Category Archives: Events

Geothink at the International Open Data Conference 2015 – Day 1

By Suthee Sangiambut

The 2015 International Open Data Conference (IODC) opened today, May 29, at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa. Below, we detail the conclusions from several panel discussions on open cities.

In fact, open cities were the featured topics in two of the day’s panel sessions. While a number of case studies were given, panelists emphasized that few cities (less than 1%) globally have adopted any type of open city initiative.

However, the case studies demonstrated the potential for sensing and data analysis to be used to improve resource allocation and targeting in a city’s public services. A good example given was by Stephane Contre, the chief analytics officer for the City of Edmonton. In particular, he mentioned how hotspot mapping using a kernel density function was done on light bulb point data and on crime point data. This results in new layers representing point data with continuous surfaces. Such a representation allows officials to layer the light bulb, other hotspot data, and various crime data sets, identify correlations, and identify areas in need of additional resources or patrolling.

Not only was there a focus on the data side of open cities, there was also an emphasis on the need for citizen engagement. Without citizen engagement in an open city initiative, city residents simply become receivers of public services. Feedback loops that allow citizen input are needed to make sure city officials can adequately gauge and react to the demands of citizens.

Furthermore, big barriers to releasing open data still remain, especially in the organizational culture within government and due to the lack of political support. Additionally, civil servants require better computer and data literacy to bring about a ‘data first’ mindset where civil servants keep in mind the idea of openness as well as the possible analysis they could perform on a given data set.

Closing remarks were made by Sir Nigel Shadbolt of the Open Data Institute (ODI) and Tony Clement, president of the Treasury Board of Canada, who both expressed great optimism for the future of open data. According to Shadbolt, the next step for open data is in empowering individuals with their own data. He believes a mashing of open government data with personal data and even mobiles and wearable personal sensors will allow us to create even richer data driven experiences that improve quality of life.

Follow #IODC15 for rapid updates by attendees on conference activities.

If you have thoughts or questions about this article, get in touch with Suthee Sangiambut, Geothink’s Newsletter Editor, at suthee.sangiambut@mail.mcgill.ca.

Geothink at the Canadian Open Data Summit 2015

By Suthee Sangiambut

The Canadian Open Data Summit 2015 wrapped up yesterday at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa with the City of Edmonton receiving this year’s Canadian Open Data Award—a nod to the advancement of their open data and open government initiatives. The event was hosted by Open North, and a number of Geothink’s team, partners, and students were present.

To start the day, Tim Davies gave an overview of trends and attitudes in the global open data community. He raised the question of whether open data is just another community or economic input, or whether it is becoming another way of performing coproduction between citizen and government. A summary of his opening talk is here.

A number of other panels and workshops also produced interesting points to take home. With the understanding that we have, in large part, moved beyond the simple problem of getting government data out to the public, these sessions focused on the problems of standards, consistency, engagement, and impact.

Two issues tackled at the summit, in particular, included the problem of bridging out beyond hackathons and closing gaps in institutional culture. The sentiment of many participants was that additional or improved methods are needed to maintain and deepen citizen engagement with open data over the medium and long term. Hackathons are great for initial engagement, but are perhaps not able to sustain interest in open data for long.

Additionally, hackathons have limited reach in terms of audience. Efforts in engagement need to move beyond the open data and hackathon communities to reach those not yet exposed to the data or technologies. Institutional culture refers to attitudes and approaches to open data management in bureaucracy. While openness in data is becoming the norm in some places, legislation is not enough and requires adoption and understanding of concepts of open government by civil servants themselves.

A detailed overview of the events will be available in the next Geothink Newsletter. For rapid updates on the week’s events in Ottawa, follow #IODC2015 on Twitter.

If you have thoughts or questions about this article, get in touch with Suthee Sangiambut at suthee.sangiambut@mail.mcgill.ca.

Geothink Program Guide for the Associaton of American Geographers (AAG) 2015 Annual Meeting

This year's American Association of Geographer's (AAG) Annual Meeting is in Chicago, Illinois.

This year’s American Association of Geographer’s (AAG) Annual Meeting is in Chicago, Illinois (Photo courtesy of AAG.org).

