There are strong democratic arguments for doing this – ones that aren’t immediately obvious. There are also good ‘transparency’ arguments (but I’d make my usual point here about transparency and democracy not always pulling in the same direction).
Local Ward Atlas data - click to explore it
There are two other reasons why this is worth doing:
- It’ll be fun to do. School pupils, doing all kinds of things with data that their older neighbours wouldn’t value just for the hell of it. Anyone watching this will learn a lot and probably have a laugh while doing it
- It will be a good thought experiment for everyone involved. In my experience, most people who work in or with local authorities don’t really understand the potential to do good things here.
I’ve never seen anyone try to pull together a good index of all of the relevant and interesting data that is available within one local authority area with the aim of giving school pupils something to work with, so over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing exactly that.
In this case, I’ll be looking at what data we can find on the area covered by the London Borough of Barnet (I live there, and the council have expressed an interest in this anyway) from a variety of different sources.
I’ll be writing a short article here on each of them outlining what they have and how it could be used, and hopefully sharing a few of them on the London Data Store blog. I should add here that a lot of what follows has resulted from conversations with friends, too numerous to credit here, but I was give a good initial steer by Emer Coleman at the London Data Store who has a strong local authority background.
I’d really welcome your feedback on any of this.
So, my first question; Are there any obvious omissions from this list of sources (below) that I’m going to go to for data that we can use with school pupils at a data-hack event?
- The council themselves – for demographics, expenditure, service provision and take-up, revenue and other relevant data. There is currently a Maps Facts & Figures page on their site, but I think that there could be more ‘machine readable’ data that we could get from them with a bit of help
- The data behind the police crime-mapping services
- The London Data store - loads of information from a wide variety of different subject areas
- The local Primary Care Trust /NHS
- The local voluntary service council
There’s one further area that has been suggested to me. School pupils are likely to be very interested in Children’s issues anyway, and every local authority commissions some research that doesn’t fit into national frameworks. So I’m going to be having a conversation buy cialis with the Children’s Services office if I get the chance. In addition, any information I can get on schools will be particularly useful for the same reasons.
If my own children are anything to go by, I suspect that they will want to move quickly beyond the data that we provide them with and start creating their own information. There’s a huge wealth of information that children could provide about their local area – data that could be crowd-sourced with a bit of creative thinking.
We will need to ask them – or even encourage them to do the asking. This is, of course, the holy grail of democratic data-use – participation and co-design. But for now, I’d like to explore the limits of the data that adults have provided. At the moment, many adults don’t really understand that a huge variety of data-types + analysis can be very valuable.
We can walk now. Running comes later.
This looks like a fine alternative to citizenship education – perhaps it could be combined with teaching kids to code rather than teaching them how to use word. Both give young people the power to shape their world rather than be a passive recipient of how adults have shaped it.
I think this is a great citizenship project. I have long argued that citizenship is not just the knowledge of how society works but increasingly in a more digital society, the skills needed to pull information together from sources and use that information to create change in society. I wonder whether it would be useful to give the students education data as well (after all they are in school and this would be a great opportunity for them to look at data in terms of league terms and draw interesting links to other data).
Paul,
An excellent initiative… and one we would be happy to support you on with free data on transport, crime and education where we have API’s to offer.
I’d add house price data on http://www.nethouseprices.com/ and http://www.openstreetmap.org/ to your list.
Jonathan
hi Paul
off the top of my head -i’d suggest maybe data.gov has more than london data store…as may be that kids want to compare areas (not just london). i can see that as being likely area of itnerest in young minds…how does our area look compared with other parts of the coutnry.
also a lot of data collected by charity commission you may want to include and also wonder about adding some mapping/data collection of your own as part of the process – bridging online/offline as this will emphasis the nature of data – ie not just something on a computer. could be good to do community mapping exercise – happy to help with this if useful.
does that help?
cheers
toby
Great idea, Paul (and I strongly agree that transparency and accountability and democracy are not analogous, and further, one does not automatically flow from the other).
You’ll find http://www.data4nr.net (NR = neighbourhoods and regeneration) an excellent source for signposting to the datasets available for understanding what’s going on from national to local to neighbourhood level. Created by OCSI (www.ocsi.co.uk) for CLG it will give your students access to the data itself across a broad range of subjects.
OCSI are just finishing a ‘How To’ video for our DataBridge project which looks at the use of data within the voluntary sector here in Brighton. I’ll be posting it on http://www.databridge.org.uk as soon as they’re done.
Good luck!
Jo
I agree with the above commenters. This is an excellent idea. Children might eventually be interested in pushing the envelope in unexpected directions, however – as you point out. Would you be looking to channel these directions in an institutionally self-serving way (the institutional interests of the school in question, for example) or in the real interests of the children themselves?
