casos de uso

Spring is coming to an end to give way to summer, holidays and warm weather. As with every change of season, for the Aporta Initiative it is time to review what has happened in the open data ecosystem over the last three months.

Boosting data strategies

During this season we have seen several initiatives, both local and statewide, launch processes to update their data strategies:

• In April, Málaga City Council presented a Municipal Open Government Plan that includes initiatives to promote open data. Specifically, the development of information campaigns, the homogenisation of dataset formats and the progressive incorporation of new datasets, also including data external to municipal management.
• The Community of Murcia launched a survey aimed at companies in the region to find out which datasets are of interest to them, with the aim of assessing their incorporation into the region's open data catalogue.
• The Government of Asturias carried out a participatory process to develop a Public Governance Strategy. Among other aspects, it aims to implement mechanisms to facilitate participation and access to open data.
• The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation has launched a consultation to identify proposals for the integration of Artificial Intelligence in the value chains of different sectors of the economy. All this within the framework of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy.

The commitment to open data by Spanish public bodies is also evident in the growing support for the International Open Data Charter. Spanish representation in the Open Data Charter has grown this spring: two autonomous communities, Asturias and Valencia, and one local authority, the City Council of Pinto, agreed to join.

New portals and open datasets

In addition to the bloom, spring has also brought us new open data sharing platforms:

• Alcalá de Henares Town Council has developed a new Transparency and Open Data Portal to facilitate access to information and promote transparency in its management.
• A new version of Euskalmet, the meteorological service of the Basque Country, has also been launched. The portal includes an API Rest for reusers.
• The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office has presented a new version of its Open Data portal in a new format. Through it, users can access reusable data of all types of Industrial Property, available in PDF, XML or SGML formats, among others.

Other existing portals have opted to incorporate new tools:

• The Territorial Information Service of the Balearic Islands (Sitibsa) has launched a tool to automatically incorporate open data from its portal to the map service of the Spatial Data Infrastructure of the Balearic Islands (Ideib).
• The National Centre for Geographic Information (CNIG) has published the web application 'Mapa a la Carta', which allows to customise topographic maps.
• GeoPamplona, the geographic information system developed by the city council, has incorporated new features to improve the user experience and make the service more accessible to citizens. One example is its new catalogue of maps with information already selected, so that the user does not have to search for it.
• Zaragoza City Council has created 'Mis mapas, mis datos', a tool for creating simple and complex maps, combining various data sources.

Moreover, as usual, the vast majority of open data initiatives have been updating their data on a regular basis. Some of the new features that have been presented in recent months are the cultural heritage maps of each municipality on the Barcelona Provincial Council portal or the data on the state of the Mar Menor on the Murcia portal.

Events and training materials are growing

During these months we have attended many events and webinars related to open data. Some of them have been recorded and are available for viewing at any time:

• A few days before the arrival of spring, in March, there was the conference "Data in Local Administrations 20/30. Experiences and Challenges", organised by Alcobendas City Council, the Institute for Knowledge Transfer in Public Innovation (ITCIP) and the Innovation Club, with the support of the FEMP (Network of Local Entities for Transparency and Participation), the Spanish Network of Smart Cities - RECI and Oracle. The different sessions can be viewed here.
• On 23 April, a round table was held, within the framework of the Master in Technology and Digital Innovation in Engineering of the UNED, on "Big Data and datos abiertos applied to mobility". If you missed it, you can watch it on Youtube.

In addition, some courses, guides and books have been launched for those who want to broaden their knowledge of new technologies and data:

• The central government has launched the Elements of AI project in Spain. This is a free online course aimed at all citizens that offers training in the basic fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence.
• Castilla y León has presented the 'Digital transformation guide for public employees', which has a section dedicated to open data. It explains what open data is, talks about the National Open Data catalogue (datos.gob.es) and highlights the importance of reusing information in the public sector.
• The Geomatics and Surveying Engineering Forum of the IDEE Working Group publishes a new version of the book 'Spatial Data Infrastructures', which emphasises the publication and description of spatial datasets by means of services. Among other issues, it includes how they should be presented through viewers and catalogues for their management and exploitation.

