Our friends in la belle province are doing some lovely work!

The image is available on Flickr and see what DémocratieOuvete.org are up to!

A survey is not a census, a census is a state sanctioned mandatory scientific and systematically carried out count of the population and its characteristics.  It is a national civic duty to fill it out, providing of course one believes that knowing the nature of the Canadian population matters.  A volunteer survey can be a one off activity, as funding is not guaranteed, and in this case, it was conducted in a non systematic way and there is no way of knowing where the count was complete and where it was not.  Further, this volunteered national household survey breaks the possibility of a longitudinal analysis of the population, and there is great concern that local small area geographic analysis will be impeded as sampling will be uneven.

I will have to read the following documentation very carefully before using these data, and you should to: National Household Survey – Reference products, 2011.The newswire has been busy this morning and here are some highlights:

• Macleans: The National Household Survey: Pig, meet lipstick
• CTV News: Compare voluntary survey with mandatory census at own risk: StatsCan
• Toronto Star: National Household Survey: Statistics Canada disclaimer warns of ‘non-response error’
• Globe and Mail: How employment equity will take a hit from dodgy national data
• CBC The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti hosted some detabe this morning in Statistics Canada: Devil in the lack of details
• The Globe and Mail: This morning’s census, dimmed by Ottawa, shows the need for good data
• The Montreal Gazette: Data gaps mark National Household Survey, Statistics Canada warns
• The Globe and Mail: Experts debate how much National Household Survey statistics count
• Global News: Compare voluntary survey with mandatory census at own risk: StatsCan
• Global News: Effects of ending long-form census will be revealed in forthcoming StatsCan report
• Le Devoir: Données linguistiques – Prudence, réaffirme Statistique Canada

Blog Posts:

• Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton: Data day will not be celebrated in Hamilton
• CCSD Calls on Government to Acknowledge Damage to Census

The NHS data reported in the news today has been discussed with caveats as to accuracy and reliability, and of course the inability to compare with the past.  Although, the reports are discussing trends, which means they are comparing, and, most likely erroneously with the past!

I just came across some intensive data science training programs.  It is all part of the Data Deluge and I am sure universities are going to go big on this topic in the next 5 years, especially with the ubiquitous talk every time I turn around about big data.  I am also sure there will soon be a boom of Master of Data Administration (MDA) programs along with the usual MBA – MPA like programs with big fees.  IBM defines data scientists here and of course there is a Wikipedia definition. In the US a constellation of data science courses are emerging. The universe in Canada however seems a little slim and trim!  NSERC has the Discovery Frontiers Grants in Genomics, there is a new research chair position Canada Excellence Research Chair in Data Science for Real-Time Decision-Making and there are a couple of dots in Canada on this Data Scientist Meetup Map while UBC hosts a Data Science Portal.  Below is a list of what I found in terms of curricula without much digging.

1. University of Chicago Data Science for Social Good
2. Silicon Valley INSIGHT Data Science Fellows Program
3. University of Washington Introduction to Data Science
4. University of Illinois Data Sciences Summer Institute (DSSI)
5. Columbia University Introduction to Data Science
6. Berkeley Introduction to Data Science (Great Resources here!)
7. Syracuse University Data Science program in the ISchool and Open Introduction to Data Science,
8. New York University Data Science related courses
9. EMC Data Science and Big Data Analytics
10. Tetherless World Constellation (TWC) Data Science Courses

This NY Times article reports many more: Data Science: The Numbers of Our Lives as does this Computer World article  Colleges Incorporate Data Science Into Curriculum. Wired looks at The Modern Data Nerd Isn’t as Nerdy as You Think and Of course O’Reilly media back in 2011 released this report What is Data Science and an article written in 2010 What is Data Science.  The supply of data scientists seems to be low while the demand is high according to Computer World and IT World Canada. Interesting times ahead.

Journals:

1. CODATA Data Science Journal
2. Columbia University Journal of Data Science

Open data is happening on one side of government while access to data and information is getting either reduced or locked down in other parts.  This story about muzzling archivists was released some weeks ago.