I’m wondering about publicly available data (virtual communities, public stuff on Facebook etc – Google is now apparently integrating the latter into its searches) in relation to teacher behaviours and performance, for example. My own child is getting a bit of grief at her school at the moment which could be resolved through better communication and transparency from the school itself – it doesn’t seem to be getting resolved because it’s a very big school and internal communication is rather poor. How could such initiatives as you suggest help instead of hinder in such circumstances?
And would schools in general be ready for the implications? If not, how could we prepare them to be so?
Great stuff Paul. I’m starting to work with some folk here: teachers in our Digital Education Brighton Group, open data Brighton & Hove and OCSI a local research company. I am Head of Performance in Children’s Services. Here’s may starter for 10 on data sources, and happy to help further. Our first project will be a hack day as part of the open data cities conference in April next year where we will give groups (made up of pupils and mentor developers) some packs of data to generate ideas from and build interesting things.
Lots of small area data
http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/
http://www.data4nr.net/introduction/
Area Health Profiles
http://www.apho.org.uk/default.aspx?RID=49802
Hospital Statistics
http://www.hesonline.nhs.uk/Ease/servlet/ContentServer?siteID=1937&categoryID=245
Obesity (including childhood)
http://www.noo.org.uk/visualisation
Education Data
See my “open data guide” here http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=b1160744#subtitle5
Hey Paul,
This sounds like a great project.
I would also think that some national datasets from Data4NR and Data.gov.uk would be of interest – both to zoom in on the local area within them, and to look at comparisons.
There’s a draft section in the Open Data Cook Book on sourcing data that might be helpful too: http://opendatacookbook.net/wiki/recipe/sourcing_ingredients
Tim
Thanks everyone – that’s a great set of signposts! (Who said crowdsourced research doesn’t work, eh?)
Tim – it you have any plans to use some of the links in this thread to add to your cookbook, please don’t let me stop you!
I’m going to be doing some follow-up posts here on specific areas (crime, transport etc) and I’ll be gratefully plundering a few of these links for that. I’m also planning a few interviews with specialists – the local PCT are interested in all of this.
Really good idea. Think is a really good idea, we’ve done something similar with schools & colleges to design ways that tech can help people in their neighbourhoods http://bit.ly/tHTogO but we couldn’t find a “way in” to include open data in the conversation.
(Instead we’re organising a hackday http://bit.ly/vjJ2tU where developers & designers will use open data to develop schookids ideas)
If you want to show Barnet these data sources, might help them see if they’ve got equivalent data.
http://www.openkent.org.uk/index.php?cID=85&svalue=education
Perhaps data on young people which isn’t just about schools but wider issues may be helpful too (% getting pregnant, drunk, bullied see http://www.openkent.org.uk/index.php?cID=85&svalue=health) perhaps to provide context behind the data, but also what issues matter to them that they want their school to collect (or collect themselves!). This is what we found in our behaviour change programme getting young people to analyse issues in their social networks, but from this we found that as well as involving young people you need to involve people they trust the most & those that have a responsibility over the issue the data is focused on (teachers, community youth tutors, etc).
Paul
I think this looks really interesting and useful. I’m sure I saw something about coding and schools whizz passed me on Twitter about a month or more ago. If I have time, or remember who it was, then I’ll connect you.
I think your key challenge is how to get children into this. As is always the way with these things, I think you’ll spark their interests most effectively if you start from their questions. Picking up on some of the twitter chat and comments above, I’m not sure that most children will be interested at the offing in comparing their area to others, that might come very quickly, but I’d start them on a data set that relates to their area and only introduce comparisons when they show interest or can be led their naturally. As to what might interest them, I have no idea. The best would be to be armed with as much data as possible and get the questions from them, and then introduce the right data set. Suspect that is fraught with difficulties. Any other way you can find out what their interests are?
Blimey!
Looking at this I reckon you have plenty to go on. In fact, I am going to use some of this as a reference for the work we are doing in Birmingham around potential open datasets.
It’s a few years old now, but Digital Birmingham and Podnosh put together some resources as part of the CLG’s Timely Information for Citizens programme a few years back. Take a look at
http://bevocal.org.uk/public-data/
and
http://bevocal.org.uk/brum-data/
for some lists of data sources.
Hope this helps
Paul,
This looks really interesting. A couple of thoughts from me that draw on my time working at Camden Council…
It would be good to see survey / resident satisfaction data included here. Barnet are bound to have stacks of the stuff…BVPI, Place Survey, Annual Residents survey etc etc. I used to get really frustrated with the very dry and sterile way this was typically presented so it would be interesting to see what else could be done with it.
