open data

On too many occasions, open data initiatives are born in governments as purely technical projects whose purpose is simply creating a data catalog, when, in reality, they should be seen as collaborative transformation projects that take place within complex and variable environments, in which the ultimate purpose is not entirely clear and the coordinating entities - the public administration in this case - do not have all the resources to generate the necessary change by themselves.

In fact, in order to exploit its full potential, open data must be able to count on a healthy and balanced ecosystem that sustains and nourish it. The data will be no more than the common platform on which this ecosystem supports and which provides the raw material necessary for it to nourish and evolve.

Therefore, one of the keys to the success (or failure) of any open data initiative will be its ability to create and evolve an active community of users around published data, establishing permanent communication and collaboration mechanisms that enable processes of feedback and co-creation throughout the process.

It is also important that these processes are established for the multiple actors that should be part of that ecosystem:

• Public sector: including all levels of the administration and whose role will be to provide political support, ensure long-term sustainability, provide strategic direction at the highest level, guide implementation, create standards, set the agenda or give support.

• Non-governmental organizations: focused mainly on using data as a tool for their different activities, raising awareness about the real value behind data, monitoring relevant policies and demanding greater data availability and participation guarantees.

• Civic hackers: they will use their most technical knowledge to transform the data and make sense for the different audiences.

• Media: whose role is to use data to inform, do investigative journalism and tell stories through data that reaches citizens more directly.

• University and Research institutions: using data not only to develop theoretical concepts and frameworks, but also applied research to create new products and services through data and innovation.

• Private sector: generating value and business based on data, providing the necessary data infrastructures, collaborating to facilitate opening processes and contributing their own data to enrich the ecosystem.

And given that the key is in the ecosystem, how will we then build a successful ecosystem? For example, we can look at the ten lessons shared by pioneers of the Internet, the largest and most successful social ecosystem to date thanks to collaboration:

1. Let everyone play: attract new resources and generate new ideas.
2. Play nice: a common mistake will be to reduce potential participation by putting serious barriers to entry to avoid low quality contributions, vandalism, etc.
3. Talk about what you are doing while you are doing it: improve understanding and participation, avoid overlaps and build trust.
4. Use multiple channels of communication: do not focus solely on the Web.
5. Give it away: do not reserve what you know and learn.
6. Reach for the edges: you will need that vision when the most complicated problems appear.
7. Make it work, then make it better: you will need the participation of everyone with different interests and incentives.
8. Design for participation: divide the work into manageable tasks that are easy to do and invite to get involved.
9. Increase network impact: a community model based on a network of nodes that interact with each other will lead to exponential growth.
10. Build platforms: help people and organizations coordinate so they are more productive together.

“If you focus on avoiding people to make wrong things (with data), you will also avoid them to make right ones", – Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia cofounder. 

The final impact that can be obtained through an open data initiative will ultimately depend on multiple interrelated factors that will be present (or absent) in these initiatives. That is why the GovLab of New York University has analyzed these factors thanks to the study of the several use cases collected by their project about the open data impact throughout the world, even ellaborating a periodic table of the enabling elements of the impact.

These elements  have been finally classified into five main categories, reviewing the different sections below.

Definition of the problem and the associated data demand

Obtaining a better anticipated knowledge of the problems we wish to solve and the data demand needed to be solved  is a logical first step to obtain the desired impact. The elements that go into action in this category are:

• In-depth analysis of future users and optimization regarding their needs from the beginning of the project.

• Definition of causes and context, clearly distinguishing among the causes of the origin of the problems we intend to address and the simple symptoms caused by these same problems.

• Refinement through the decomposition of the problem in each one of the factors that define it.

• Definition of the benefits and objectives expected to be carry out the subsequent measurement of their degree of achievement.

• Audit of the data necessary to carry out the proposed value proposition and inventory of the data actually existing in this regard.

Capacity and civil and institutional culture

The lack of knowledge or of the minimum technological and management capacities could give rise to a barrier difficult to overcome when obtaining the expected impact. The elements that are part of this category include:

• The minimum elements of hardware and software that constitute the data infrastructures necessary to to provide access and enable their use.
• Human capital, public services and elements of civil society that constitute the essential public infrastructure to guarantee the availability of data in a healthy ecosystem.
• The level of digital literacy and the degree of internet penetration necessary to take advantage of the available data.
• Cultural or institutional barriers as regards openness that could act as a brake on the publication or expansion of open data.
• The existence of the necessary technical knowledge and skills to take advantage of the data.
• The feedback channels enabled when collecting the experiences of the users and final beneficiaries of the data.
• Availability of the necessary resources to guarantee the sustainability and availability in the long term of the data already shared.