Re-use of data by public administrations and citizens

The impact of open data has also become evident in recent months thanks to multiple examples. On the one hand, we have a number of public administrations that have taken advantage of the value of data to implement projects that improve their efficiency and the service they provide to citizens:

• The Madrid Tax Agency has launched a project to use Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to fight municipal tax fraud. A Tax Laboratory will lead this strategy by incorporating information from the City Council's Open Data Portal.
• The Provincial Council of Valencia starts the project 'Connecta València: tourist, intelligent and sustainable territory', which analyses tourist data to adapt and improve the experience in all its municipalities.
• Barcelona City Council has promoted the pilot project 'Dades x Comerç', developed by BCNOpenData to help small businesses make decisions and better understand customer behaviour based on open data.

On the other hand, companies and entrepreneurs have used data to create products, for example:

• The elections to the Community of Madrid left us with multiple examples of journalistic pieces developed based on open data, such as these from El Pais o eldiario.es.
• Two people from Bilbao have created CityAr, an app where users can organise routes, participate in events or play games through augmented reality. CityAr uses Bilbao's open data to show the city's cultural and leisure offer.

In this period, the call for two awards aimed at re-users has also been announced:

• The Asedie Awards 2021, for companies, institutions and open data projects that can contribute social and/or economic value. The deadline for applications is 15 September 2021.
• The new edition of the open data competition organised every year by Castilla y León, aimed at journalists, teachers, students or data reusers. Those interested in participating must send their proposal before 13 July.

A couple of global developments

At the international level, one of the main developments has been the launch of the new European data portal, data.europa.eu, which is positioned as a single access point for data from all over Europe. Its development and management for the next 6 years has been awarded to a consortium comprising, among others, the Ontological Engineering Group of the Polytechnic University of Madrid.

For its part, Asia has launched its first official portal that will bring together open data published by institutions, agencies and organisations from the different countries that make up the continent.

With these examples, it is clear that the open data ecosystem does not stop and continues to evolve month by month. If you want to share any other news that you consider of interest, we invite you to tell us your opinion in the comments section.

We recently reflected on the rise of data journalism in the media, a discipline that is becoming increasingly important. Through technologies and tools linked to data, this journalistic modality makes it possible to offer readers more documented, attractive and comprehensible information. To this end, data journalists perform actions such as interpreting municipal budgets, combining statistics and financial reports or exploring geospatial information to tell stories based on large amounts of data.

Here, we want to highlight the role that data journalism plays in serving as an impetus for the creation of new companies, associations and user groups that reuse data to boost the economy or drive accountability.

Next, we will analyse how the reuse of data, within the field of journalism, has favoured the emergence of new business models, non-profit organisations and transparency, research or political fact-checking activities in which data journalism is at the core of their business or daily activity.

Organisations involved in data journalism

News agencies: EPDATA

EpData is the platform created by Europa Press whose main objective is to facilitate the use of public data by journalists to enrich the news through graphics, as well as to analyse the context and contrast the figures offered by the different sources.

This platform was created with the aim of transferring the spirit of a news agency to the world of data journalism. To achieve this, they have created an extensive data repository with all the statistics that are often reported in Europa Press, with more than 60 million data from public and private sources. Any user can consult them through this link.

EpData's activities linked to data journalism

This repository allows EpData to offer graphs, statistics and data visualisations related to current events on a daily basis. For example, over the last year they have been showing updated data on the current pandemic that other media and scientific publications have used for their news.

However, the range of topics they combine on their platform is very broad, as they offer statistics and graphs based on data on topics as diverse as employment, economic developments, society, politics, etc.

Fact-checking: Maldito Dato

According to its coordinators, "Maldito Dato is the project within the verification media Maldita.es in which data journalism, transparency, investigation and political fact-checking, i.e. the verification of political discourse, are carried out".

In other words, Maldito Dato is the section of Maldita.es that carries out data journalism, made up of specialists in this field. Among its main functions is the production of journalistic pieces based on data, political fact-checking and topics based on the use of the Transparency Law.

