Documentación
A few months ago we published a compilation of the main reports, studies, success stories and courses published by the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN). This body seeks the proactive sharing of freely accessible data to make information on agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable.
To achieve this goal, GODAN has different teams that work in a coordinated manner for a common goal. One of them is the Capacity Development Work Group, focused on promoting open data knowledge (ongoing initiatives, innovations and good practices), as well as the development of new capacities. All of them to guarantee a more effective accessibility, use, engagement and understanding of open data.
In 2017, this group launched Godan webinar services, in order to offer a series of webinars organized in collaboration with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation (CTA). The videos, which last between 40 minutes and one hour, help to delve into different concepts: they explain how an open data initiative on agriculture should work, or how to tell stories with data to raise organizations and citizens’ awareness. Some of the organizations that have participated in the preparation of the contents are the Open Data Institute (ODI), Wageningen UR or The Land Portal Foundation, among others.
Here are some of the resources that can be found in Godan webinar services:
| Title | Content |
|---|---|
| Publishing open data from an organisational point of view | This webinar tries to answer a series of basic questions: Why is it necessary to publish open data? What benefit can publishing open data bring to the organization? Why are licenses important? How to start with publishing open data? |
| The Agriculture Open Data Package (AgPack) | In 2016, 4 agencies (GODAN, ODI, Open Data Charter and OD4D) developed the Agricultural Open Data Package (AgPack), which included 14 categories of datasets whose opening could have an important impact for the agricultural sector. This webinar shows detailed examples and use cases of governments that have achieved success in this area. |
| Effective data communication using data visualisations | Visualizations can help reveal, in a simple way, agriculture and nutrition trends to support decision making. This webinar explains the process of creating a good infographic, demonstrate some visualization software and reflects on how infographics are being applied for open data for agriculture and nutrition. |
| The Gender and Open Data Intersection | This webinar provides an analysis of open data from a gender perspective: from the current state of the question, to the challenges to overcome. The webinar ends with a series of recommendations to pave the way forward. |
| Agricultural Development: Role of Open Data in Ending Poverty | Open data can help end extreme poverty, end hunger and reduce inequalities. This webinar seeks to boost the capacity of states to openly share data and statistics for decision making. |
| Facilitating Standards and Impact Webinar | This webinar addresses the standards and impact evaluations of open data, with a special focus on weather data. Among other topics, the speakers analyse the trends and major gaps in the availability and use of weather data standards, followed by recommendations on how to make existing data standards more usable or how to develop services that facilitate the use of standards. All this through examples and success stories. |
| Farmers rights on data and ownership issues | Data ownership and privacy are two of the challenges of smart agriculture. This webinar tries to inform farmers about their rights from a legal perspective. |
| Unlocking the Potential of Blockchain for Agriculture | This webinar provides an overview of blockchain and analyzes its impact on agriculture, through examples and success stories in specific areas. The webinar also explains what capabilities people need to work with this technology. |
| Measuring the impact of open data initiatives in agriculture & nutrition | This webinar explains the methodology that GODAN uses to measure the impact of an open data initiative. Its evaluation framework focus on earlier stage assessment, as this offers better options to design new and, monitor and steer ongoing initiatives. |
In addition to these more general webinars, Godan webinar services also offers specific resources, where different initiatives tell their experience when publishing or reusing open data on agriculture and nutrition. An example is the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), which shows some of the projects in which it is involved in one of the videos.
In short, whether you are a public body that wants to start or consolidate an open data initiatives on agriculture, or a reuser looking for examples and success stories to inspire you, Godan webinar services can provide resources and information of interest.
Documentación
Why are open data important? What is their relationship with open government? How can I start an initiative of this kind? Who can I take as a reference? These are some of the questions that the Open Data Guide: Publication and reuse of Open Data as an initiative of Open Government in the Administration tries to answer
Prepared by the Ministry of Development and Environment of the Junta de Castilla y León, this guide is part of the Rural Digital Community (CRD), a collaboration project between Public Administrations of Portugal and Spain. The objective of the project is to improve the technological innovation of rural institutions, promoting cooperation and competitiveness.