Data gobernance 

The diversity among the different governance models regarding the publication standards and policies is another clearly differentiating variable when talking about impact. The elements that are part of this category include:

• Development of performance metrics that inform the decisions to be taken in the opening projects through the different iterations.
• Control of risks that could affect the privacy of the data or sensitive information to prevent unwanted disclosure. 
• Open data by default as a guiding principle of the existing strategy and policies to guarantee political commitment at the highest level.
• Free access to information and other policies that work as necessary pillars on which to build open data projects.
• Measures to ensure a minimum quality of the published data so they are sufficiently precise and updated to be able to take advantage of them.
• Authentic ability to respond to the changing reactions and needs of data users.

Collaboration with other ecosysten agents 

Collaborations with all types of organizations and individuals that are part of the data ecosystem play a fundamental role to face a successful open data process. The elements that are part of this category include:

• Establish close connections with data managers, both public and private, is a good strategy to address the gaps in the data with their help.
• Domain experts that provide the specific knowledge required when working in specific and well-defined sectors.
• Collaborations with other individuals and related organizations regarding the opening philosophy.

Risk management

An open data will always be exposed to a certain level of risks that must be identified and adequately addressed. The elements that are part of this category include:

• Privacy problems for which it will be necessary to guarantee the data anonymization against the different techniques of individual identification.
• Non-intrusive data security techniques to protect sensitive information against unwanted exposure but without compromising the opening up of other data.
• Problems in decision making due to being based on incorrect or incomplete information.
• Deepening the power asymmetry in the face of the inability to access data by some marginalized groups for the benefit of a privileged minority.
• Use of open data as a simple image clearing instead of pursuing a true transformative change.

Although there are obviously other contextual variables that will affect our chances of success in each specific case, working on the elements previously seen will undoubtedly have a positive effect on the final impact of our open data initiatives.

One of the main barriers to the deployment of linked data is the difficulty that data editors have to determine which vocabularies to use to describe their semantics. These vocabularies provide the "semantic glue" that allows simple data to become "meaningful data".

Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV) is a catalog of vocabularies available for reuse with the aim of describing data on the Web. LOV collects metadata and makes visible indicators such as the connection among different vocabularies, version history, maintenance policies, together with past and current references (both to individuals and organizations). The name of this initiative (Linked Open Vocabularies - LOV) has its root in the term Linked Open Data - LOD.

The main goal of LOV is helping the editors of linked data  and vocabularies to evaluate the resources (vocabularies, classes, properties and agents) already available and thus promote the highest possible reuse, appart from providing a way for the publishers to add their own creations.

LOV began in 2011 under the Datalift research project and hosted by Open Knowledge International (formerly known as Open Knowledge Foundation). Currently the initiative has the support of a small team of data curators / reviewers and programmers.

To facilitate the reuse of well-documented vocabularies (with metadata), several ways to access the data are provided:

• Through a user interface, with a browsing environment and searches (the web page itself).
• Through a SPARQL endpoint to make queries to the knowledge graph.
• Through a API REST.
• By means of a data dump, both from the knowledge base of LOV (in Notation3 format), as well as from the knowledge base plus the vocabularies themselves (in N-Quads) format).

Currently, the registry identifies and lists:

• 621 vocabularies (RDF vocabularies -RDFS / OWL- defined as schemas (T-Box) for the description of Linked Data)
• About 60,000 terms (between classes and properties).
• Nearly 700 agents (creators, contributors or publishers, and both people and organizations)

Among all the vocabularies, 34 has a term in Spanish, which allows a wide field of work for the Spanish community. 

LOV is a clear example of the importance of correctly documenting vocabularies with metadata. The value of metadata lies in its ability to classify and organize information in the most efficient way, providing greater intelligence and knowledge of superior quality, which facilitates and drives automation initiatives, review of compliance, collaboration, open data and much more .

Open data has great potential to improve transparency and accountability or to enhance public services and the creation of new services, but at the same time they also show a less friendly face by increasing our vulnerability and exposing information increasingly more detailed that is not always used to our benefit. This increasingly abundant personal information conveniently combined can lead to final personal identification or even to sophisticated mass control tools if the necessary measures are not taken to avoid it. Practically every aspect of our lives offers examples of that double positive and negative slope:

• On one hand, precision medicine offers great advances in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, but it will be necessary to collect and analyze a large amount of information about patients.