Maldito Dato's activities linked to data journalism

Open data is an important part of Maldito Dato's nature, both in terms of publishing and reusing it in its news. Some examples are:

• Map of coronavirus cases at the municipal level throughout Spain, developed based on data published by each autonomous community.
• Ministry of Health data on vaccination, using data published by the Ministry of Health, either in the form of open data or daily reports.
• In this other example, you can see how they use data from the Statistical Portal of the Government Delegation against Gender Violence to make various comparative graphs on the increase in the number of calls to 016. They have also made comparative graphs based on INE data or even CIS data.

In addition to using open data from public administrations, sometimes they publish open data themselves. For example, when they release databases obtained by requests for information through the Transparency Law. Some examples are the database of public information requests made by citizens on the Transparency Portal, the database of health inspections of swimming pools in Madrid or the database of Ministry of the Interior subsidies for 'catastrophic situations'.

Non-profit organisation: CIVIO

CIVIO is a non-profit organisation that promotes the transparency of institutions and that people can access public information through technology combined with journalism. To achieve this goal, it has three main lines of action:

• Journalism
• Public Advocacy
• Transparency services of public authorities

CIVIO's activities linked to data journalism

This organisation has recently published research on the use of emergency procurement during 2020. They have used the emergency contracts awarded during the past year that have been published on the Public Sector Procurement Portal and the platforms linked to the different autonomous communities. A search engine for emergency contracts can be found at this link and the main conclusions of the research can be found here.

At the end of this article, CIVIO explains the methodology used to carry out the analysis of this data, as well as the difficulties encountered in the process. The data used in this research have been made available to all users in Datos Civio in formats that facilitate their reuse. Thanks to this, several media outlets have used the CIVIO database to produce their own information.

Data analysis, visualisation and communication: STORYDATA

Storydata is an organisation of women experts in data research, analysis, visualisation and communication. They are characterised by offering a global communication service aimed at public and private entities that want to transform a set of their own or external data into a communicative story. To do so, they use a variety of media and formats, from the preparation of reports to the creation of campaigns and the dissemination of content on social networks.

Storydata's activities linked to data journalism

Open data is part of Storydata's DNA. Some of its most relevant projects are:

• The Data against noise project, which aims to combat opinions on male violence through open data.

• Collaboration in the data section of the Barcelona Metròpolis magazine of Barcelona City Council.

• Writing of dissemination articles on data in the dossier of the Associació de dones periodistes de Catalunya (Association of Women Journalists of Catalonia).

• Collaboration agreement with Blanquerna's Master's Degree in Data Journalism and Fact Checking.

• Training to multiple media, institutions and universities on data journalism and visualisation, such as the Escola de dades de Sentit Crític, the Master of Information Design and Data Visualisation of Elisava, Euromediterranean Institute (Euromesco), Juries and training pill in the Big data Challenger of Fundación la Caixa.

Currently, Storydata collaborates with media such as Crític, for example, creating a data visualisation that shows inequality in times of confinement or this one on how the coronavirus affects the different municipalities of Catalonia.

User groups and list of data journalists

If you are a data journalist, or are interested in the subject, you may be interested to know that there are different platforms where you can find user groups related to the reuse of data in the field of journalism.

• On LinkedIn, the “Periodismo de datos” group stands out, created so that interested parties and professionals in data journalism can contribute and share knowledge related to this discipline.
• On MeetUp, we find the user group “Periodismo y visualización de datos”. Organised by Adolfo Antón, it has more than 1,200 participants who interact in relation to the use of data for its reuse in journalism.
• Also on MeetUp is the “Madrid Abriendo Datos” group.
• Telegram or Slack groups: many users organise through Telegram (in groups such as postdata, periodismodatos and visualizar) or Slack (periodismodatos.slack.com).

On the web we can also find a list of communicators specialised in data in Spain and Latin America, made up of more than 300 journalists. This project brings together a series of professionals who see data as the true raw material of journalism. If you want to consult the complete list, you can do so through the following link.