By Drew Bush

A long line-up of Geothinkers will be presenting at this year’s Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting in Chicago next week. You’ll definitely not want to miss four of our team members as panelists on Civic technology: governance, equity and inclusion considerations on Thursday at 8:00 AM. Other highlights include presentations by Geothink Principal Investigator Renee Sieber and our students including Cheryl Power and Tenille Brown.

Below we’ve compiled the schedule for all of the project’s team members, collaborators and students who will be presenters, panelists and chairs during the conference. Find a PDF of our guide here. We hope you find this useful for finding the right sessions to join. You can also find the full preliminary AAG program here.

If you’re not able to make the conference, you can follow along on Twitter and use our list of Twitter handles below to join the conversation with our participants.

Join the Conversation on Twitter
Alex Aylett: @openalex_                                    Peter Johnson: @peterajohnson
Zorica Nedovic-Budic: @TurasCities               Andrea Minano: @Andrea_Minano
Tenille Brown: @TenilleEBrown                       Claus Rinner: @ClausRinner
Jonathan Corbett: @joncorbett                       Pamela Robinson: @pjrplan
Sarah Elwood: @SarahElwood1                       Teresa Scassa: @teresascassa
Victoria Fast: @VVFast                                       Renee Sieber: @RE_Sieber
Muki Haklay: @mhaklay                                    Harrison Smith: @Ambiveillance

And remember to use the conference hashtag #AAG2015 and our hashtag #Geothink or address @geothinkca when you Tweet.

Come to our Sessions at AAG 2015

Tuesday, April 21

Wednesday, April 22

Thursday, April 23

Friday, April 24

Saturday, April 25

If you have thoughts or questions about this article, get in touch with Drew Bush, Geothink’s digital journalist, at drew.bush@mail.mcgill.ca.

Torts of the Geoweb: (or the liability question) Part I

Screenshot

Mapping Ottawa’s open data on tobogganing hills (Photo courtesy of ottawastart.com)

By Tenille Brown, PhD student in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa

Recently, on March 3rd as part of the continuing Geothink Project, I hosted a Twitter chat about tort liability with Mapping Mashups. This online forum was joined by Geothink partners and friends and the primary topic discussed was the role of tort law and how and where it fits in the context of the Geoweb, liability and moral responsibility. One active participant of this Twitter discussion was British academic Muki Haklay, a collaborator on the Geothink project more broadly, and Haklay later wrote up some highlights from this discussion, available here. I have been considering the role of tort liability in multiple contexts for some time now, both prior to the online discussion and subsequent to it. I have not been thinking of this idea so much in a typical “finding a problem” lawyerly way, but more in a “trying to understand the allocation of responsibility” kind of way. From the legal perspective, questions about how we should handle the mountains of data collected and produced by governments and citizens alike, jumps out at me. For these reasons I chose to place the focus of the Twitter chat on tort liability rather than the challenges of protecting the privacy of personal information, or copyright issues in geospatial information, which have been discussed elsewhere.

With the increase in platforms and data sources (both government and volunteered) on the geoweb, there is also an increase in opportunities for legal liability to attach to this information. With Canadian cities releasing data sets of all types of information, from proposed roadways to beach water sampling data, the liability question is not hypothetical, but of increasing importance. Of course, cities are carrying out their due-diligence by ensuring personal information does not get released, following the principles of the open government license. But still, some questions remain to be answered such as, what legal tools are in place to deal with third parties who take government information and use that information in a way that causes harm?

One example that immediately comes to mind is the use of open data to create apps for the reporting of pot-holes through cities 311 app, as happens in Toronto. A more apt example for Ottawa is the recently released information about hills open to tobogganing throughout the city, which was collated in a map here. Does liability attach to this information? If so, would information which highlights any hazards on the hill amount to a defence in a negligence action? How would we assign liability if citizenship were to take government data and create an open data app which contains outdated data?

