[Open-data-census] making open data consumable

Thu Mar 13 00:30:07 UTC 2014

I don't follow this group closely, however I am interested in the idea of open data.

I think open data should move beyond excel/pdf/spreadsheets.  I think technology (visualization/analytics) has progressed a lot in the last few years.  To take advantage of the technology, the data should be represented in a digitally consumable form.  I think you can convert excel/pdf to json with little effort (some effort is required).  The returns on that are many fold.  

I wrote a blog post on how I converted the Singapore 2014 budget to JSON  files - http://revelutions.com/?p=461  

If you'd like to see how the data is used take a look at another blog post http://revelutions.com/?p=454  In this post I have created a visualization using the data.  Note this works better on a laptop/desktop, since I have tooltips which show the values.  

The key concept in converting to JSON is preserving the heirarchy in the data.  See this sample : http://revelutions.com/budgets/moh.json 

- Nilanjan

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Revelutions 		 	   		  
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