This is just a sample of organisations, companies and user groups linked to data journalism. If you know of any others that may be of interest, do not hesitate to write us a comment or send us an email to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

The main challenge I see is to train journalists in the use of computer applications to work with data and thereby gradually improve journalistic output so that the general public appreciates good journalistic data products.

Open data is often not exploited, either because it is too complex, because it requires extensive data processing skills, because it requires a lot of work, because it is unknown or, finally, because it is not "attractive", it is not fashionable.

If we understand the language and languages of this medium, we will be able to produce in a more integrated way data journalism works where any element has a place.

The European Data Portal (EDP) has presented its report "Copernicus data for the open data community", prepared by con.terra as part of the EDP consortium. As we have reported before, Copernicus is the European Union's Earth Observation program that provides accurate, timely and easily accessible information to improve environmental management, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security.

The report aims to help users harness the potential of Copernicus data to create Earth observation applications by answering three basic questions:

• What can I do with Copernicus data?
• How can I access the data?
• What tools do I need to use the data?

After an introduction reviewing the main activities and services available from the program, the report is divided into two parts: a first part where examples of Copernicus data applications are examined and a second, more practical part, where a particular use case is replicated in depth.

Copernicus use cases

The first part covers a series of possible use cases at a general level to answer the first of the questions posed above: what can be done with Copernicus data?

The use cases discussed are linked to the thematic areas addressed by the Copernicus program (emergency, security, marine, land, climate change and atmospheric monitoring), as well as to its services and tools. These examples cover the observation of plastic pollution of the oceans, land change due to mining activities, the impact of volcanic activities, ice loss, the creation of artificial islands, deforestation, forest fires, storms or pests.

The report highlights the importance of knowing what data are appropriate for each specific use case. For example, SENTINEL 2 MSI data is suitable for land monitoring, emergency management and security services, while SENTINEL 3 Altimetry data is linked to the areas of marine monitoring and climate change. To assist in this identification task, the guide includes references to various user guides with specifications on the missions, the instruments used to collect the data and the data products generated.

Case study on the use of Copernicus data 

The second part of the report focuses on a particular use case that it addresses in depth, including how to download the appropriate data, process it and build applications with it. Specifically, it addresses the mapping of the lava flow of the Etna volcano using data from the Copernicus emergency management service. The aim is to track the impact of volcanic activities on nature and urban areas.

First, the report shows how to search and download data for this area of interest.  In this case, Sentinel-2 products are used from the Copernicus Open Access Hub. The entry point for accessing the Copernicus data is their own website, which provides an overview of the data access points. Through different images, the report shows search and filter options to locate the appropriate data.

To visualize and process the data, it is proposed to use commercial software such as ArcGIS Pro,  free GIS tools such as QGIS, open source processing tools such as SNAP or programming libraries such as GDAL. In the case of the example, SNAP (Sentinel Application Platform), the European Space Agency (ESA) platform, is used to view the lava flow.

Some explanations on workflow automation with the Open Access Hub API and the SNAPgraph tool are given at the end of the chapter.

Final conclusions

The report ends with several conclusions, among which the following stand out:

1. Users can extract great value from Copernicus data but to do so they need to be familiar with the platforms involved and the necessary tools.
2. For most use cases, it is necessary to combine Copernicus data with in situ data. The Copernicus program itself uses data from ground-based sensors, for example, for calibration and validation of its products.

Spain's role in Copernicus

The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, through the National Geographic Institute, and the Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO) represent Spain in the Copernicus User Forum, for the monitoring and evolution of the program. In this interview Nuria Valcárcel, Deputy Assistant Director (Observation of the Territory) of the General Directorate of Geodesy and Cartography, in the D.G. National Geographic Institute (IGN) delves into the services of Copernicus and its usefulness in the economic and social field.

In datos.gob.es you can also find this other interview with Stéphane Ourevitch, founder of SpaceTec, who participated as a speaker at the Encuentro Aporta 2019, where he tells us about the usefulness of data for space observation and how the Copernicus program promotes entrepreneurship through actions such as hackathons.

Copernicus data are very useful all over the world. In our country, we also find multiple services and applications developed based on Copernicus data, some of which are collected in this article.

