[@OKFNau] BudgetAus data finally put to use!

Mon Jan 27 10:59:18 UTC 2014

It might seem like the biggest challenge is in interpretation but I'm not sure you are aware of how difficult and time consuming it is to design and develop a system and get the data in in the first place to allow any interpretation and visualisation to take place. 
I occasionally have offers from people to crowdsource manual input of data but I doubt these people realise that a single portfolio (there are 20 or so) can take 3 hours. Some are shorter as they vary in number of programs. Such an effort is not something that can be undertaken without a great deal of planning and preparation and given that potential users of the site expect all this data to be input, debugged and perfectly correct within a short time on budget night perhaps this sheds some light on what a massive pressure such a project is. 

I think the pressure this project placed on myself and my son last year is one of the reasons I can get frustrated about whether people respond and engage with it or not. I get a lot of engagement with my other projects which are much easier to create & deliver.
It is interesting you bring up the question of accuracy of budget data because that is one of the first things I recognised once I created BudgetAus was how very rubbery all the figures are. When I have presented the project face to face it was one of the points I tried to get across.
Another issue is that not everyone wants to know the truth even when faced with what the budget figures show. So even after all the technical goals are met and the data is in then I am faced with questions of interpretation and the politics of what the data represents to people.
I have to say that BudgetAus is in a league of its own in terms of difficulty as compared with my other projects.

Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)Founder & Developer InfoAus.net   ABN 90 345 143 783                       Home | Blog  | Twitter | BudgetAus FB | eXpenseAusFB | BudgetAus | eXpenseAus | KnowYourPlace | InfoAus Shop                                          

From: m.lai.s4074433 at gmail.com
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 18:08:14 +1000
To: okfn-au at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [@OKFNau] BudgetAus data finally put to use!

I have worked on budget data visualization projects previously as well, and one of the biggest challenge is not in how the data is represented, but how to interpret the budget information, especially during changes of government or policy changes. Most data visualizations do this on a more superficial level that shows the distributions of the dollars, but I think it is more important to see the impact and effect of how these changes affect the people. 

Anyway, I think any effort towards making information more transparent and useful for people is a step in the right direction, and hopefully more people are contributing to this type of work. I guess another important question also is just how accurate and reliable the data we get really is?

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 10:18 AM, Rosie Williams <budgetaus at hotmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Silvana, 
I missed this thread on budget data when it was originally posted to data.gov.au https://datagovau.ideascale.com/a/dtd/BudgetAus/19785-26233 but am very happy to see some public support for BudgetAus.

Hopefully the thread can be used to improve understanding between government and people such as myself who use government data (not to mention users).
I've had an offer to help enter budget data on budget night but I still need to know precisely what is going to be published otherwise it makes it very difficult to say anything concrete about what can be accomplished on the night and unfortunately people tend to judge the project by what is available on May 14 despite that to my mind this is a very small aspect of the value of the project.

Budget data is very complex and trying to get it all in and correct on one night when it is broken down to program component level and appropriation type and including all forward funding years, equity injections and other odds and ends is a complex job. 

It has been my observation that a lot of people don't understand the difference between a project like theopenbudget.org and a project like BudgetAus in terms of the scale & complexity of the work and therefore why the needs of my project ought to be given any credibility when certain aspects of the data can be reproduced within a short time-frame by another project. Not that I'm trying to take anything away from The Open Budget team, just correcting any latent perceptions that one project can substitute for the other.

I think this lack of insight has hampered support for what I have done but there are people coming forward now who do appreciate the differences, one of whom I have worked with quite extensively to better understand the complexities of accounting within the budget.

Getting some momentum behind a project like BudgetAus as I now feel is happening is important because without it, the needs and benefits of such a project are very easily ignored and that is a loss to society. 

Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)Founder & Developer InfoAus.net   ABN 90 345 143 783                       Home | Blog  | Twitter | BudgetAus FB | eXpenseAusFB | BudgetAus | eXpenseAus | KnowYourPlace | InfoAus Shop

> From: silfumega at gmail.com
> Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 22:03:04 +1100
> To: okfn-au at lists.okfn.org

> CC: data-driven-journalism at lists.okfn.org
> Subject: Re: [@OKFNau] BudgetAus data finally put to use!
> 
> Hi Rosie,
> just checked the article. Great piece!

> This article is a clear example of some of the many things that can be
> done with open data.
> 
> Keep up the great work!
> Silvana
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Silvana Fumega <silfumega at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Sounds great! I'll check it later
> >
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > On 22 Jan 2014, at 5:56 pm, Rosie Williams <budgetaus at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > AusOpinion author Paul Davis @davispg published this article today using
> > graphics he created based on data from BudgetAus (my online searchable
> > database containing the federal budget).

> >
> > I'm really pleased to see the data put to use in addressing news issues as
> > they arise. Paul's article deals with the welfare reforms that were
> > announced in yesterday's media so that is a very fast response indeed!

> >
> > Please find Paul's article at
> > http://ausopinion.com/2014/01/22/is-it-really-a-review/
> >

> > Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)
> > Founder & Developer InfoAus.net
> >    ABN 90 345 143 783
> >                        Home | Blog  | Twitter | BudgetAus FB | eXpenseAusFB
> > | BudgetAus | eXpenseAus | KnowYourPlace | InfoAus Shop

> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Silvana Fumega
> PhD Candidate

> University of Tasmania
> Tel:  +61  448486500
> @SilvanavF
> 
> Private Bag 89
> Hobart - TAS 7001
> Australia

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