In his write-up about the chat, I think Muki Haklay framed this problem correctly as an ethics problem. Haklay writes, “Somehow, the growth of the geoweb took us backward. The degree to which awareness of ethics is internalised within a discourse of ‘move fast and break things‘, software / hardware development culture of perpetual beta, lack of duty of care, and a search for fast ‘exit’ (and therefore IBG-YBG) make me wonder about which mechanisms we need to put in place to ensure the reintroduction of strong ethical notions into the geoweb. As some of the responses to my question demonstrate, people will accept the changes in societal behaviour and view them as normal…” In fact, tort liability principles recognize that if a wrong has been committed (sometimes even without intent), then the person who committed the harm might be required to compensate the individual. The very basis of tort law is that we ought to provide remedies for those wronged. Based on this aim, the courts don’t always uphold contracts of adhesion (which seek to limit liability).

The principles of tort liability understood as a matter of ethics and responsibility, provides opportunities for the prevention of harm and the accountability of government. This has long been recognized in the New York context, where the law stipulates that should a person trip on the sidewalk (or pothole), the city is only liable if it has been reported. To ensure reporting, every year the Big Apple Pothole and Sidewalk Corporationmaps out the cracks, holes and potholes throughout the city (and here). For its part, Toronto reports it has filled in almost 50,000 potholes in 2015 to date and over the past years there has been a 40% increase in drivers receiving compensation from pot-hole induced damage to cars. (The same report does not detail the number of complaints that have been made by the 311 reporting service).

The twitter conversation demonstrates that legal analysis questions, such as who has standing to bring a legal claim, who bears legal responsibility for information, and which courts have jurisdiction, are only the beginning of tort legal questions. A second analysis begs that we understand data in a larger framework which takes into account duties and responsibilities. Focusing on the prevention of harm, we could argue, that there should be a larger set of core activities or areas for which liability cannot be contracted out. These core areas presumably would pertain to the health, safety and well-being of citizenship, particularly that they be tailored to protect the interests of those who cannot be expected to know the details of tortious liability, nor necessarily how to navigate geoweb activities.

Tenille Brown is a PhD student in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa and a Geothink student member. Her research is in the areas of legal geography, including property, spatial and citizen engagement, in the Ottawa context.

She can be reached on twitter, @TenilleEBrown and via email, Tenille.Brown@uottawa.ca.

Crosspost: Geoweb, crowdsourcing, liability and moral responsibility

This post is cross-posted with permission from Po Ve Sham – Muki Haklay’s personal blog. Muki is a Geothink collaborator at the University College London and the co-director of ExCiteS.

By Muki Haklay

Yesterday [March 3rd, 2015], Tenille Brown led a Twitter discussion as part of the Geothink consortium. Tenille opened with a question about liability and wrongful acts that can harm others

If you follow the discussion (search in Twitter for #geothink) you can see how it evolved and which issues were covered.

At one point, I have asked the question:

It is always intriguing and frustrating, at the same time, when a discussion on Twitter is taking its own life and many times move away from the context in which a topic was brought up originally. At the same time, this is the nature of the medium. Here are the answers that came up to this question:

 

 

You can see that the only legal expert around said that it’s a tough question, but of course, everyone else shared their (lay) view on the basis of moral judgement and their own worldview and not on legality, and that’s also valuable. The reason I brought the question was that during the discussion, we started exploring the duality in the digital technology area to ownership and responsibility – or rights and obligations. It seem that technology companies are very quick to emphasise ownership (expressed in strong intellectual property right arguments) without responsibility over the consequences of technology use (as expressed in EULAs and the general attitude towards the users). So the nub of the issue for me was about agency. Software does have agency on its own but that doesn’t mean that it absolved the human agents from responsibility over what it is doing (be it software developers or the companies).

In ethics discussions with engineering students, the cases of Ford Pinto or the Thiokol O-rings in the Discovery Shuttle disaster come up as useful examples to explore the responsibility of engineers towards their end users. Ethics exist for GIS – e.g. the code of ethics of URISA, or the material online about ethics for GIS professional and in Esri publication. Somehow, the growth of the geoweb took us backward. The degree to which awareness of ethics is internalised within a discourse of ‘move fast and break things‘, software / hardware development culture of perpetual beta, lack of duty of care, and a search for fast ‘exit’ (and therefore IBG-YBG) make me wonder about which mechanisms we need to put in place to ensure the reintroduction of strong ethical notions into the geoweb. As some of the responses to my question demonstrate, people will accept the changes in societal behaviour and view them as normal…

See the original post here. twitter

#Geothink Chat Transcript, 20 January 2015

Twitter Chat on #IntellectualProperty, #copyright, and #geodata, hosted by Cheryl Power, PhD student at UOttawa’s Faculty of Law.