More than 2.5 billion tonnes. That is the amount of waste that, according to the European Union, is produced every year in the EU - although the specific figure is from 2016 -, with the consequent danger to the environment and our own future. This worrying situation is leading the European institutions to promote a change of model in waste management.

For years, waste management has been linear, i.e. natural resources are extracted, used to produce a certain good, consumed and then discarded. This system requires large amounts of energy and cheap, easily accessible materials. Part of this model are also practices such as programmed obsolescence, very common in the technological field, where the company "programs" the end of the useful life of the product, in such a way that after a certain period of time it stops working.

This linear model is not viable in the long term, which is why more and more people are calling for a change to a management based on the circular economy.

What is the circular economy?

Circular economy refers to an economic system that replaces the concept of 'end-of-life' with 'reduce, reuse, recycle and recover materials in the production, distribution and consumption processes'. In other words, instead of discarding products, they re-enter the production cycle, which contributes to creating environmental quality, economic prosperity and social equity for the benefit of current and future generations.

Through these actions, we can maximise the life cycle of products and minimise waste. When a product ceases to function, its materials can still be used to create new products and remain in the economy wherever possible.

There are many benefits to this practice, from reduced greenhouse gas emissions to financial savings for businesses and consumers, who can benefit from longer-lasting products.

How does open data contribute to fostering the circular economy?

As in other fields, information obtained through open data can help drive better decision-making on the efficient use of resources. Data can help train algorithms to predict certain trends and help citizens, administrations and businesses to implement the necessary measures to ensure a sustainable future.

In its article ‘Open Data and the Circular Economy’, the European Data Portal details 3 areas where open data has a major impact on the circular economy:

• A more sustainable food system. Open data can help solve logistical problems, improve efficiency and ensure food security. Data on production and distribution, temperature changes of products, rising water levels or mapping of deforestation can improve strategic decision-making to regulate supply and demand across Europe, avoiding over-consumption of resources. In this regard, an example is Smartchain's open data-based research, which aims to develop a shorter and more sustainable food supply chain.
• Efficient resource management and waste optimisation. The selective collection process and the use of the total capacity of recycling plants can be improved with the right information. In this regard, Santiago City Council has implemented a smart municipal solid waste collection system using IoT technology and machine learning algorithms enriched with open data. In this area, citizen awareness is also fundamental through apps such as EcoCity,  which monitors waste management in cities and sets a series of targets to improve urban recycling habits and reduce waste generation. Users can choose the recycling bin they want to monitor in their neighbourhood. If they detect any incidents with the registered bins, they can send a warning directly to the local council.
• Pollution reduction. Open data on contamination of the air or our seas helps to raise awareness of pollution and its health risks. This type of information can improve the decision-making process to protect the health of EU citizens and the environment through preventive measures, such as halting the expansion of London Heathrow Airport. Applications and visualisations such as the National Air Index, Aire.cat or this freshwater ecosystem explorer show indicators that raise awareness of the reality of our environment.

How Europe's circular economy is progressing

The European Commission presented last March 2020, in the framework of the European Green Pact, a new Circular Economy Action Plan which includes proposals on designing more sustainable products, reducing waste and empowering citizens (such as the "right to repair").

In addition, in order to effectively and efficiently implement the new sustainable products framework, the Commission is pursuing a number of data actions such as:

• Establish a common European Green Pact data space for smart applications with data on value chains and product information.
• Provide harmonised data on concentrations of microplastics in seawater.
• Cooperate with industry to develop harmonised systems for monitoring and managing information on hazardous substances, in synergy with measures under the sustainable product policy framework and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).
• Encourage the publication of environmental data by companies through the revision of the non-financial reporting directive.
• Support a business initiative to develop environmental accounting principles that complement financial data with circular economy performance data.
• In addition, Horizon Europe will support the development of indicators and innovative data, materials and products that help drive the circular economy.

