Exploring open data quality

Originally published on the Open Data Institute blog. Original URL: https://theodi.org/blog/exploring-open-data-quality There are a number of initiatives at the moment exploring the idea of data quality, with particular reference to describing, measuring and improving the quality of open data. For example, the W3C Data on the Web Best Practices Working Group are producing a vocabulary for publishing and describing … Continue reading Exploring open data quality →

Four things you should know about open data quality

Originally published on the Open Data Institute blog. Original URL: https://theodi.org/blog/four-things-you-should-know-about-open-data-quality 1. A quality dataset is a well-published dataset First impressions are everything. The efforts made to publish a dataset will guide a user’s experience in finding, accessing and using it. No matter how good the contents of your dataset, if it is not clearly documented, … Continue reading Four things you should know about open data quality →

“Open”

For the purposes of having something to point to in future, here's a list of different meanings of "open" that I've encountered. XYZ is "open" because: It's on the web It's free to use It's published under an open licence It's published under a custom licence, which limits some types of use (usually commercial, often everything except … Continue reading “Open” →

Current gaps in the open data standards framework

In this post I want to highlight what I think are some fairly large gaps in the standards we have for publishing and consuming data on the web. My purpose for writing these down is to try and fill in gaps in my own knowledge, so leave a comment if you think I'm missing something … Continue reading Current gaps in the open data standards framework →

Why are bulk downloads of open data important?

I was really pleased to see that at the GODAN Summit last week the USDA announced the launch of its Branded Food Product Database, providing nutritional information on over 80,000 food products. Product reference data is an area that has been long under-represented in the open data commons, so its great to see data of … Continue reading Why are bulk downloads of open data important? →

People like you are in this dataset

One of the recent projects we've done at Bath: Hacked is to explore a sample of the Strava Metro data covering the city of Bath. I'm not going to cover all of the project details in this post, but if you're interested then I suggest you read this introductory post and then look at some of the different … Continue reading People like you are in this dataset →

Help me use your data

I've been interviewed a couple of times recently by people interested in understanding how best to publish data to make it useful for others. Once by a startup and a couple of times by researchers. The core of the discussion has essentially been the same question: "how do you know if a dataset will be … Continue reading Help me use your data →

Building best practices for publish sector data

Originally published on the Open Data Institute blog. Original URL: https://theodi.org/blog/building-best-practices-for-sharing-public-sector-data At the ODI we’re big fans of capturing best practices and simple design patterns to help guide people towards the most effective ways to publish data. By breaking down complex technical and organisational challenges into smaller steps, we can identify common problems across sectors and … Continue reading Building best practices for publish sector data →

How to open your data in six easy steps

Originally published on the Open Data Institute blog. Original URL: https://theodi.org/blog/how-to-open-your-data-in-six-easy-steps 1. Scope out the job at hand Before taking the plunge and jumping straight into publishing, there are a few things to think through first. Take time to consider what data you’re going to release, what it contains and what the business case is for … Continue reading How to open your data in six easy steps →

Reputation data portability

Yesterday I went to the ODI lunchtime lecture on portability of reputation data. It was an interesting discussion which triggered a few thoughts which I thought I'd share here. The debate was prompted by a call for evidence from the Department formally known as BIS around consumer data and account switching: "The government would like to understand … Continue reading Reputation data portability →