Cross-posted from Mapping Mashups.


@geothinkca Jan 20, 2:59pm Welcome all to our #geothink chat, hosted by @cheryldpower on #IntellectualProperty, #copyright, and #geodata! Thanks for joining us!
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:00pm Good evening everyone, Cheryl speaking – Let’s hear from the audience who is out there tonight? #geothink #cheryldpower
@mappingmashups Jan 20, 3:00pm Today on #geowebchat we’re joining a chat organized by @geothinkca. Use the hashtag #geothink instead! #geowebchat will be back in 2 weeks.
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:02pm Can we copyright a geodataset? My understanding is no in US; yes in Canada #geothink
@notgregorypeck Jan 20, 3:02pm #geothink hello all. looking frwrd to discussion with @cheryldpower
@mappingmashups Jan 20, 3:02pm @cheryldpower Hi Cheryl. I work at @stamen making maps with #opendata/#openstreetmap. Also doing a PhD at UBC. #geothink
@AmrEldib Jan 20, 3:03pm @cheryldpower hey, Cheryl. I’m Amr in Vancouver, and wanted to hear all about @geothinkca and #geothink
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:04pm @re_sieber #geothink See feist *US
@mappingmashups Jan 20, 3:04pm @cheryldpower I also run #geowebchat… hoping the regular #geoweb audience joins this #geothink chat.
@AmrEldib Jan 20, 3:04pm @re_sieber wouldn’t think be like copyrighting an API which is the topic of dispute between Oracle and Google #geothink
@mappingmashups Jan 20, 3:05pm @cheryldpower We’ve done a few #geowebchats about #opendata. Check out our transcripts after this #geothink chat: mappingmashups.net/geowebchat/
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:07pm .@cheryldpower I know ab Feist, although it leaves copyright door open for more complicated db structures #geothink
@mhaklay Jan 20, 3:08pm Will it be interesting to explore ODBl opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/ for this #geothink discussion?
@JamesLMilner Jan 20, 3:08pm Tuning in to #geothink ; not to hot on IP and copyright but know a little about open source licenses
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:09pm @re_sieber #geothink Science technology and IP & Innovation for 10 years !!
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:09pm @AmrEldib Here’s EFF on copyright case ab copyrighting APIs eff.org/press/releases… #geothink
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:10pm @re_sieber #geothink Is it an original selection of data discuss?
@notgregorypeck Jan 20, 3:10pm #geothink can you copyright dataset – according 2 interview with David Fewer, hving a dbase isn’t enough for copyright in CanPost case
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:12pm Also hot in Canada, copyright case of Canada post v @geolytica cbc.ca/news/technolog… #geothink
@notgregorypeck Jan 20, 3:12pm #geothink intrview with David Fewer – one essential ingrdient for copyright: skill of judgement in selection and arrangement of data
@TenilleEBrown Jan 20, 3:14pm @notgregorypeck Do you have a link for that interview Peck? #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:15pm .@notgregorypeck Big diff btwn Canada & US in terms of “sweat of brow” vv copyright #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:16pm .@notgregorypeck In Canada, you can count some “sweat of brow” as well as creativity in asserting copyright #geothink
@JamesLMilner Jan 20, 3:16pm ODBI license looks solid but could be more clear about commercial use as per tldrlegal.com is about Apache 2.0, MIT etc #geothink
@geothinkca Jan 20, 3:16pm @TenilleEBrown Here is the link to the #Geothink newsletter, the interview is on page 12!
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:17pm Have you been exposed to any type of licensing in association with your research project? #geothink #cheryldpower
@notgregorypeck Jan 20, 3:18pm #geothink CIPPIC, in Geolytica case, are arguing about that disctntion on ‘sweat of brow’. not easy to determine when everything is sftwre
@geothinkca Jan 20, 3:19pm @TenilleEBrown geothink.ca/geothink-newsl… #geothink