In our country, the promotion of the circular economy is marked by the Spanish Circular Economy Strategy 2030 (EEEC), whose objectives for 2030 include reducing waste generation by 15% compared to 2010, improving water use efficiency by 10% and reducing greenhouse gas emissions to below 10 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

We live in a context of increasing demand for raw materials and scarcity of resources. Many raw materials are finite and, as the world's population increases, so does demand. The circular economy is therefore a key element for the optimal development of the future of the entire population. Within all the initiatives that are already underway, data can play a key role in increasing our knowledge and driving technologies that help all citizens to move towards a sustainable future.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

The open data ecosystem has been very active over the last few months. The year 2020 has ended with two important developments. The first, the Open Data Maturity Report published by the European Data Portal, where Spain has increased its overall position by 5% and remains among the leaders in the European sector.  The second is the new National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, which includes a series of actions related to open data.

But there are many more new developments that have taken place in recent months. In this article we tell you about some examples, both at national, local and regional level.

State initiatives related to open data

In addition to the publication of the Artificial Intelligence Strategy, in recent weeks the Plan for the Digitalization of Public Administrations 2021-2025 has also been presented, which will mobilize public investment of at least 2,600 million euros over the next three years. Among its points, the plan highlights "the importance of evolving the model of access to public and private information to promote high value-added services". To this end, it will build on the work carried out by the Aporta Initiative in the field of open data.

In addition to these strategic actions, it should be noted that some state agencies have taken advantage of the winter season to launch new projects linked to open data:

• The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda has published its mobility study with Big Data that characterizes mobility at national, autonomous community, provincial and local levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data generated in the study has been made available to citizens in open data format and has been used to develop a series of indicators.
• The Ministry of Tourism has launched 'Dataestur', a platform that collects basic data on tourism in Spain and from which you can access the various sources of tourism statistics from public and private organizations.

Local open data initiatives

During these last months, several municipalities and institutions have carried out initiatives related to open data, such as:

• The open data portal of the Government of Aragon launched a new chatbot service that makes it easier for citizens to access the information available in Aragon Open Data. Thanks to this, Aragonese people can be better informed and make use of the data in a more accessible way.
• The Community of Murcia creates 'Education in Open Government', a new educational program to bring concepts such as accountability and citizen participation closer to students.
• The City Council of Santiago de Compostela has developed and built new smart surface collectors for the characterization of organic solid waste, through the use of IoT technologies and algorithms trained with open data. This action allows it to advance on its path towards becoming a smart city.
• The Government of the Canary Islands launched its new open data portal, which has more than 7,500 data. Thanks to this, this portal has managed to become the single access point with the most public information data registered in all of Spain.
• The Community of Madrid has announced a new open data strategy to promote and strengthen the transparency of the administration and promote economic development based on knowledge, information and data.
• The Ronda City Council launches "Geoportal Ronda" a new spatial open data tool through which you can now consult all the geographic and urban information of the municipality.
• The City Council of Malaga has received recognition at the IDC Awards thanks to a municipal project that values open data and its uses to improve the quality of life of citizens. Specifically, the Consistory has been third in the category of 'Economic development and citizen engagement'.
• The Vigo City Council has also been awarded in the category 'Planning and administration' thanks to the Smart City VCI+ platform, which centralizes and structures the city's data to create a scorecard that allows a more efficient local management. The platform includes an open data portal so that citizens can consult municipal data in different formats and use them in professional and private environments.

International developments

Acabamos el repaso incluyendo algunos ejemplos de proyectos internacionales ligados con la materia:

We finish the review by including some examples of international projects related to the subject:

• The European Union is driving the EO4AGRI project, which seeks to use earth observation data from the Copernicus program to digitize the agricultural sector and adapt the CAP to the new times.
• The European Commission has launched a public consultation to gather feedback on public sector interoperability initiatives in the EU. The information gathered will feed into the evaluation of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF). The deadline for participation is April 27.
• An international expedition has created a dataset that collects information on the physical and biological dynamics of the Arctic to help better understand climate change. For the time being, this data will be used exclusively until January 1, 2023, when it will be published openly.
• China has unveiled a public data platform that makes it possible to check emission levels in real time to see which factories and institutions pollute the most.
• Argentina's Ministry of Tourism and Sports has launched an open data portal using Andino, a platform on top of CKAN.