• The data has also revolutionized the way we travel through cities thanks to the multitude of applications available and these same data are also very useful in urban planning, but usually at the cost of sharing virtually all our movements. 

• In the educational context, the data can offer learning experiences more adapted to the different profiles and needs, although  it will again be necessary to expose sensitive data about the academic files.

Personal data is everywhere: every time we use social networks, when we shop online or offline, when we do an online search, every time we send an email or a message... Today we keep much more personal information on our phones than we used to keep in our personal journals. New challenges such as the large amount of data that digital cities manage about their citizens also require new practical approaches to guarantee the security and privacy of these data.

Moreover, as technology continues advancing so fast, it can become really difficult to guarantee that the future privacy of our data will be maintained unchanged, due to the multiple possibilities offered by the interconnection of all this data. Therefore, it seems that in this new world guided by data, it will also be necessary to begin to rethink the future of a new economy based on personal data, a new way of managing our identities and digital data and the new data markets associates.

The privacy problem in the management of personal data has only just begun and it is here to stay as part of our digital identities. Not only do we need a new legal framework and new standards that adapt to current times and protect our data, but we have to make an effort to raise awareness and educate a whole new generation about the importance of online privacy. Our data belongs to us and we should be able to retake and maintain full control over them and be able to guarantee that they will be used only with our explicit consent. Some pioneering initiatives are already working in key areas such as health, energy or social media to return control of the data to their real owners.

People, governments, economy, infrastructure, environment ... all these elements come together in our cities and they have to make the most of the constant flow of data on their streets to be more efficient. Analysis of the efficiency of services, monitoring of investment, improvement of public transport, participation and collaboration with citizens, reduction of waste or prevention of natural disasters are just some of the multiple examples of innovation in cities driven by data that  how local governments are getting better services and improving the quality of life of their citizens thanks to the openness and better exploitation of their data.

From finding a parking space to discover new leisure places or simply move around the city. The applications that facilitate us day by day are already part of the usual urban landscape. At the same time, the data is also transforming the cities little by little  and offers us an alternative vision of them through the definition of new virtual neighborhoods based on the footprint we are leaving with our actions and our data.

Hyperconnected cities, driven by data, managed by artificial intelligence and inhabited by a greater number of robots than humans will no longer be exclusive to science fiction movies and series, but real projects in the middle of the desert with already defined plans that have been launched in search of diversification and with the aim of transforming and renewing economies that are too dependent on the old oil ironically thanks to the supposed new oil of the data. Returning for a moment to the present, we also find examples of how this transformation through data is real and is happening in such tangible cases as the prevention of crimes and the reduction of violence in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

But not all expectations are so optimistic, since the transformative vision that some technology companies have for our neighborhoods also generates serious doubts, not only about how our most personal data will be managed and who will actually be the othe that have access and control over them, but also on the supposed transforming power of the data itself.

Right now the only thing that seems to be totally clear is that the role of data in the transformation of cities and citizens of the immediate future will be essential and we must find our own way halfway between the most optimistic and the most pessimistic visions to define what we understand as the new paradigm of Smart Cities, but always with a focus on the human element and not only on purely technological aspects and with participation and co-creation as key elements.

Most likely, most of us will know, or at least have heard of blockchain technology, because of its relationship with the most popular cryptocurrency nowadays - Bitcoin. However, blockchain is not a technology born solely to sustain this new digital economy, but like many other blockchain technologies its main purpose is storing and managing data chains in a decentralized and distributed way.

Blockchain has a number of features that that will make it a useful technology in several fields of application: privacy, (quasi) anonymity, integrity, trust distribution, transparency, security, sustainability and Open Source. While it is clear that its most widespread application so far is in the field of finance, and more specifically cryptocurrencies, it can also be very useful for many other areas, both within and outside of governments, particularly everything related to personal identificationor the protection of personal data through the decentralization of privacy.

Regarding the improvement of governments, blockchain can contribute in very diverse areas such as the provision of public services, the authenticity of public registers, the management of public sector data, the fight against corruption or the guarantees in the voting processes among others. There are also dozens of examples of entrepreneurs applying this technology to innovate in such important fields such as health or agriculture.

In short, blockchain is a technology with the potential to transform our political systems and at the same time enable relevant social changes. But, as happens also with any other disruptive technology and still in the maturation phase, not all are advantages and we will also find some disadvantages and limitations to be overcome, such as scalability problems, the high computational cost and interconnection that support the operations, the environmental impact associated with that cost, the excessive centralization of each chain or the high complexity of the cryptographic processes.