The guide is divided into 5 sections: introduction to open data, current status of open government and open data, open data implementation , innovative solutions and success stories, and conclusions.
In the first introductory section, perfect for those unfamiliar with the open data world, some basic concepts are reviewed. The report focuses on open government as a sociopolitical mode of interaction based on 4 pillars - transparency, accountability, participation and collaboration - which can be promoted and improved thanks to open data. All this is explained in this section, which also describes the principles that data must meet to be considered open.
Next, the report address the current situation of open government and open data in Spain, Portugal and Europe, including existing regulations. In the case of Spain, the report highlights the existence of almost 300 initiatives, included in the initiatives map of datos.gob.es, as well as more than 660 companies that reuse information, with a business volume higher than 1,700 million euros per year. These data, together with the good position of Spain in the European Open Data Maturity Landscaping 2018 report, show the good momentum of open data in our country.
The third section of the report focuses on the implementation of open data in an organization. To facilitate this process, the authors of the guide have drawn up a plan with a series of stages that are detailed in the report:
Finally, the report shows several examples of innovative solutions and success stories, based on 2 criteria:
- Examples of open data portals, which stand out for their functionality, such as Aragon Open Data or the download center of the National Geographic Institute (IGN), among others.
- Examples of good practices regarding reuse, due to their innovative nature and the economic or social value they generate. Examples of different sectors are included, such as real estate (TerceroB), meteorological (Meteogrid), public procurement (EuroAlert) or data journalism and public transparency (Civio).
The report concludes with a series of conclusions, such as the need to improve the training of both public employees who are immersed in data opening and companies and individuals to promote the use and analysis of data.
Below you can download the full report and delve into all of these sections.
Documentación
In 2017, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) published the guide "Open data: strategic guide for its implementation and minimum datasets to be published", which included a series of recommendations and guidelines for public data opening with the aim of driving its publication and reuse. In addition to information related to legal framework or governance model, the guide also included 20 datasets considered as "the most interesting, possible and easier to publish by public administrations".
After the guide success, the FEMP has continued working on expanding these datasets, identifying 20 new ones that will make possible to standardize the publication of open data and facilitate its management. For this, the FEMP count on the help of a multidisciplinary working group where different interest groups were represented: cities, citizens, companies, universities and public bodies.
The result is a new document, entitled Open Data FEMP 2019: 40 datsets to be published by the Local Entities, whose objective is to provide a "common open data model that facilitates interoperability and the reuse of public sector information", as well as to bring Spanish local entities’ commitment to normalize open data closer to the international community.
This new guide addresses not only what datasets should be published by local entities, but also how they should be published to make them more useful for citizens and reusers. Using different tabs - one for each recommended dataset – the report indicated the recommended format or update frequency when publishing each dataset. The guide also indicates each dataset reuse value or complexity (based on a scale from 1 to 5), as well as some recommended visualization to make easier citizens access to information.
The document is mainly oriented to medium to large cities, although smaller municipalities can also use it as a knowledge framework. It can help companies, citizens, universities, entrepreneurs, researchers, data journalists, students, etc. interested in the subject, although, the roles that can make the most of the information are:
- Those responsible for developing or that have to develop open data policies.
- Those responsible for Open Government policies (transparency, participation, accountability, collaboration).
- Those responsible for the development of Information Technology.
- Those responsible for "Smart Cities" and Innovation projects.
The following image shows which are the 40 datasets recommended in the document:
Here you can download the full report (in Spanish, with an executive summary in English):
Documentación
The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative, known by the acronym GODAN, aims to support "the proactive sharing of open data to make information about agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable." To this end, GODAN fosters dialogue and cooperation in agricultural activities between more than 760 members, including governments, private companies, international organizations or NGOs.
