>
>> >>> Greetings
>> >>>
>> >>> I am putting together a summary of cost/benefits activities  for the
>> >>> EUROSTAT hackday
>> >>> including the 'environmental cost' of flying people around
>> >>>
>> >>> http://eurostat.okfn.org/
>> >>>
>> >>> I'd like to know
>> >>>
>> >>> a) what have been the outcomes/benefits
>> >>> b) how money did it cost EU taxpayers to fly around people to attend
>> >>> the
>> >>> respective sessions, in the
>> >>> case these were not participating in their local hometown/region
>> >>> c) a breakdown of which  EU projects covered for the travel costs
>> >>> d) some kind of carbon footprint for the day
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Does anyone have this information on this list? If not, I ll ask the
>> >>> EU
>> >>> Commission for the
>> >>> breakdown
>> >>>
>> >>> cheers
>> >>>
>> >>> PDM
>> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> euopendata mailing list
>> >>> euopendata at lists.okfn.org
>> >>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/euopendata
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>
>
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-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

http://twitter.com/jwyg
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