An Introduction to the Open Data Institute

Dr Tom Heath · Head of Research · Open Data Institute

@tommyh

You can access the slides at http://theodi.github.io/presentations/.

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Open Data

Open Data Definitions

A piece of data or content is open if anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and/or share-alike.

— http://opendefinition.org/

Open Data Definitions

Open data is information that is available for anyone to use,
for any purpose,
at no cost

— http://theodi.org/guide/what-open-data

Open Data

must be explicitly licensed

the license may impose additional conditions
e.g. attribution, share-alike

!= all the data on the Web

About the
Open Data Institute

The Open Data Institute

  • founded in 2012
    by Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt
  • non-profit, non-partisan company
    limited by guarantee
  • dedicated to
    unlocking supply of and demand for open data
    communicating its value

ODI Funding

  • partly funded by, but independent from, government
  • additional income from
    philanthropic donations,
    membership programme,
    research grants, training

ODI Members

  • Virgin Media
    large cable telco
  • Which?
    large consumer organisation
  • another big UK telco
  • and recently...
    Quanta Computer
  • ...plus many others

ODI Scope

based in east london...

photo by Daniel Lövquist, used under license CC BY-NC 2.0

ODI Scope

  • ...but national remit
  • global leadership position in open data

ODI Activities

  • training
  • tools and services
  • startups
  • policy
  • research

Open Data Certificates

set standard for open data publishing

emphasise (re)user needs

help publishers get better

A Holistic View
of Published Data

technical

legal

practical

social

what else?

http://certificates.theodi.org/

Multiple Levels

Raw Pilot Standard Exemplar
minimum government standard core reference data

ODI Startups

  • 9-month startup programme
  • we offer
    desk and meeting space
    mentoring and networking
  • domains
    big data, transport, energy and environment, corporate data, ...

Startup Stories

Prescribing Analytics screenshot

ODI Ethos

everything in the open

Research at the ODI

  • very new, still forming
  • building capability at the ODI
  • forging strong collaborations in the UK and overseas

Current Research

  • Publishing Big Open Data
    what are the best practices for publishing
    big (open) data?
  • Describing Data Sets
    how are data sets currently described on the Web?
    how can we best extract (and aggregate)
    these descriptions?

Data Ecosystem

How do licensing choices affect the data ecosystem?

What kind of licence is best for government to choose?

Data Ecosystem

Simulation with D3

Upcoming
Research Projects

  • monitoring and analytics for open data deployment across Europe
  • radically simplifying the consumption of open data by small businesses

The Big Picture

  • the mechanics of open data
  • the impact of open data
  • the web of open data

The Mechanics of
Open Data

  • provenance: collection protocol, documentation, granularity, post-processing?
  • licensing: adequacy of licensing regime? combining licenses? specifics of derivation? mechanics of expression?
  • versioning: conceptual models of versioning? infrastructure?
  • dataset description: how to convey these features (for potentially small fragments)?

The Impact of Open Data

  • data ecosystems: what impact of open licensing?
  • structural business and economic barriers to uptake of open data?
  • qualitative stories of impact

The Web of Open Data

  • data discovery
  • profiling and indexing
  • relevance and filtering
  • integration
  • dynamic interfaces

Data Discovery

appropriate granularity?

meaningful definitions of collections?
(theoretical and practical)

prioritising discovery?

Data Comprehension

profiling

summarisation

indexing

cognitive architecture?

Questions?


Dr Tom Heath · Open Data Institute


tom.heath@theodi.org
ODI
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