An anecdote.  Yesterday I went to see the movie NO, about the marketing campaign for the NO side of the plebiscite against the Chilean Pinochet dictatorship. The movie was terrible, the sentiment excellent, and the timing with the ongoing trials, probably no accident.  As my son and my visiting friend were lamenting the quality of the film, I explained the politics of it to them, but also, why it is so important to have an impartial and protected national archive that allows for access to all the footage, news clips and story boards that were shown in the film.  I explained what was going on with our archive, and, they got the picture. They began to rethink how they understood the role of the archive.

Will our archives, librarians and archivists be able to answer the following questions in the future?

• How will we know about the Keystone pipeline decisions?
• Will we ever get to the bottom of the Census story? (CensusWatch)
• How did the experimental lakes project get defunded?
• Which women’s groups lost their funding under this government?
• Why are government libraries and CISTI closing or being made ineffective?
• How come social policy think tanks like Canadian Policy Research Network are being shut down?
• Who created the policy which said the gun registry shall not be archived?(post)
• Why did the High Arctic Research Station get shut down?
• What was the strategy behind the muzzling of Canadian Scientists? See Science UnCensored.
• Why on earth would anyone silence a librarian or an archivist?

I mean honestly? What first world democratic country does that?

Below are links to material that librarians and archivists sent my way in confidence.

This presentation contains the Code of Conduct statements Library and Archives (LAC) Archivists must now follow.

1. Calgary Herald: ABCs of ‘behaviour regulation’ for federal librarians and archivists
2. CBC Podcast: of the Library Code of Conduct on As It Happens
3. BoingBoing blog post: Canadian government muzzles librarians and archivists, creates snitch line to report those who speak online or in public without permission
4. British Columbia Library Association Response.
5. Save Library and Archives Campaign

The Open Data Exchange (ODX13) was a really great day. Below are my slides and related URLS.  The main point was to discuss how we take the learning by doing that has been ongoing in the open data field and now begin to integrate long standing and well established open access to data thinking such standards, governance, collaboration and cross-domain.  Also, how to approach ad-hoc open data initiatives and move them toward an interoperable and standards based way of doing things, much like how geospatial data infrastructures have been developed.  In addition, to think about data management, their life-cycle and preservation for future generations.

Slide 1:
Geospatial Data Infrastructures s are the institutions, policies, technologies, processes and standards and framework data that direct the who, how, what and why geospatial data are collected, stored, manipulated, analyzed, transformed and shared, MULTIDIMENSIONAL, INTERSECTORAL, CROSS-DOMAIN, INTERDEPARTMENTAL, REQUIRING NATIONAL CONSENSUS BUILDING.

• Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Association – http://www.gsdi.org/
• GSDI Cookbook – http://www.gsdidocs.org/GSDIWiki/index.php/Main_Page

Slide 2:
Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI): http://geoconnections.nrcan.gc.ca/home

Slide 3:
Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) – http://www.earthobservations.org/geoss.shtml

Slide 4:
Global Map International Steering Committee for Global Mapping Specifications: http://www.iscgm.org/cgi-bin/fswiki/wiki.cgi?page=Documentation

Slide 5 :
Agenda 21 Rio 1992 Chapter on Information for Decision Making – http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentid=52

Slide 6:

• IPY Data Management Policy: http://www.api-ipy.gc.ca/pg_IPYAPI_055-eng.html
• Canadian Polar Data Network: http://polardatanetwork.ca/
• Polar Data Catalogue: http://polardata.ca/
• Datacite Canada: http://cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/services/cisti/datacite-canada/index.html

Slide 7:
Thinking about the lifecycle of data:

• Digital Curation Centre: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/curation-lifecycle-model and http://www.dcc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/publications/DCCLifecycle.pdf

Many great public submissions were made today in Québec City on the reforms to access to information laws.

The following are a few posted by members of the Civicaccess.ca list:

1. Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec Soumission
2. Open North, submission can be listened to at the audio-visual link below
3. Quebec Ouvert, Soumission
4. Centre for Law and Democracy  – Canada: Serious Problem in Québec Openess Law
5. Canadian Internet Public Policy Clinic (CIPPIC) – Technologies et vie privée à l’heure des choix de société / Privacy & the Right to Information in a Rapidly Evolving Technological Landscape

You can also listen to their audio/visual recordings of the consultations and their submissions given in the Assemblée nationale du Québec.

