Open Data


Culture and Technology


Dr Tom Heath · @tommyh

Background

  • Head of Research at ODI
  • Senior Research/Data Scientist at Talis Group
  • PhD in Social Network-driven Recommender Systems

Overview

  1. What is Open Data?
  2. The Open Data Institute
  3. Applications of Open Data
  4. Next Steps

What is Open Data?

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 have have a licence to say it is open
    just being on the web is not enough
  • the license
    may impose some constraints:
    attribution and/or share-alike

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 | Big | Personal Data

Image Credit: Ulrich Atz

The Open Data Institute

The Open Data Institute

  • founded in 2012
    by Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt
  • non-profit, non-partisan company
    partly funded by, but independent from, government
  • based in east london, but with (inter)national outlook
  • dedicated to
    unlocking supply of and demand for open data
    communicating its value

ODI Activities

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

ODI Members

  • Quanta Computer
    needs no introduction!
  • Telefonica
    major mobile and fixed line telco
  • Virgin Media
    large UK cable telco
  • ...plus almost 50 others
    http://directory.theodi.org/members

ODI Ethos

  • doing everything in the open
  • creating economic, social and
    environmental value
    by...
  • ...helping others be successful with open data

An Open Data Culture
for Everyone

So What?

  • open data makes you free to
    build cool things
  • without having to pay for the data or collect it yourself

Applications of
Open Data

Prescribing Analytics

The Question

  • annual prescription drugs bill for NHS is ~£10 billion
  • potential cost savings from prescribing generic drugs
  • how big are the savings?

Prescribing Analytics

The Method

  • prescription data for england, published monthly
    anonymised, under an open license
  • work with domain specialists
    select one drug class: statins
  • find all cases where generic could have been prescribed
    with no difference in patient outcomes
  • what is the cost difference?

http://prescribinganalytics.com/

Prescribing Analytics

The Results

  • potential costs savings to national health service of
    £200 million per year
  • for just one drug class

Fire Stations in London

  • proposal to close a number of fire stations
    in central london
  • candidates for closure identified by
    non-transparent analysis/process
  • questions
    is the analysis fair/accurate?
    how can citizens engage in the process?

http://london-fire.labs.theodi.org/

Fire Stations in London

Conclusions

  • findings broadly compatible with initial analysis
  • significantly cheaper than official analysis?
  • tool is publicly available
    citizens can explore the options

Evaluating Data Quality

Open Data Certificates

  • the first robust quality badge for open data
  • helps...
    publishers certify their data
    users find and use it
    policy makers benchmark
  • http://certificates.theodi.org

Next Steps

Phenomenal Growth

Phenomenal Growth

ODI Nodes


Businesses + Universities + NGOs

ODI Nodes connect the organisations that support
open data projects and people

http://theodi.org/node

ODI Nodes

supporting local, national and international impact

ODI Nodes

(Some) R&D
Challenges

  • tracking the evolution and spread of open data
    including analytics
  • helping data consumers, e.g. startups

Project: Open Data
Monitor

  • monitoring and analytics for
    open data deployment across europe
  • 2-year project, started this week
  • european focus, but may provide services elsewhere

Project:
"Data and Platform
as a Service"

  • making it radically easier to consume
    open & linked data

    e.g. for small businesses, startups
  • 2-year project, started this week
  • partners in europe and korea

Questions?


ODI

Tom Heath · Open Data Institute

tom.heath@theodi.org · @tommyh

Acknowledgements

DaPaaS and OpenDataMonitor projects

funded by EC FP7 grants 610988 & 611988

ODI

Tom Heath · Open Data Institute

tom.heath@theodi.org · @tommyh

Stuart Harrison Sam Pikesley James Smith Jeni Tennison

Open Data Institute Tech Team
@ukoditech
info@theodi.org
irc.freenode.net #theodi

ODI

http://theodi.github.io/presentations

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