Tag Archive for Data

CommsCamp13: Communications unleashed, gender issues and open data

March 3, 2013 No comments

Can communications professionals help reinvent what it means to be an elected representative? If that question strikes you as Sir Humphrey calling the shots in a Yes Minister style scenario, the discussion captured here on video about the role of the 21st century head of communication will be an eye-opener.

“Coach, mentor, leader, trainer, storyteller, data intelligence, listener, enabler, wheeler-dealer, an educator ” the list of roles which the group felt now makes up the modern day ‘comms’ job is daunting, with the rise of digital forms of communication adding ever increasing layers if complexity to the job in hand. Read more

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Focus on UK’s open data experiences from Brazil

November 29, 2012 No comments


A delegation from the Brazilian government is in Britain at the moment finding about more about UK’s experiences with open data and the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act.

They are visiting a wide range of people in the UK and went to Manchester to see how the legislative structures we have in place are actually used on the ground and what can be learned about how to frame similar laws and initiatives back in Brazil Read more

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Getting to grips with data – training opportunity and discount for DJCamp 2012

September 10, 2012 No comments

It used to be that you would get stories by chatting to people in bars, and it still might be that you’ll do it that way some times.

“But now it’s also going to be about poring over data and equipping yourself with the tools to analyse it and picking out what’s interesting. And keeping it in perspective, helping people out by really seeing where it all fits together, and what’s going on in the country.

Tim Berners-Lee, 2010.

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Image: Ivan Walsh

He may have said those words back in 2010 but now, two years, on it’s clear to the rest of us that the skills needed to understand data are becoming a necessity for everyday life as much as for journalism.

Journalists who are learning  new ways to gather, interegate and present data are calling this ‘data journalism’ but actually the skills and tools are relevant to any engaged citizen – you could say it’s as much about data literacy as it is journalism.

Learning how to interact with large spreadsheets, how to spot trends in data and how to present statistical information in appealing ways is already a necessity for hyperlocal publishers and campaigners and likely to become more so as the government moves along with open data initiatives.

Some of it can sound daunting at first mention but there are some simple starting points and quite a bit of training currently on offer.

Through our links with the UclanMADE project,  we’re pleased to be able to offer followers of this blog a 30% discount on one high quality training course taking place later this month.

Led by Paul Bradshaw, who many will know from Help Me Investigate and the Online Journalism Blog, the weekend course will cover the key stages, from spotting leads for data stories, to finding the data in the first place, interrogating it, and visualising it.

Organisers say: “Over two days, aside from gaining practical advice, participants will have the chance to apply their learning through hands-on exercises with the help of internationally-recognised digital journalism leaders and trainers provided by the Digital Editors Network and the MADE project. ”

To sign up, visit this link https://djcamp2012.eventbrite.com/?nomo=1 add the promotional code TALdata in order to receive the discount.

* For those with coding experience, there is also a  Scraping Master class four-hour workshop with ScraperWiki founder Julian Todd, 9:30-13:30 on Saturday, September 22 . It will cover a range of topics from creating data extraction programmes to analysing existing datasets.

 

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Thanks for the open data promise (but don’t forget our freedom of information)

March 13, 2012 2 comments
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Twitter data visualisation from Psychemedia

Welcome news for those involved in open data campaigning this morning – the government is looking into new ways of releasing information and has appointed wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales to help.

The Telegraph says that Wales is one of a number of “unpaid advisors” who would help the public sector “deliver new ways that we can (harness) the internet and technology”.

This morning’s interview package on Radio 4’s today programme (listen again at about 07.55) explores some of the issues around that and features the work of Openly Local’s Chris Taggert (@countculture) and The Guardian’s Simon Rogers (@smfrogers) alongside some library footage of David Cameron talking about people’s freedom of information.

Two aspects of the conversation particularly strike a chord. Firstly, those of us interested in open data would find arguing against ‘more openness’ like arguing against motherhood and apple pie but Evan Davies makes the valid point about the public’s ease of access and a need for greater understanding of the information that is released.

More is welcome, but more with context would be even better.

The decisions around how the data is presented and, vitally, what data is released by public bodies still happens through processes that often aren’t themselves transparent.

Which brings another important side of this argument – at a time when the government is scrutinising the workings of the Freedom of Information Act, it’s important that open data with its celebrity backer isn’t seen as the magic bullet to stop all those pesky FoI requests.

After all, just through the WhatDoTheyKnow site alone, 108,864 people have already requested the information that they want and need for whatever reason.

And that’s the point – it’s information that they want. People making those requests probably don’t often equate their enquiries with ‘opening data’ – some of the issue here is in the language, some of it in the presentation but no-one should doubt the demand.

Improving on what we’ve already got needs to keep that element of right to request information while at the same time increasing transparency in the process of information release and selection. Any new system needs to ensure what goes forward is a bottom-up, demand-led service.

Having wikipedia’s expertise at the heart of this would seem a good starting point.

* Photo under CC from Psychemedia on Flickr.

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Help HMI Health add much-needed context to GP patient list data

March 1, 2012 No comments

Help Me Investigate Health are currently following developments related to GP patient lists, what Pulse describes as ‘brutal new GP list cleansing targets’ and proposals to abolish GP boundaries.

HMI Health have obtained some data on patient lists for the years 2008-2011 which provides a good starting point for their investigating issues around patient lists. However, there’s something missing:

The data needs treating with caution, because there is a lot of context to be added.

How well maintained the list is is just one factor (as illustrated by the statistics in Pulse’s report), and the health of the local population (which is influenced by various demographics) are just two aspects which can make a big difference.

So you’ll need some local knowledge and some old-fashioned shoe leather to, for example, stand outside surgeries asking patients about their experiences of trying to get appointments.

HMI Health are hoping hyperlocals can help with adding some much-needed context to flesh out the data and create local stories. Paul Bradshaw says:

The obvious story is X surgery has 5 times more patients per GP than Y surgery, but with local knowledge it’s possible to go beyond the bare stats to find out whether patients do indeed experience more trouble getting an appointment at some surgeries than others.

There are other variables as well of course, such as how up to date the list is and the health of the local population, which is influenced by various demographics - you may already have an idea of this and the surgeries might be able give a quote on it too.

For those interested interrogating the data, there is also GP surgery-level data on demographics and other contextual information on the NHS IC Indicators site as an additional resource. Carl Plant has also added Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF) data, which provides extra context on the prevalence of particular conditions in each surgery’s population, as well as other data such as age distribution. You can find the combined Google spreadsheet here, or the same data in Fusion Tables here.

If you have any questions or need help with interrogating the data for leads, get in touch with Help Me Investigate Health.

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