This is a great example of how civil society is engaged in the direction of public policy and law.

Updated April 29, 2013

If you are planning an Open Data event, an expert panel on the topic, looking for a conference speaker, or someone to interview for a news article, you might want to consider inviting some of the experts from this list.

If you know of people to add, please email me – tlauriau at gmail dot com.

Canada:

• Mary Beth Baker, Founding member of Open Data Ottawa, website
• Natalie Black, programmer for Nimonik.ca
• Ashley Casovan, Strategic Coordinator – Advisor to the CIO at  City of Edmonton, ashley dot casovan at edmonton dot ca
• Julia Evans, data scientist & programmer. About.
• Trish Garner, City of Toronto, Manager of Web Strategy, @trishgarner, Open Data Portal
• Tracey P. Lauriault, Founding member of CivicAccess.ca list, Datalibre.ca, blog & bio
• Heather Leson, Director of Community Engagement at Ushahidi, and see Textontechs, bio
• Hillary Little, UI and Design, bio
• Alison Loat, Samara, bio
• Ellie Marshall, Open North,  ellie at opennorth do  ca
• Diane Mercier, Open Data Advisor Ville de Montréal, Website
• Josee Plamondon, app developer Contratsnet, jplamondon at gmail doc com
• Gina Porcarelli, City of Toronto, Linkedin
• Catherine Roy, Citizen member of the City of Montreal Table de concertation, web consultant, BIO
• Laine Ruus, first data librarian in Canada, University of Toronto, Bio
• Sheyda Saneinejad, Engineer, Innovation Lab
• Teresa Scassa, Canada Research Chair in Information Law, Blog, Bio
• Karen Smith, I School U of T, Bio
• Wendy Watkins, Founding member of the Data Liberation Initiative (paper), contact

International:

• Dana Bauer, Map Maker and Data Analyst, Speaker Profile
• Hadley Beeman, Blog, @hadleybeeman
• Francine Bennett, CEO and co-founder at Mastodon C (UK)
• Lucy Chambers, Head of Knowledge and Training , OKNF
• Lisa Crawl, Director, Common Crawl Foundation (US)
• Helen Darbishire, Access Info Europe, Bio
• Selena Deckelmann, Open source programmer, Bio also About
• Kaitlin Devine, Sunlight Foundation, Subsidyscope, Clearspending, Politwoops projects, OpenSpending, Bio, kdevine (at) sunlightfoundation (dot) com, (US)
• Shannon Dosemagen, Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science
• Bernadette Hyland, W3C Government Linked Data Working Group chair
• Laura James, Co-Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, OKFN
• Jacqueline Kazil, Software Engineer, Speaker Profile
• Neelie Kroes, European Commission
• Naomi Lillie, Head of Network Unit, OKNF
• Irina Radchenko, Associate Professor at Higher School of Economics Moscow, Open data & Semantic Blog, Linked open data webinars, (Russia)
• Tiziana Refice, Google Research Scientist, contributing to the M-Lab Consortium, (US)
• Ellen Miller, Sunlight Foundation
• Sandra Moroco, World Bank, Article, @sandramoscoso
• Alison Rowland, Sunlight Foundation, Influence Explorer project, Bio, arowland (at) sunlightfoundation (dot) com, (US)
• Barbara Shaurette, Programmer
• Claudia Schwegmann, Founder of Open Aid, Blog, (OKNF Germany), @OpenAidGermany
• Jacqui Taylor, CEO and founder of Flying Binary
• Jeni Tennison, Technical Director of the Open Data Institute (UK)
• Meredith Whittaker, Program Manager, Google Research, Bio, contributing to the M-Lab Consortium, (US),

I just came back from a whirlwind trip to Taiwan and Japan.

In Taiwan I presented a the CODATA 2012 conference Open Data and Information for a Changing Planet.  CODATA (Committee on Data for Science and Technology) is an interdisciplinary Scientific Committee of the International Council for Science (ICSU), which works to improve the quality, reliability, management and accessibility of data of importance to all fields of science and technology.  Canada has a Canadian National Committee for CODATA, based out of The National Research Council of Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) and the focus is scientific and research data and their preservation.  CODATA are the systems of systems folks, focusing on large data infrastructures.  The World Data Systems (WDS) folks also joined the conference and I had the good fortune of meeting some World Data Centre (WDS) directors. WDCs are a critical component in the sharing and preservation of scientific data and they undergo a rigorous certification process which many open data cities, provinces and federal initiatives might want to consider in their planning.