Through different working groups, GODAN contributes to share ideas and experiences to solve key problems and challenges in the agriculture and nutrition sectors, using open data. Some of these challenges are ridding the world of famine, ensuring food security, improving nutrition or facilitating sustainable agriculture.
In order to help more companies, organizations and citizens to be aware of the importance of open data to solve these challenges, GODAN promotes the creation and dissemination of resources that drive both providers and users reflection on agricultural open data. Among these documents, we can find:
- Reports, which analyze different challenges and include recommendations or good practices aimed at enriching the available information about agriculture and nutrition, encouraging their analysis and reuse.
- Success stories, which can be used as an example for those organizations interested in being part of this ecosystem, but do not know how to take advantage of open data to generate new initiatives that add value to the sector and solve the aforementioned challenges.
- Courses aimed at strengthening data producers and consumers capacity to manage and use open data in agriculture and nutrition sector.
We have compiled some of these resources, described in the following table:
| Document type | Title | Content |
|---|---|---|
|
Reports |
Ownership of Open Data: Governance Options for Agriculture and Nutrition |
Moving to a model where data is open as a standard requires a change in legal, social and technological context, and this will have an impact on data ownership. To achieve this goal, the report analyzes the underlying rights and possible governance systems, such as the inter-organizational statute of open data, laws and policies, social certification schemes, etc. |
| A Global Data Ecosystem for Agriculture and Food | This study tackles open data sourcing and handling cycle, from the point of view of both users and providers, analyzing the challenges to be solved and the roadmap to build an ecosystem for global agricultural data. Among the proposals included in the report, we can find the provision of incentives and the promotion of trust between providers and users. To achieve this goal, a cultural and technological change will be necessary, as well as improvements in data quality, origin and access. | |
| Responsible Data in Agriculture | The report explores how inequalities between large agricultural corporations and small local producers could be reduced, to guarantee fair access to information. With this objective, they spoke to 14 individuals with different perspectives to understand their main challenges. The report concludes with a series of good practices, which include education and awareness actions, policies reviews or the prioritization of contextual considerations. |
|
| Success Stories | GODAN Success Stories - Issue 1 |
This report, published in 2016, explains different examples of open data projects and initiatives linked to agriculture and nutrition field. Through different stories, we can learn how to extract value from satellite images or how to improve land registration transparency, among other issues. |
| GODAN Success Stories - Issue 2 | The second part of the report was published one year later, with new success stories. In this case, we can find examples as FOODIE, a European initiative that seeks to solve agriculture challenges thank to geospatial data, or BOER & BUNDER, a web application that uses algorithms to extract data value, using simple visualizations to show the results. | |
| Curses | Open Data Management in Agriculture and Nutrition | Free online course with different calls throughout the year. Its objective is to promote agricultural and nutritional knowledge networks in different institutions, raise awareness of different types of data formats, explain possible use cases and highlight important it is for data to be reliable, accessible and transparent. |
To learn more about GODAN resources, you can visit their website publications section. In this section, which is periodically updated with new publications, users will find more documents and reports related to open data in agriculture. The dissemination of these contents can help develop high-level policies, and support the private sector for opening more data, which is fundamental to overcome important challenges for humanity.
Documentación
The amount of data we generate does not stop growing. 90% of the data created in the history of humanity were produced during the last year and a 40% annual growth is estimated for the next decade. These figures highlight the importance of data in today's economy and society. The data provide us with knowledge, which facilitate to make the right decisions at the right time.
To optimize the advantages that the use of data can bring to our day to day, an increasing number of organizations and companies are implementing new technologies that help to improve their management and obtain greater value. The report New trends and challenges in the data world analyzes some of these technological and social trends that are revolutionizing the world of data. These technologies are big data and artificial intelligence, decision algorithms, internet of things and blockchain.
The following are some of the main conclusions of the report:
Big Data and Artificial Intelligence
- What is it? The analysis of large volumes of data, from different sources and with different formats, in real time, acquires a new dimension combined with artificial intelligence technologies, which apply reason guidelines to data.
