[open-civil-society] Cuts data

[Javier Ruiz]

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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