On the other hand, even though blockchain has quickly become a trendy technology  and despite the apparent simplicity of the underlying concept, it remains at the same time one of the most cryptic and misunderstood technologies as regards its potential beneficiaries. Therefore, in order for these decentralized data management technologies to become popular in the near future, it will also be necessary to face another type of entry barriers of a more structural nature related to the need for more training, an improvement in usability, greater capacity for institutional adaptation or the development of the necessary regulatory changes to support it.

The city councils of Barcelona and the Japanese city of Kobe have launched a new edition of the World Data Viz Challenge 2019 Barcelona-Kobe, a data analysis and visualization contest. This contest was born last year, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the twinning agreement of both cities. The large number of participants and the quality of the works presented, which can be consulted here, have led the organizers to promote this new call.

What does it consist of?

The contest is held in parallel in the cities of Barcelona and Kobe. In both cities, participants will have to analyze data and generate visualizations in order to improve specific aspects of the city. In the case of Barcelona, ​​participants will have to use at least one data set from the Open Data BCN portal. Visualizations can be presented in the form of infographics, charts, interactive maps, etc.

Although visualizations of any theme related to the city are accepted, this year works related to the climatic emergency will receive special attention. In this way, the World Data Viz Challenge 2019 Barcelona-Kobe aligns with the Climate Plan, which integrates all the lines of action that the Barcelona City Council carries out in relation to this matter.

Who can participate?

Anyone who has the skills and abilities to work with open data, analyse and visualize them.

Participants can submit their projects individually or in teams, which should be made up of a maximum of three people.

How can you participate?

The deadline for submitting the projects ends October 31, 2019. Candidates must be submitted through this participation form.

How are the winners selected?

A jury formed by professionals specialized in data analysis and information technologies will review the works presented and will elect 6 finalists, whose name will be known on November 11, 2019. In parallel, another 6 finalists will also be selected in the city of Kobe.

All of them, among other benefits, will be awarded with a 3-DAY CONGRESS PAS ticket in addition to being able to present their work on November 19 in the framework of the Smart City Expo World Congress that will be held in Barcelona between 19 and 21.

For more information, you can check the participation conditions here.

A new year begins and it is time to write down all those appointments that we want to attend during the next 12 months. There are all-kind event: large international events, contests and hackathons, workshops... all designed for data and new technologies lovers that want to be aware of new trends and challenges related to these areas.

As in previous years, our country will host several big events. Barcelona will be the world technology headquarter with 3 unavoidable appointments: Mobile World Congress (February, 25-28), IOT Solutions World Congress (October, 29-31) and SmartCity Expo (November, 19-21). Data have a fundamental role in all these technologies: Smartphones, IoT devices or smart cities sensors generate a huge volume of information, whose analysis is critical for decision-making. Therefore, it is not surprising that we find spaces dedicated to data management or analytics in each of these events. For example, at the Mobile World Congress, datathons and conferences focused on how to drive a data-driven future will be held. The agendas of IOT Solutions World Congress and SmartCity Expo are not yet available, but we do not doubt that both will remain along the same lines as last year.

Madrid, meanwhile, will host the Digital Enterprise Show, known as DES (May, 21-23) or the South summit (October, 2-4), which last year edition brought together more than 100 start-ups wanting to innovate. Also in Madrid will be the Open Expo Europe (June, 6), a professional fair on Open Source, Free Software and Open World Economy (Open Data and Open Innovation), and T3chFest 2019 (March, 14-15), a computer and new technologies fair held at the Carlos III University where, among other issues, speakers will talk about data science, developments and open formats.

Other appointments to consider are Greencities (March, 27-28 in Malaga), focused on urban intelligence and sustainability, and Alldata 2019 (March, 24-28 in Valencia), an international conference on Big Data, Small Data, Linked Data and Open Data.

The good moment of the open data is also evident in the large number of contests and hackathons that are expected during the next months. The registration period for the Open Data Competition of Castilla y León is currently open.

In addition, the Data Journalism workshop, organized by Medialab Prado, will be held from March 25 to 29. Under the title, “follow the food”, the workshop will focus on the food and its relationship with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The call for projects was closed last January 9, and now is time for those who want to participate to sign up as collaborators.