- What are its advantages? Thanks to these technologies, companies and organizations can better understand the current and future functioning of their environment, and face the challenges at the right time. The combination of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data can boost economic growth, respond to citizens needs and optimize public services. In addition, it can contribute to the strengthening of democracy.
- What are its challenges? The lack of talent with the necessary skills, the limitation in current infrastructures and the privacy protection are the main challenges that organizations have to face when implementing a Big Data initiative.
The decision algorithms
- What is it? These are automated agents capable of extracting value from a large volume of data in an agile and efficient way, facilitating automatic decision making.
- What are its advantages? Decision algorithms allow more efficient, transparent and equitable decision making.
- What are its challenges? Among the challenges faced by people in charge of algorithms management is ensuring the quality and availability of data through controls and audits, as well as ensuring their integrity, ethics and independence.
Internet of Things
- What is it? When we talk about Internet of Things (IoT) we refer to a network of connected objects, by wireless or cable, capable of generating data without human intervention.
- What are its advantages? IoT facilitates processes automation and provides new and multiple forms of interaction that contribute to improving universality and accessibility to services.
- What are its challenges? The main inhibitors of IoT are security and privacy, interoperability and the need for new infrastructures. It is also important to bear in mind that IoT can contribute to increasing the existing gap between different social classes according to their possibilities of data and services access.
Blockchain
- What is it? Blockchain is a distributed database that controls the transfer of digital information. That is, a kind of account book where the records are encrypted and interleaved, so change in one of the blocks affects the others.
- What are its advantages? Its main advantage is the security and privacy of information, the integrity, the sustainability, the transparency and the (quasi) anonymity. This will allow us to transform our political system and enable profound social changes.
- What are its challenges?
- The lack of qualified talent, the regulatory changes, the electronic security of citizens and the limits on institutions ability to adapt the new enviroment are the main challenges highlighted in the report.
Thanks to Big Data and artificial intelligence, decision algorithms, Internet of Things or Blockchain, organizations and companies can extract the necessary value from the data, which will help them to improve services and products for citizens. Although these four technologies are still in a phase of incipient adoption, they are expected to grow rapidly over the next few years, once the above-mentioned challenges are overcome - if you want to delve into these challenges you can read the report New trends and challenges in the world of data.
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As a result of transparency and citizen participation demand, an increasing number of towns are focus on initiatives that facilitate citizen access to institutions and administrations´ information. However, defining, implementing and documenting an open data policy could be a challenging issue. Some of the most frequently asked questions by agents involved in these initiatives are:
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Which data are more strategic and which fundamental aspect should be consider at publishing?
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How could I facilitate datasets integration from different sources?
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What is the regulatory framework?
In this context, AENOR elaborated the Technical Standard UNE 178301: 2015. It provides a series of recommendations to standardize open data publication and improve data management. This Technical Standard includes a list of 11 datasets considered a priority by AENOR: shops catalog, cultural agenda, population (municipal census), air quality, contracts, initial budget and budget in execution, public parking, regular bus, traffic situation, tourist interest points and street guide.
In addition, Technical Standard UNE 178301: 2015 includes recommended vocabulary to optimize data publication, framed within Linked Data paradigm (a set of best practices, articulated through W3C standard technologies). The objective is to facilitate the development of a data website where different elements can be linked, simplifying navigation and data location, within a common international framework.
The report "Open data representation vocabulary in Digital Cities" provides an analysis of this Technical Standard. It include the description of each dataset, potential use cases and legislative framework- when applicable–, and common publication formats. In addition, the report includes an assessment of AENOR´s semantic proposal adequacy and development degree.
Documentación
Although, nowadays more and more data sources are available, this does not imply that they are easy to use. In fact, multiple barriers hinder their access and reuse, reducing their quality.
Iniciativa Aporta publishes the Practical Manual to improve Open Data Quality; a handbook that proposes how to measure such quality, while reviewing the most frequent faults and practical recommendations to avoid them: rigid search tools; very limited, fragmented and outdated data; non-standardized formats, differentiated access according to the user or omission in data licenses, among others.
