Open Data

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.

• 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.

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?

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?

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?

Tom Heath · Open Data Institute

tom.heath@theodi.org · @tommyh

Acknowledgements

DaPaaS and OpenDataMonitor projects

funded by EC FP7 grants 610988 & 611988

Tom Heath · Open Data Institute

tom.heath@theodi.org · @tommyh

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

http://theodi.github.io/presentations