Another workshop, related to Open Data Management, will be held in the city of Burgos on February 13. It will address the legal and ethical framework of open data and the tools to make research data accessible, among other issues

In addition to these examples, new appointments and events related to data world will be released during the year. For example, there will be a new edition of Aporta Meeting. And do not forget that next March 2 is the Open Data Day, a framework made up of various activities that will gradually be published on its website.

From datos.gob.es we will inform you of all these news, so you do not miss any appointment.

For one more year, the VI Data Journalism and Open Data Workshop takes place at Medialab Prado (Alameda 15, Madrid), on this occasion organized by "Datalab". This is a meeting aimed at journalists, programmers or anyone interested in generating content using data. The meeting takes place between April 19 and 22 with the participation of different representatives from public administrations, companies, research groups, social organizations and experts.

This event is part of the Data Journalism Workshop, composed of 5 sessions (we spoke about it in a previous article). The topics included in the current agenda revolve around the Sustainable Development Goals (also known by the acronym SDG or Agenda 2030, because we project these objectives towards 2030), a project approved by the UN for "end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity".

Under the slogan, Data of the SDGs, the different sessions of this Conference focus on the fight against climate change, including different aspects related to the environment in Madrid region. The objective is to create an inclusive event, where participants can acquire knowledge, share their opinion and establish relationships that encourage the creation of data-based stories.

The meeting begins on Thursday 19 at 10 in the morning with a session dedicated to "mobility data", whit the participation of Madrid City data portal, EMT (Municipal Transport Company of Madrid) and its MobilityLabs, among other. On the afternoon, there is a critical session on the SDGs, with the participation of Carmen Borja Segade, of ISI Argonauta, José Manuel Naredo, economist and statistician, and Ignacio Santos Molina, consultant on environment, development and international cooperation.

On Friday 20 in the morning, there is a symposium of touristification data, one of the contents that has created most interest, organized together with Montera 34. This symposium include, in the afternoon, the beginning of the touristic data workshop. During 3 sessions - Friday afternoon and Saturday and Sunday morning - we manage some tools for obtaining, cleaning and analyzing data. The objective is to collectively produce a report that helps to understand the impact of rental platforms for tourist accommodation in Madrid, using the question and answer method.

In addition to these contents, the VI Data Journalism and Open Data Workshop is also useful to present different initiatives related to data and SDGs, such as the Tipi Ciudadano project (Friday 20, 18 hours), an online tool that facilitate to follow the activity of @Congreso_es related to poverty and inequality, with its scanner and personalized warning system – in July 2018 it will also focus on compliance with the SDGs-; the Innovation and Human Rights project (Saturday 21, 18 hours) that promotes innovation to protect human rights; the presentation of the projects approved in the first round of data journalism workshop (Saturday 21, 16 hours); the session of JournoCodersMAD (Saturday 21, 17 hours); or the latest news in data training according to the "Specialization Diploma in Data Journalism and Visualization of Blanquerna".

You can see the full and updated agenda on its website and you can follow the ewent through the hashtags #datosods or #jpd18, or the accounts @datalabx and @jpdatos on Twitter.

Medialab-Prado organizes the sixth edition of Data Journalism Workshop. This year, it will focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The purpose of this event is to create stories based on data related to SDGs and the fight against climate change in Madrid.

For those interested in participating with their project, the deadline for submission is now open until March 12. Registration is free, but the projects must meet the following requirements: reuse data to create a story or journalistic tool; use reliable and localized data sources, and be focused on the topic selected in this edition. The list of selected projects will be published on March 20.

This event is aimed at those professionals - from developers and analysts to journalists - who want to work with data. It is composed of five sessions that will be held in the following months.

The first session, dedicated to free software, already took place on February 13-14. The second appointment will be held on the occasion of Open Data Day. Since 2017, the Data Journalism Workshop is linked to International Open Data Day celebration. For this reason, on March 2-3, Medialab organizes different activities to learn how to make open data requests into open data catalogs, how to use linked data, how to understand scraping techniques or how to delve into different aspects such as ontologies.

The second session agenda will include a talk on open data, within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as six work stations, during the course of the day, where it will be showed how to leverage the potential of Madrid data catalog, how to search data on the Net or how to work with sources such as Wikidata.

Later, in the following session of Data Journalism workshop (April 17-22), the selected projects will be presented and the work teams will be established; every team will work from June 8 to 10, supporting by mentors and associated journalists. For all those interested in working on any of the projects presented, Medialab-Prado will open the call for contributors on March 6.

Finally, the workshop will end with the fifth session (June 22-24): the working groups can finalize the projects and show them to the rest of the participants.