@mappingmashups Jan 20, 3:19pm @JamesLMilner Yes, #ODbL was meant to clear up a lot of the commercial use cases for #OSM, but many think it’s still not obvious. #geothink
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:19pm @JamesLMilner #geothink Do you have a link?
@ClausRinner Jan 20, 3:20pm Re @re_sieber : What do people think/know about postcodes in OpenStreetMap? Seems a great platform to collect them systematically. #geothink
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:21pm @mhaklay #geothink Do you have specific questions? Have you experience with the license?
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:21pm Copyright in geospatial realm draws on precedence of both pictures (maps), easier to copyright, v. data, difficult to copyright #geothink
@JamesLMilner Jan 20, 3:23pm @mappingmashups interesting. Just read this article about #ODbL issues openstreetmap.org/user/lxbarth/d… #geothink
@mhaklay Jan 20, 3:23pm @cheryldpower No, I don’t have any specific question. Just noticed that it created a lot of noise from different directions! #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:23pm .@ClausRinner @geolytica case show us Canada Post asserts copyright over 6 digit postal codes, regardless of collection platform #geothink
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:25pm @re_sieber #geothink Tele-Direct v. American Business Information, need original intellectual creation
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:25pm .@ClausRinner What can be done legally in US vv copyright can’t nec be done legally in Canada. Prob for intl platform lk #OSM #geothink
@mhaklay Jan 20, 3:25pm @cheryldpower e.g. lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/lega… or openstreetmap.org/user/lxbarth/d… #geothink vs osmfoundation.org/wiki/License #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:28pm .@cheryldpower Tele-Direct case still asserted that min degree of skill in arrangement is protected by copyright under Canada law #geothink
@mappingmashups Jan 20, 3:29pm @ClausRinner @re_sieber Related to postal codes in #OSM is the openaddresses.io project which is a parallel database w/out #ODbL #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:30pm .@cheryldpower’s mention of Feist, Tele-Direct highlights that geospatial db law derives from phonebooks #geothink
@TenilleEBrown Jan 20, 3:30pm @JamesLMilner Its aimed at the user of the software? So aimed at informing public what they are able to do with said data-set? #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:31pm Welcome @geolytica, to our twitterchat discussion of geospatial data & copyright #geothink
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:32pm Do you think there should be any type of IP protection on forms of data for example databases ? #geothink #cheryldpower
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:33pm .@geolytica has personal experience w the assertion of copyright in Canada vv geospatial data #geothink
@nixzusehen Jan 20, 3:34pm @JamesLMilner spatiallaw.com/Uploads/ODbL_a… #geothink
@mhaklay Jan 20, 3:36pm @cheryldpower maybe IP protection help in securing privacy & control. e.g. indigenous groups geodata – might deter biotech abuse? #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:36pm Advertisement: #geothink researches copyright, IP and licenses regarding geoweb (also social justice, particip..). Partners inc CIPPIC, OSM.
@geolytica Jan 20, 3:38pm @re_sieber I recently gave a talk at the state of the map on this topic. #geothink My slides are here: geocoder.ca/onetimedownloa…
@geothinkca Jan 20, 3:38pm @mhaklay Are you referring to biotech companies patenting traditional knowledge? #geothink
@TenilleEBrown Jan 20, 3:40pm @mhaklay @cheryldpower yes to biotech use. As well as abuse of the areas of traditionally owned land #geothink
@mhaklay Jan 20, 3:41pm @geothinkca for example. Beyond biotech, other companies using information about specific plants/resources etc. ? Not sure though! #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:41pm .@mhaklay any insight into why UK didn’t go after OSM vv crown copyright violations compared to Canada? #geothink @geolytica