These are just a few examples that can be found in the world of open data, but there are many more. If you know of any other interesting new developments that are of interest, you can mention them in the comments or send us an email to dinamización@datos.gob.es.

Last October, the Aporta Initiative, together with the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence and Red.es, launched the third edition of the Aporta Challenge. Under the slogan "The value of data in digital education", the aim was to reward ideas and prototypes capable of identifying new opportunities to capture, analyse and use data intelligence in the development of solutions in the field of education.

Among the proposals submitted in Phase I, there were a wide range of entries. From individuals to university academic teams, educational institutions and private companies, which have devised web platforms, mobile applications and interactive solutions with data analytics and machine learning techniques as protagonists.

A jury of renowned prestige has been in charge of evaluating the proposals submitted based on a series of public criteria. The 10 solutions selected as finalists are:

EducaWood

• Team: Jimena Andrade, Guillermo Vega, Miguel Bote, Juan Ignacio Asensio, Irene Ruano, Felipe Bravo and Cristóbal Ordóñez.

What is it?

EducaWood is a socio-semantic web portal that allows to explore the forest information of an area of the Spanish territory and to enrich it with tree annotations. Teachers can propose environmental learning activities contextualized to their environment. Students carry out these activities during field visits by means of tree annotations (location and identification of species, measurements, microhabitats, photos, etc.) through their mobile devices. In addition, EducaWood allows virtual field visits and remote activities with the available forestry information and annotations generated by the community, thus enabling its use by vulnerable groups and in Covid scenarios.

EducaWood uses sources such as the Spanish Forest Map, the National Forest Inventory or GeoNames, which have been integrated and republished as linked open data. The annotations generated by the students' activities will also be published as linked open data, thus contributing to community benefit.

Data Education. Innovation and Human Rights.

• Team: María Concepción Catalán, Asociación Innovación y Derechos Humanos (ihr.world).

What is it?

This proposal presents a data education web portal for students and teachers focused on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Its main objective is to propose to its users different challenges to be solved through the use of data, such as 'What were women doing in Spain in 1920' or 'How much energy is needed to maintain a farm of 200 pigs'.

This initiative uses data from various sources such as the UN, the World Bank, Our World in Data, the European Union and each of its countries. In the case of Spain, it uses data from datos.gob.es and INE, among others.

UniversiDATA-Lab

• Team: Rey Juan Carlos University, Complutense University of Madrid, Autonomous University of Madrid, Carlos III University of Madrid and DIMETRICAL The Analytics Lab S.L.

What is it?

UniversiDATA-Lab is a public and open portal whose function is to host a catalog of advanced and automatic analyses of the datasets published in the UniversiDATA portal, and which is the result of the collaborative work of universities. It arises as a natural evolution of the current "laboratory" section of UniversiDATA, opening the scope of potential analysis to all present and future datasets/universities, in order to improve the aspects analysed and encourage universities to be laboratories of citizenship, providing a differential value to society.

All the datasets that universities are publishing or will publish in UniversiDATA are potentially usable to carry out in-depth analyses, always considering the respect for the protection of personal data. The specific sources of the analyses will be published on GitHub to encourage the collaboration of other users to contribute improvements.

LocalizARTE

• Team: Pablo García, Adolfo Ruiz, Miguel Luis Bote, Guillermo Vega, Sergio Serrano, Eduardo Gómez, Yannis Dimitriadis, Alejandra Martínez and Juan Ignacio Asensio.

What is it?

This web application pursues the learning of art history through different educational environments. It allows students to visualize and perform geotagged tasks on a map. Teachers can propose new tasks, which are added to the public repository, as well as select the tasks that may be more interesting for their students and visualize the ones they perform. On the other hand, a mobile version of LocalizARTE will be developed in the future, in which the user will need to be close to the place where the tasks are geotagged in order to perform them.

The open data used in the first version of LocalizARTE comes from the list of historical monuments of Castilla y León, DBpedia, Wikidata, Casual Learn SPARQL and OpenStreetMap.

Study PISA data and datos.gob.es

• Team: Antonio Benito, Iván Robles and Beatriz Martínez.