However, since open data quality is not only defined through the attributes of the data, the document also addresses how some reference datasets should be published, according to the recommendations developed by the Web Foundation and Open Knowledge International, belonging to three areas of knowledge:
- Accountability
- Social politics
- Innovation
In this final section, details are included about the strengths, weaknesses, reference standards, national data as well as a list of high quality datasets published by other countries in each area.
The Practical Manual to improve Open Data Quality is conceived as an support material for those new or existing open data initiatives that seek to improve the services offered to the community through quality and reusable information.
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The Iniciativa Aporta publishes the Guide to publish open data quickly and easily (with CKAN); a handbook that shows how to articulate an open data project without the need of extensive knowledge or prior experience in the opening of public sector information. In addition, this material includes a set of graphs, explanatory and visual tables designed to facilitate the understanding of the guidelines of the document.
The guide is structured so in the first part of the document, guidelines and recommendations are provided to locate and prepare the data for its opening, to subsequently show in detail how they are published on the web using the open source tool CKAN.
Documentación
The public sector is not only a large supplier of open data but also one of the largest users and beneficiaries of the opening of government data. The report ‘The value of open data for the Government’ that we published on Datos.gob.es outlines a large number of examples of how the government could see benefits in various areas and rely on the data for feedback and to reflect, cooperate, understand, optimise, and learn.
The creation of an open database in Japan to improve support for victims of the devastating earthquake in 2011, the early warning system to detect trends in diseases or epidemics launched by the Korean government, the portal for the quality of teaching in public schools in Brazil that drew on data from the Ministry of Education, the buildings in France in order to optimise supply, and the large global database of companies presented by Open Corporates are excellent examples of how to make public administration more agile and efficient by making good use of data.
El sector público no es únicamente un gran proveedor de datos abiertos, sino que es también uno de los mayores usuarios y beneficiarios de la apertura de los datos gubernamentales. El informe “El valor de los datos abiertos para la Administración” que publicamos en Datos.gob.es hace un recorrido por un buen número de ejemplos de cómo la administración puede beneficiarse en distintas áreas y apoyarse en los datos para retroalimentarse, reflexionar, colaborar, comprender, optimizar y aprender.
La creación de una base de datos abiertos en Japón para mejorar la asistencia a las víctimas del gran terremoto de 2011; el servicio de alarma temprana para detectar tendencias sobre enfermedades o epidemias puesto en marcha por el gobierno de Corea; el portal sobre la calidad de la enseñanza en las escuelas públicas de Brasil con datos procedentes del ministerio de educación; el estudio sobre los datos de consumo eléctrico en los edificios públicos de Francia para optimizar el suministro o la gran base de datos global de empresas que nos ofrece Open Corporates son grandes ejemplos de cómo lograr una administración pública más ágil y eficiente a través de un buen uso de los datos.
The report highlights how the use of open data improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the government itself through better planning of available resources, collaboration between different departmental areas, scrutiny of the correct use of resources, improvements in the interoperability of data and processes, as well as the adoption of standards that facilitate the sharing and storage of data.
It also emphasises that the use of such open data drives public innovation by contributing to the identification of patterns that help decision-making, to more active development and implementation of public policies, and the improvement of data quality thanks to public feedback.
The attached Report can be downloaded in PDF, Word, and ODT format.
Documentación
Together with the Report on the Infomediary Sector Characterization 2016, the National Observatory of Telecommunications and the Public Information Society has published a report on success stories and best practices in the re-use of public information, based on the selection and subsequent study of eleven national companies.
In the elaboration of this document, all the companies belonging to the Spanish infomediary sector were taken into account, selecting and interviewing those ones that fulfilled in the most optimal way with the criteria of innovation, effectiveness, sustainability and replicability.
Through the qualitative analysis of their activities, the report draws conclusions that characterize the infomediary sector in Spain and also includes where the most relevant information related to the added value services and products based on the re-use of public information is shown.