@JamesLMilner Jan 20, 3:44pm further reading implies that ODbL is very patchy indeed; big issues re: when “share-alike” provisions apply spatiallaw.com/Uploads/ODbL_a… #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:44pm .@cheryldpower I’d argue that crowdsourced datasets should give IP protections to contributors, including Yelp, fb, TripAdvisor #geothink
@mhaklay Jan 20, 3:45pm @re_sieber @geolytica which violations? OSM community in the UK was vocal to new members about copyright in the early days #geothink
@mhaklay Jan 20, 3:47pm @JamesLMilner this study is funded to support MapBox view of the ODBl issue, so take it with a pinch of salt … #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:48pm .@mhaklay ownership not just ab copying. CanadaPost asserting tm over “postal code” o.canada.com/business/canad… @geolytica #geothink
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:50pm .@mhaklay #geothink I view the IP & privacy issues through different lens with IP potentially granting exclusive rights in a form of data
@mhaklay Jan 20, 3:51pm @re_sieber @geolytica not yet, because ‘postcodes’ and addresses are a completely messy issue in the UK because of the Royal Mail #geothink
@mhaklay Jan 20, 3:52pm @re_sieber @geolytica see alpha.openaddressesuk.org and …al-government.governmentcomputing.com/news/cabinet-o… as a way to overcome it #geothink
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:52pm How do we provide incentives for the open sharing of data? #geothink #cheryldpower
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:54pm As sidebar to @cheryldpower, a justif for “sweat of brow” inclusion in crown copyright is to protect investment of creator,inc gov #geothink
@mhaklay Jan 20, 3:55pm I wonder if there is any value in studying the discourse at OSM legal talk about lay concepts? lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/lega… #geothink
@notgregorypeck Jan 20, 3:56pm .@cheryldpower #geothink probly need alternative revenue streams – open you data, but need that data to feed into use of other services
@re_sieber Jan 20, 3:57pm @mhaklay “studying the discourse at OSM legal talk about lay concepts” sounds like a potential whitepaper to me for #geothink @cheryldpower
@notgregorypeck Jan 20, 3:57pm .@cheryldpower #geothink a Google model for business. provide free service, and tunnel your customers into your other services
@cheryldpower Jan 20, 3:58pm @re_sieber @mhaklay Absolutely we should talk in the days to come #geothink
@geolytica Jan 20, 3:59pm @mhaklay @re_sieber 1M UK addresses, what percentage of the total is that? Our database in Canada currently stands at over 12M. #geothink
@geothinkca Jan 20, 4:00pm @notgregorypeck @cheryldpower Opening data may also crowdsource expensive problem-solving and optimization #geothink
@mhaklay Jan 20, 4:01pm @cheryldpower some ideas from @DrBobBarr about Core Reference Geographies agi.org.uk/storage/events… & agi.org.uk/storage/events…#geothink
@geothinkca Jan 20, 4:02pm Just a few more minutes of this #geothink chat, if you has any more comments! (We’ll return again in the future)
@mhaklay Jan 20, 4:04pm @geolytica @re_sieber en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcode_… – 29m addresses #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 4:04pm In future would love to have either #geowebchat or #geothink chat just on licenses.
@geothinkca Jan 20, 4:06pm Thanks evryone 4 joining this #geothink & #geowebchat. Thanks @cheryldpower for hosting. Well be back in th future, stay tuned @geothinkca
@mappingmashups Jan 20, 4:08pm @geothinkca I’ll archive this #geothink chat alongside the other #geowebchats here: mappingmashups.net/geowebchat/ Will post in a few days.
@mappingmashups Jan 20, 4:09pm @re_sieber The next #geowebchat is Feb 3rd. Do we want to talk about licenses then? #geothink
@re_sieber Jan 20, 4:11pm .@mappingmashups Great idea #geowebchat. Licenses for geospatial data #geothink