What is it?

This project is based on the creation of a dashboard that allows to view information from the PISA report, conducted by the OECD, or other educational assessments along with data provided by datos.gob.es of socioeconomic, demographic, educational or scientific scope. The objective is to detect which aspects favour an increase in academic performance using a machine learning model, so that effective decision-making can be carried out. The idea is that schools themselves can adapt their educational practices and curricula to the learning needs of students to ensure greater success.

This application uses various open data from  INE, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training or PISA Spain.

Big Data in Secondary Education... and Secondary in Education

• Team: Carmen Navarro, Nazaret Oporto School.

What is it?

This proposal pursues two objectives: on the one hand, to improve the training of secondary school students in digital skills, such as the control of their digital profiles on the Internet or the use of open data for their work and projects. On the other hand, the use of data generated by students in an e-learning platform such as Moodle to determine patterns and metrics to personalize learning. All of this is aligned with the SDGs and the 20-30 Agenda.

Data used for its development come from the WHO and the datathon "Big Data in the fight against obesity", where several students proposed measures to mitigate global obesity based on the study of public data.

DataLAB: the Data Lab in Education

• Team: iteNlearning, Ernesto Ferrández Bru.

What is it?

Data obtained with empirical Artificial Intelligence techniques such as big data or machine learning offer correlations, not causes. iteNleanring bases its technology on scientific models with evidence, as well as on data (from sources such as INE or the Basque Institute of Statistics - Eustat). These data are curated in order to assist teachers in decision making, once DataLAB identifies the specific needs of each student.

DataLAB Mathematics is a professional educational tool that, based on neuropsychological and cognitive models, measures the level of neurodevelopment of the specific cognitive processes developed by each student. This generates an educational scorecard that, based on data, informs us of the specific needs of each person (high ability, dyscalculia...) so that they can be enhanced and/or reinforced, allowing an evidence-based education.

The value of podcasting in digital education

• Team: Adrián Pradilla Pórtoles and Débora Núñez Morales.

What is it?

2020 has been the year in which podcasts have taken off as a new digital format for the consumption of different areas of information. This idea seeks to take advantage of the boom of this tool to use it in the educational field so that students can learn in a more enjoyable and different way.

The proposal includes the official syllabus of secondary or university education, as well as competitive examinations, which can be obtained from open data sources and official websites. Through natural language processing technologies, these syllabi are associated with existing audios of teachers on history, English, philosophy, etc. on platforms such as iVoox or Spotify, resulting in a list of podcasts by course and subject.

The data sources used for this proposal include the Public Employment Offer of Castilla La Mancha or the educational competences in different stages.

MIPs Project

• Team: Aday Melián Carrillo, Daydream Software.

What is it?

A MIP (Marked Information Picture) is a new interactive information tool, consisting of a series of interactive layers on static images that facilitate the retention of information and the identification of elements.

This project consists of a service for creating MIPs quickly and easily by manually drawing regions of interest on any image imported through the web. The created MIPs will be accessible from any device and have multiple applications as a teaching, personal and professional resource.

In addition to manual creation, the authors have implemented an automatic GeoJSON to MIP data converter in Python. As a first step, they have developed a MIP of Spanish provinces from this public database.

FRISCHLUFT

• Team: Harut Alepoglian and Benito Cuezva, German School Cultural Association, Zaragoza.

What is it?

The Frischluft (Fresh Air) project is a hardware and software solution for measuring environmental parameters in the school. It aims to improve the thermal comfort of the classrooms and increase the protection of the students through intelligent ventilation, while consolidating a tractor project that drives the digital transformation of the school.

This proposal uses data sources from Zaragoza City Council on CO2 levels in the urban environment of the city and international data repositories to measure global emissions, which are compared through statistical techniques and machine learning models.

Next steps

All of these ideas have been able to capture how to best use data intelligence to develop real solutions in the education sector. The finalists now have 3 months to develop a prototype. The three prototypes that receive the best evaluation from the jury, according to the established evaluation criteria, will be awarded 4,000, 3,000 and 2,000 euros respectively.

Good luck to all participants!