Google Talks Finding, Sharing Open Data

Good talk on the issues,  perhaps not enough on protecting the data, defining its ownership  responsibly.

Doing our part to share open data responsibly
Daphne Luong  Director, Software Engineering
Charina Chou  Global Policy Lead, Emerging Technologies

This past weekend marked Open Data Day, an annual celebration of making data freely available to everyone. Communities around the world organized events, and we’re taking a moment here at Google to share our own perspective on the importance of open data. More accessible data can meaningfully help people and organizations, and we’re doing our part by opening datasets, providing access to APIs and aggregated product data, and developing tools to make data more accessible and useful.

Responsibly opening datasets
Sharing datasets is increasingly important as more people adopt machine learning through open frameworks like TensorFlow. We’ve released over 50 open datasets for other developers and researchers to use. These include YouTube 8M, a corpus of annotated videos used externally for video understanding; the HDR+ Burst Photography dataset, which helps others experiment with the technology that powers Pixel features like Portrait Mode; and Open Images, along with the Open Images Extended dataset which increases photo diversity.

Just because data is open doesn’t mean it will be useful, however. First, a dataset needs to be cleaned so that any insights developed from it are based on well-structured and accurate examples. Cleaning a large dataset is no small feat; before opening up our own, we spend hundreds of hours standardizing data and validating quality. Second, a dataset should be shared in a machine-readable format that’s easy for others to use, such as JSON rather than PDF. Finally, consider whether the dataset is representative of the intended content. Even if data is usable and representative of some situations, it may not be appropriate for every application. For instance, if a dataset contains mostly North American animal images, it may help you classify a deer, but not a giraffe. Tools like Facets can help you analyze the makeup of a dataset and evaluate the best ways to put it to use. We’re also working to build more representative datasets through interfaces like the Crowdsource application. To guide others’ use of your own dataset, consider publishing a data card which denotes authorship, composition and suggested use cases (here’s an example from our Open Images Extended release). 

Making data findable and useful  ... '

Global Impact of Open Data

Free EBook from O'Reilly. 

The Global Impact of Open Data
Key Findings from Detailed Case Studies Around the World

Open data has spurred economic innovation, social transformation, and fresh forms of political and government accountability in recent years, but few people understand how open data works. This comprehensive report, developed with support from Omidyar Network, presents detailed case studies of open data projects throughout the world, along with in-depth analysis of what works and what doesn’t.   ... " 

An Open Data Board Game

I like the idea of using games to show how systems work.  We used it to teach corporate and supply chain economics.  But it does not often work very well.   Not sure this one does either.   Seems like its aimed at teaching something else.  Some point about data itself being a universal solution.   But OK, its here, and you are free to try it.

You can now buy your own copy of Datopolis, the open data board game
Today the beta version of Datopolis, our open data board game, goes on sale via Gamecrafter for two weeks. Its creators Ellen Broad and Jeni Tennison tell the story behind it, how it was made and what you can expect from buying your very own copy.   By Ellen Broad and Jeni Tennison

Today we’re making the beta version of Datopolis, our open data board game, available for sale for two weeks. Don’t miss out!

What is Datopolis?
Datopolis is a board game about building things – services, websites, devices, apps and research – using closed and open data. It’s set in a town called Sheridan, which is gradually declining as shops close, teachers quit, hedgehogs go extinct and pollution rises. The tools that players build contribute to making Sheridan a healthier, wealthier, happier place to live.

There’s a short version and a long version of Datopolis. The short version is useful for team workshops and away days – it can be played within 20-30 minutes, and gets people comfortable talking to each other and negotiating to build tools with data. The longer version is for people who really enjoy playing board games – it has added role cards, plenty of bad things happening in Sheridan to contend with, and generally more complexity.  ... " 

Data World Provides Data Resources

Activity in the semantic data world,   Dean Allemang mentioned and quoted.   Toward an improvement of the use of data assets.    An indication of increased open ontology development?

PRESS RELEASE
Austin, TX – July 11, 2016 – data.world, a new company that makes it fast and easy to find and use data to solve problems, has officially launched today. Led by Bazaarvoice founder (NASDAQ: BV) and former CEO Brett Hurt and three former HomeAway executives, data.world is building the most meaningful, collaborative, and abundant data resource in the world by dismantling the barriers between people and data. With data.world, people who work with data can quickly and easily discover, prepare, and share it, as well as effectively collaborate in real time to solve important problems.   .... 

“Open data, which is data that can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose, is shaping up to be one of the most important forces impacting humanity today,” said Hurt, co-founder and CEO of data.world. “This movement can speed our cure for cancer, help keep governments accountable, curtail climate change, and positively impact other important world issues. We’ve built data.world to facilitate these breakthroughs – by allowing professional and amateur data scientists, analysts, and researchers to instantly find, use, and share data.”   .... 

“data.world is tackling a fundamental problem: how to make data interoperable to help people and machines unlock data’s value faster. This is a significant step forward for the semantic web community – and a more comprehensive approach than I’ve seen before.” – Dean Allemang, semantic web expert, author and Principal Consultant at Working Ontologist, LLC.    ... " 

Useful Open Data Resources

From DSC, (URL Updated) Most of these are well known examples,  you should always think of readily available, credible data to add to internal systems.  These are a great place to start.    Data mix-ins can have great value, especially when creating interactive visualizations that provide information context. Contrary to what is said though,  there is still useful external data you will have to pay for.