Special thanks to Cheryl for hosting, and @mappingmashups for mashing #geowebchat chat with our #geothink chat. Love Twitter chats? Have an idea for a Geothink Twitter chat? Get in touch: @geothinkca!

Crosspost: Ryerson journalism and the Neptis Foundation partner to teach students data journalism

Neptis researcher and transportation engineer, Erin Toop, explains statistics during a Senior Reporting data journalism workshop at Ryerson University on Oct. 9.

By Prajakta Dhopade

I stared blankly at the rows upon rows of transportation statistics on my computer screen. My heart thudded in my chest, my eyes darted to my classmates’ faces. Did they get it? The numbers in the intimidating Excel spreadsheet I was scrolling through didn’t make much sense to me. I thought I’d left math class behind when I came to journalism school.

As the initial panic subsided and I actually took a moment to think about the variables in the data set before me, I began to see how they correlated, how the numbers might raise important questions that could lead to stories I can tell as a journalist.

Which of the 16 zones Toronto is divided into has the most cyclists and what does that say about cycling infrastructure in parts of the city? Has there been an increase in people cycling to work? The possibilities seemed endless.

My foray into data journalism occurred in Ryerson journalism instructor Gavin Adamson’s senior reporting class last month when researchers from the Neptis Foundation, a charitable, non-partisan research organization, came to share the results of an unreleased Transportation Tomorrow Survey (TTS) with students.

It was an opportunity for us to produce story ideas from a vast collection of data about the modes of transportation used in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

The Neptis-led data journalism workshop was organized after April Lindgren, director of the Ryerson Journalism Research Centre (RJRC), and Marcy Burchfield, executive director of the Neptis Foundation, met at the annual meeting of the Canadian Geospatial and Open Data Research Partnership this summer.

“We have partnered with other universities on previous projects and have always had a relationship with up-and-coming planners, [and] transportation engineers, so this seemed like a good fit—to introduce some young, up-and-coming journalists to an important data set that tells a lot about travel behaviour in the region,” said Burchfield.

The TTS is sponsored by the Ministry of Transportation Ontario and is a collaborative effort by regional governments and transportation associations to collect data revolving around how people travel in southern Ontario.

The survey sample is large, involving five per cent of the population in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).

Neptis shared summary data for 32 variables with us, meaning there were 1,500 possible comparisons to make during our analysis.

According to Burchfield, while the TTS has been used widely for several years for analysis surrounding land-use and urban development, for a long time it has been behind an archaic graphic user interface that limited its accessibility.

She says Neptis hopes to “break down a barrier of access” so that you don’t have to be an expert to draw conclusions from the TTS.

Erin Toop, transportation engineer and a Neptis researcher, was one of the presenters who condensed the complicated raw information into accessible spreadsheets for us to sift through.

The Neptis team members began their Oct. 9 presentation to my class with an explanation of why combiningstatistics with journalism is so important in seeing the big picture.

“With data journalism, you can actually assemble all the information that is out there and you’re able to see trends, you’re able to see how things come together… [and] share these stories in a meaningful way,” said Phinjo Gombu, a former Toronto Star urban affairs reporter who is now working with Neptis.

The presenters emphasized that the ability to decipher raw data and draw conclusions from the numbers is vital in determining the truth and holding politicians accountable.

As a journalism student, this exercise made me realize that having data journalism skills is a valuable asset to have in an industry that is starting to value digital literacy over much else—but our curriculum is only just shifting to accommodate what the job market demands.

Lindgren said the purpose of the partnership between Neptis and Ryerson’s journalism school was to explore different ways of teaching data journalism.

“It’s quite a challenging thing to do because of the technical requirements…You need to know how to work with spreadsheets and data, so there are several levels of complexity in terms of learning,” said Lindgren. “And also the data are so interesting and the story potential is so great that it was a real hands-on opportunity to do real stories with real data.”

While the Excel spreadsheets prepared by Neptis were much less intimidating than the original data format, we were still faced with the daunting task of tackling numbers and making sense of the 32 variables we were given to work with. Transportation modes, trip purposes, trip rates—how were we supposed to see the trends and their significance?

Adamson says that hands-on work with data helps break down numeracy fears, a critical hurdle for journalists, who often must sift through data evidence to analyze governmental and corporate decision-making.

After Toop gave us an overview of how the survey worked and what each variable represented, the class divided into groups to generate story ideas.

What really worked about the workshop is that we had the Neptis researchers to help us understand the feasibility of comparing variables while our journalism instructors encouraged us to think about how the data related to what’s happening in the city.

We learned to simplify our approach to finding patterns in the data and to think about what our lede would look like.

Fourth-year journalism student Marija Petrovic went on to use the TTS data to write a story for Adamson’s reporting class.

