[okfn-discuss] Progress on Open Economics project

Rufus Pollock rufus.pollock at okfn.org
Wed Jan 21 19:11:08 GMT 2009


Just wanted to update people about some progress on Open Economics
over the Christmas period:

  1. Improved javascript graphing.
  2. Extend Millenium Development Goals package and added web interface.
  3. First efforts at 'Where Does My Money Go'
    * Aim: Dig up govt finance info and visualize the results (online)
    * <http://okfn.org/wiki/projects/Where_Does_My_Money_Go>

Full gory details on each of these below. Anyone interested in getting
involve, especially with the last item, let me know.

Regards,

Rufus

### 1. Updated javascript graphing package to use flot.

This also allows us to use javascript make the graphing stuff more
interactive, in particular to select chart type and the series to
plot. See e.g. the data on "Daily Wages of Thatchers in the Middle
Ages":

  <http://www.openeconomics.net/plot/chart/91adda98-802a-4980-abfa-a44007a8bb2e>

### 2. a) Improved Millenium Development Goals package/dataset and b)
added a web interface.

(a) Existing Millenium Development Goals dataset/package:

  <http://www.openeconomics.net/store/d0b2917e-bfb8-40be-8819-5867f155c1a3>
  <http://knowledgeforge.net/econ/svn/trunk/econdata/mdg/>
  <http://knowledgeforge.net/econ/svn/trunk/econdata/mdg/db.py>

Extended 'packagization' of the MDG data by creating a mini-domain
model and an associated sql version of data in addition to the
existing csv normalized-tabular version of the data. This is much more
convenient for analysis (e.g. finding all countries which have at
least one entry for any of these 3 series between 1995 and 2005 ...)
and is needed for:

b) New web interface (+ code):

  <http://www.openeconomics.net/mdg/>
  <http://knowledgeforge.net/econ/svn/trunk/econ/www/controllers/mdg.py>

Using this sql version of the data to build a quick-and-dirty web
interface so that enables one to browse and view the data quickly.

For example here's chart and data showing "Children under 5 moderately
or severely underweight, percentage" for Afghanistan, China, India,
United States:

  <http://www.openeconomics.net/mdg/view?commit=Show+Values&series=559&countries=4&countries=156&countries=356&countries=840>

### 3. First efforts at 'Where Does My Money Go'

Two parts to this project a) getting the data on government
revenue/expenditure b) displaying it nicely in a web interface.

Part (a) is encapsulated in a new ukgovfinances dataset:

  <http://knowledgeforge.net/econ/svn/trunk/econdata/ukgovfinances/>

Using this data we have made a (small) start on the web interface:

  <http://www.openeconomics.net/wdmmg/>

NB: while currently on open economics this should probably move to a
site of its own at some point ...



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