[Yourtopia] Minutes from the Open Economics monthly call: October 3

Wed Oct 3 19:12:43 BST 2012

Dear all,

I would like to share some minutes from the Open Economics monthly call.
The Etherpad link for this online meeting was:

http://econ.okfnpad.org/monthly-meeting-03-10-2012

   - *When did it happen? *Oct. 3, 2012 at 5pm London / 6pm Berlin / 12pm
   Washington D.C. / 9am San Francisco
   - *Where did it happen?* online: on skype
   - *Who participated:* Velichka, David, John, Guo, Dirk, Anders

*Agenda summary*

   - We started with a short introduction round
   - We shared some experiences from the Open Knowledge Festival
   (documentation blog post in
preparation<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ECAHq2zAdbsr76sqcxeFr4iPN2Afl_SaNwC-HTYxlsk/edit#heading=h.i5cfzqi9xd2l>
   )
   - We discussed the suggestion for having an online resource for
   openly-licensed data. We can start putting more datasets on the
Datahub<http://thedatahub.org/group/economics>,
   yet we should be aiming to get institutions and researchers to release
   their datasets: put them on the DataHub, etc., because just find more
   already existing online resources. We noticed some spam on the Datahub that
   we should email the support team about.
   - It was decided to hold a data party on failed European banks on *October,
   Wednesday 25th* at *5:30pm London / 6:30pm* Berlin. Anders shared his
   dataset on failed European
banks<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkitojFFyvjCdHR4eGdkaTVwcnBmWi0ycGprWnpGa3c#gid=0>
and
   showed us an example from the
US<http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html>.
   A blog post and announcement about this will follow.
   - We would organise other data parties themed around economic history
   and other relevant topics in the future.
   - Ideas were shared on how to enhance the OpenEconomics blog: get some
   higher quality content. There is a general blog post about the Working
   Group and the issues it addresses in preparation. We could also invite
   contributions e.g. Arturo Muente-Kunigami, but we need to make clear what
   the added value is.
   - It was noted that the Open Economics website does not provide a lot of
   information on how to get involved in an inviting way. It might not be
   clear what is the purpose, e.g. mission statement, it doesn't invite people
   to join, it is not clear how to join and how to participate.. A way to
   improve this could be to also write an extended and welcoming e-mail and
   tell about ways how to participate.
   - There is a need to address mainstream economics and not to be trapped
   in certain themes: e.g. we have been focusing on the environmental agenda
   too much, but we need to address
   - It was noted that some of the subindicators of Yourtopia and we should
   address this before we decide to implement other versions of Yourtopia. It
   would be realistic to compile data from Eurostat and do Yourtopia Europe.
   Follow issues on the Github <https://github.com/okfn/yourtopia/>
and the Yourtopia
   mailing list <http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/yourtopia> for more
   details. We have to follow up with several people who expressed interest.
   - We could do an Open Knowledge Index with data for 2012 and see whether
   the ranking has changed. We could organise an online session, possibly in
   November.
   - It was suggested to organise an academic hackday motivated by the fact
   that researchers and economists often feel they are not involved then they
   are not doing any coding during a hackathon or hackday. Having the
   opportunity for PhD researchers to attend and share experience, datasets
   could be useful in finding co-authors and doing a project together. The
   group decided on the name "Academic Hackday" and the first one would take
   place in London in the end of November / beginning of December, possibly on
   a Friday. The theme should not be too specific, but also not too broad
   either. It could be labour economics for a start.

If you have any questions or additions, let us know!

Velichka Dimitrova

Coordinator of the Open Economics Working Group

Open Knowledge Foundation
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