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Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
Open Data, Open Minds - Web 2.0 Data Visualisation Tools
Stuart Macdonald
DISC-UK Datashare
EDINA National Data Centre & Edinburgh University Data Library
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
Context
• DISC-UK DataShare Project – funded by JISC (March 2007 – March 2009) - a collaborative project led by the University of Edinburgh, with the University of Oxford, the University of Southampton and the London School of Economics (Associate Partner).
• Investigate the legal, cultural and technical issues surrounding research data sharing within UK tertiary education community
• Explore new pathways to assist academics wishing to share their data over the Internet via Institutional Repositories (IRs)
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
Data Visualisation:
The set of techniques used to turn a set of data into visual insight. It aims to give the data a meaningful representation by exploiting the powerful discerning capabilities of the human eye*.
* Edinburgh Online Graphics Dictionary – http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/GRDICT/grdict.htm
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
• Programmableweb - http://www.programmableweb.com/tag/mapping - map or spatial mash-up ‘resource discovery tool’
• GeoCommons – http://geocommons.com/ - ‘brings intelligence to the GeoWeb, unleashing tools and data’ (downloadable as CSV, KML, Shape) – see also Platial, Mapbuilder, Mapufacture
• BODC• SRON & KMNI• U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center• USGS Earthquake Hazards Program
• UNHCR layer in Google Earth – mash together news, images, video, statistical databases relating to refugees across the globe via the “Google Earth Outreach programme” - http://www.unhcr.org/events/47f48dc92.html
Spatial Data Visualisation
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
• UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis – develop computing technologies in several disciplines which deal with geography, space, location and the built environment http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/
• GeoVUE – one of the 7 nodes of the National Centre for e-Social Science set up to develop ‘new kinds of virtual urban environments’ (VUEs) through which users can participate in furthering their understanding of cities
• London Profiler - link publicly available datasets such as Population Census to non-proprietary mapping e.g. visualising a neighbourhood's geodemographic profile using different area classifications through Google Maps - http://www.londonprofiler.org/
• MapTube – a free resource for viewing, sharing, mixing and mashing maps online created by GMapCreator.
• Engage in other forms of collaboration e.g. Virtual London (via Second Life)
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
• …and there’s more
• John Hopkins University’s Interactive Map Tool• Supports digital field assignments allowing users to create custom mashups using a
variety of digital media, text and data – http://www.cer.jhu/index.cfm?pageID=351
• Minnesota Interactive Internet Mapping Project• A mapping application that provides maps and imagery similar to Google Maps –
claims to be data rich, interactive, secure, easy to use, have analytical capabilities - http://maps.umn.edu/
• Research at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona• Researchers mining spatial-temporal data provided by geotagged Flickr photos of
urban locations – http://www.giradin.org/fabien/tracing/
• Thematicmapping.orgThematic Mapping Engine (TME) enables you to visualise global statistics on Google
Earth. The primary data source is UNData - http://blog.thematicmapping.org/
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
Numeric Data Visualisation Tools:
• ‘Open’ ethos – anyone can upload/download or use data
• Commercial Services embracing Web 2.0 business models
• Collaborative and participatory – “harnessing collective intelligence”
• Easy to use
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
But …
• Ephemeral nature of web
• Not trusted repositories / archives
• If it’s computer generated and looks good it must be right!
Palimpsest Project - http://research.google.com
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
Numeric Data Visualisation Tools
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
Comparison of 8 Web 2.0 numeric data visualisation tools
Upload data file
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
Macro-data Visualisation
• OECD Country Statistical Profiles – OECD statistics in SDMX (Statistical Data Mark-up eXchange) - http://stats.oecd.org/nawwe/csp/default.html
• IMF Data Mapper - http://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/index.php
• Stat@tlas Europe - An online atlas of European statistical themes hosted by the Federal Statistical Office of Switzerland
• Eurostat Tables Graphs Maps (TGM) - an interactive user interface to Eurostat data
• UNData – http://data.un.org/ & UNEP Global Environment Outlook (GEO) Data Portal - http://geodata.grid.unep.ch/ - spatial and numeric data visualisation tools
Edinburgh Repository Fringe – Friday 1 August 2008
• Are such utilities a flash in the pan or here to stay?
• Are they more appealing for researchers than IRs?
• Is such functionality desirable in IRs?
• Do they lack gravitas for academic purposes?
• Can/should institutions support the use of these tools?
• Do such ‘open data’ resources contribute to the ‘Global Database’?
Food for thought ….
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