[open-civil-society] Cuts data

Fri Aug 12 13:36:21 UTC 2011

Good work. Tim, is it possible in the permissions to allow people to draw
graphs without mucking up with the data?

Regarding the scrutiny, maybe it could be posited as a challenge with a
specific question to direct inquiry in a place like False Economy or other
cuts related high traffic platform?

On 12 August 2011 14:22, David Kane <David.Kane at ncvo-vol.org.uk> wrote:

>
> Thanks Tim - good idea.
>
> I've set up a google spreadsheet here:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhPQWam6YvCcdE5VeDdpdjEtRGN
> URzRJcHI0a0t6MEE&hl=en_GB#gid=1
>
> I haven't set up your other ideas for making the data a bit more useful
> - but they are good ones. I suppose the perfect situation would be one
> sheet per table.
>
> There has been disappointingly little scrutiny of the actual numbers
> unfortunately. If there's one more thing I'd like open data to help
> encourage it's a more sceptical attitude to data that's presented. Even
> when it's my data being scrutinised!
>
> Thanks
> David
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: open-civil-society-bounces at lists.okfn.org
> [mailto:open-civil-society-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Tim
> Davies
> Sent: 08 August 2011 18:52
> To: List for Open Civil Society
> Subject: Re: [open-civil-society] Cuts data
>
>
> Hey David
>
> Great work on the report - and good leading by example with the data.
>
> The Five Stars of Linked Data is a good cumulative framework for
> thinking about different steps of publishing open data:
>
> http://inkdroid.org/journal/2010/06/04/the-5-stars-of-open-linked-data/
>
> Often a fairly quick shortcut to allow you to publish both structured
> spreadsheets, with data on multiple tabs in context, and to make that
> data available for those who want it as CSV, is to share it through
> Google Docs, as with the permissions set right, a carefully crafted URL
> can give a user the choice of viewing it in spreadsheet format online,
> downloading each sheet as a CSV, or even querying the data directly over
> the web.
>
> From looking at your data, that's not so important as providing links
> back to the original raw data sources you've used, which is what you're
> doing in the spreadsheet. You might event want to think about including
> a list of all the datasets you used just as a separate section on the
> page - so that your 'Data Appendix' shows the context you've used the
> data in, and links to 'raw data sources' helps people head off to
> explore that data in context.
>
> It will be interesting to see if any coverage/use of the report picks up
> on the data appendix - and who the users are - as I suspect it won't
> just be data-geeks who are interested in the content (lots of people
> after the raw numbers and facts, as well as ways of mashing-up and
> visualising the data...)
>
> All the best
>
> Tim
>
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 6:14 PM, David Kane <David.Kane at ncvo-vol.org.uk>
> wrote:
>
>
>                Hi - you'll probably have seen the cuts research we
> released today.
>
>        At the risk of being a self-publicist we've also released a
> "data appendix" spreadsheet that contains all the source data we used in
> creating the report. You can find a link to the spreadsheet here:
> http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/cuts-report#dataappendix
>
>        I guess a wider point is that I often find we're releasing this
> kind of analysed data regularly, and apart from just putting up excel
> spreadsheets (though probably should be using open spreadsheet files!)
> I'm never sure of the best way of making them "open".
>
>        I think it's different to "raw" data, like the charity
> commission register for example, because a CSV file can't show you the
> sructure of the data correctly, with lots of small linked tables. So I'm
> never sure if there's a better alternative to producing a big excel
> file.
>
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>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
>
> http://www.timdavies.org.uk
> 07834 856 303.
> @timdavies
>
> Co-director of Practical Participation:
> http://www.practicalparticipation.co.uk
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> Practical Participation Ltd is a registered company in England and Wales
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