Alongside this if you can get your hands on language data…particularly languages spoken in schools…would be worth looking at. Given the lag with Census data we would often use this to estimate the ethnic profile of the borough…so pretty relevant stuff from a local authority pov.
The Audit Commission (if the site is still running will have loads), and dare I say it, Census data?
Oh and be warned, spend data is hugely frustrating because the way it’s not recorded in the most user friendly of formats!
Bets of luck!
Ed
I’d love to see the results of what gets collated and used here – young people are often very firm and vocal in what they’re passionate about, which can translate really well into particular Things Found Interesting.
It’s great to see Data4nr being pointed at – I was going to suggest this too. More specifically though, I’d guess that any data around environment and sustainability would be welcomed – pollution levels, recycling rates, etc.
Look forward to seeing how it goes!
Once you;ve got the data, it’s time for data visualisation as art…There’s an intriguing note about the work of Nadia Amoroso (http://www.nadiaamoroso.com/) on Pop Up City http://popupcity.net/?p=16244.
[...] again for all of the feedback on those open data posts [...]
Paul, your initiative is great, and would be very useful even beyond the schools/pupils objective, but I have rather a lot to say about data!
Employed as GIS officer in Barnet Council, I worked with schools a few years ago on a project called Career4U “Information and IT” running a series of workshops using our corporate GIS to explain how data can be shared, used, displayed, queried, the role of GIS…..
As you said it was interesting and fun to work with pupils, they are so good at using technology, the danger is, do they understand what is behind the technology?
We still focus on what comes out (the result) instead of what goes in: is the data suitable for the analysis? how old is it? at what level and at what accuracy was it captured? How was it captured?
When you say “you’ve never seen anyone try to pull together a good index of all of the relevant and interesting data that is available within one local authority area, so over the next few weeks, you will be doing exactly that.” you make it sound so easy! If it hasn’t been done it is probably because it’s rather difficult to actually gather meaningful, updated, standardized data that you can “use” and analyze (in terms of format, quality, sources, data protection….) and use with confidence.
Analyzing data, gathering data, publishing data, sharing data, mapping data, supporting decision making, supporting customer services and residents are all part of our objectives in a local authority and from all service areas. Getting hold of “usable”, good quality, standardized data, Introducing standards, putting update processes in place, placing the priority on data quality rather than systems is our constant battle, and has been for years.
The above is what our “insight team” is trying to do and not without any difficulties. Here are a few of the issues we come across.
• Datasets are not standardized i.e., postcode, addresses do not follow the national standard which makes cross-referencing, comparing, mapping and analysis extremely difficult. Matching exercises are always required followed by the errors being manually fixed, which is extremely time consuming and unsustainable on a regular basis…
• Geo-referencing datasets are no way near being common practice across services even with datasets such as waste collections, gritting bins, gritting routes, skip locations, graffiti, abandoned vehicles, fly tipping… to name just a few, datasets are still, and many may not believe it, manually drawn or pined on a paper map or the item is textually described. For example: graffiti “on the bus stop opposite number X high street”, which makes it very difficult/impossible to share, map and or analyze.
• It is difficult sometimes just to get hold of datasets and there is rarely any metadata accompanying so you don’t know the quality of the data, the accuracy, the sources, the update, the owner, the format ( and the format changes from one version to the next) ….
• There is rarely any update process in place so the data you manage to get hold of gets very quickly out of date because there is no processes to keep it updated and if there is no automated processes in place (this involve IS/IT, integrated systems….) there is no way you can keep up with all the datasets in a sustainable way..
• Mapping and GIS are one of the most powerful tool to analyze, display, query data but it requires either a spatial element (coordinates, polygons, lines) or data standards (such the LLPG/NLPG having coordinates), but each system implement their standard rather than a national standard….
So all in all, getting hold of data is the first challenge, passing that hurdle, you need to ensure quality data and obtain regular updates finally, users need to be wary of the source and quality of the data, how was it captured? at what level? When? by whom? for what purpose? As well as making data available it is important to educate users especially pupils on how to collect data or how data was collected to ensure good and meaningful usage. Educating “seniors: 25+” proves very difficult especially with new technologies, youngsters need to have this “data knowledge” if we want to move forward and improve the data issue on all fronts in the future.
It’s not just a matter of here is a dataset, press the button, there is the result, or there is a map. the problem is: So many datasets are just SO not fit for purpose!
Good luck for a great initiative.
[...] Paul has a great and liberating idea here: A while ago, I posted here giving reasons why I thought it would be a good idea to start involving school pupils in the processing of public data. [...]