She discovered that cycling within Toronto has increased more than 50 per cent in the past four years as more people choose to ride their bikes to avoid congestion on city roads.

“I liked seeing data that was something that I see happening every day and that is such a big part of a Ryerson student’s life,” said Petrovic, who confessed she found the workshop challenging at times because math is not her forte.

We didn’t come close to taking the data and creating ambitious graphic visualizations like the images shown to us by the Neptis researchers — indeed, following through with the analysis would be another obstacle to tackle— but the exercise got us thinking.

“Although it was a good three-hour workshop, it wasn’t enough,” said Michael Chen, a fourth-year journalism student who attended the presentation.

He thinks it was a great opportunity to look at the data and ask questions but would like to have spent more time learning about Excel sheets and analyzing statistics.

I definitely agree that we needed more time to become comfortable with the numbers; even as I started to figure them out, I still found them overwhelming.

Finding patterns wasn’t easy either, but it was helpful receiving the Neptis researchers’ feedback because it was reassuring to realize we weren’t grasping at straws– that maybe we were onto something.

Adamson hopes to partner with Neptis again for other classes in the journalism program, including the masthead publication, The Ryersonian.

Prajakta Dhopade is a fourth-year journalism student at Ryerson. She is an aspiring online journalist with an interest in women’s issues. Her work has also been published by the Canadian Press.

Cross post from the Ryerson Journalism Research Centre

Is Raw Data Bad For You? Open Data Obligations to Government.

By: Leah Cooke, Stephanie Piper, Alana Kingdon, and Peter Johnson

*This blog post was written collaboratively during the springtime Geothink meetup between Ryerson University and University of Waterloo students + faculty. The goals of this meetup were to discuss current and future issues related to Geothink research themes.

What strings are attached to governments that provide open data to citizens? Alongside the current interest in government open data, questions remain about how government should share data. Specifically, what obligations do government have beyond simple data provision. These obligations could include educating citizens, contextualizing data, and also being receptive to citizen feedback on the data provided. For example, if a government publishes drinking water quality data, do they have a (moral, ethical, operational) obligation to support this data with relevant contextualizing information? We propose five main responses that government could provide when answering this question.

1. Nothing

Providing the data as it exists without any contextual information to aid in understanding the data.

2. Metadata

Defining the details of data by including acronyms and field names etc., to make the document readable for technically adept users.

3. Processed data

Data that includes maps, legends, annotations, or graphs/charts to aid in the understanding of the data by viewers, while still including original data to allow for additional analyses.  Also included is descriptive information or explanatory text that may be helpful to user’s understanding of the data.

4. Engagement and Responsiveness:

A responsive format for the distribution of open data would see a commitment to the sustainability of the data itself, by ensuring updates and maintenance to open data portals.  An obligation for citizen engagement would also be present at this level, with governments creating workshops or tools to help citizens become knowledgeable about the data as well as ensuring two-way communication between those with questions or suggestions surrounding the data.

5.  Interoperable Standards for Data Sets

Data sets are released in a standardized format, with the intention of increasing the accessibility of data for novice users as well as for ease of integrating information from different municipalities for regional analyses.

While these five standards are different potential ways government can operationally structure and release their data, the question still remains: which format is ethically or morally the option that should be adopted. Further, government bodies have complex requirements to abide by legislation, including the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), that also need to be considered when releasing any information. Do these requirements alter these obligations?  Beyond the regulations themselves, further accessibility issues are also raised.  Should the data be accessible by various levels of users, from novice to expert?  What does this mean for the ethical framework surrounding the release of the data?  As data is often released in formats only recognized by technical users such as .csv files, is there an additional obligation to release data that is open to nontechnical users as well? Inherent in the name, open data is the assumption that this data is being released in order to create an increase in transparency. It would be natural to assume that this data should therefore be accessible to users regardless of their technical skill levels.

In conclusion, for municipal governments, providing raw data is really just the first step. Governments that are serious about using open data as a prelude or support to open government need to also provide tools and support to enable data being turned into information. Metadata is not enough, and open data does not replace targeted information and publications created internally and shared with citizens.