There were many great sessions at the conference, and the Mass Collaboration Data Project and Policies session is particularly relevant here.

• Shun-ling Chen, a Harvard Law School PhD Candidate, provided a historical review of copyright and how mass collaboration projects are changing perspectives.
  
• Puneet Kishor from the Creative Science Commons, a renowned CC0 advocate announced that he was willing to accept that scientists and scientific data need attribution, something I thought was quite obvious, but it seemed to be revelatory to him.  He also showcased his earth-base project which provides another way to search for scientific data.
• Mikel Maron from GroundTruth Initiative discussed Open Street Map (OSM) in developing countries, particularly those who suffered a disaster.  He re-iterated that OSM is a community project not a crowd project, as crowd has negative connotations and he also discussed the issues related to place name politics whereby it was important to sometimes shut down the ability to change the names of contested places.  This brought tension to a consensus process like OSM.
• Kerstin Lehnert, of Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA) discussed the integration of physical things and the need for uniform metadata for samples in order to do so.  We have the Internet of Things but the physical things that are sampled are not very well connected to the Internet.
• Te-En Lin introduced a Citizen Science roadkill project in Taiwan.  It used FB as a means to get citizens engaged in photographing the road kill they encountered.  The project continuously had to refine its process as scale was an issue when identifying squashed critters, and so they taught people to put their shoe or other identifiable objects beside the creatures.  Eventually, people were going to corner stores and laminating their finds and sending them to him.  Hilarious.  He now has approximately 800 jarred samples which are all georeferenced and they will be using these data to develop remediation projects.
• Mike Linksvayer, was provocative in stating that copyright makes us stupider and is stupid and that it should be abolished all together.  I argued that for traditional knowledge where people are seriously marginalized and where TK is exploited, copyright might be the only way to protect themselves.  We wound up having a late night jet lagged discussion in the hall way of the hotel and I think we understood each others perspectives more while still maintaining our stances.  He also introduced his submission Future of Copyright to the Future of Copyright contest for which is was classed in the top 10.

In addition to the conference I organized a meetup of local open data folks in Taiwan.  Open Data Taiwan graciously accepted the invitation and organized a dinner at a great Thai Restaurant and at a local cafe.

• Weitze CHANG (aka Whisky), from the Youth Synergy Taiwan Foundation, a social enterprise promoting critical thinking, answered the call and organized a local meetup.  He facilitated some great discussion on open data challenges in Taiwan and was very interested in the kind of work being done in Canada, the UK and Internationally.
• Dennis Raylin Chen also from the Youth Synergy Taiwan Foundation, did much on the ground coordination and participated as a citizen journalist at the CODATA 2012 conference.
• Jack Townsend, who presented a project at the conference called globe-town.org also joined and shared some of his knowledge about the open data work he does on sustainable development.
• 4-5 other fine open data folks also joined the meetup and I will post their contact when I have them.

We were also shown two very interesting open data projects.

• Mashup of real estate prices in Taiwan.

Space is at a premium in Taiwan and there was much price gouging as no one really knew what things actually cost relative to each other as these data were never published.  The government tried to release them on a case by case basis until their system crashed as robots were endeavouring to scrape the data minutes after it was launched at midnight on a weeknight.  The government relented and released the entire dataset and this mashup is the result of that.

• Open Budget Visualization

This visualization provides many views to how the Government of Taiwan spends.

I will update this post as my new friends in Taiwan send me more information.

The University of New Brunswick invited me to give the Keynote at their inaugural Open Access Week Annual Conference: Bailiwick.  The Conference was organized by the Information Services and Systems at UNBSJ who are developing an Open Access Plan, developing an institutional repository to preserve and manage their research output. I had the good fortune of spending an afternoon with the Library and Information System staff, tour the campus and visit the town. The objective of the talk was to introduce what open means and not only on open data.

Presentation links in order of appearance:

Scenarios:

• Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre
• Open North
• Budget Plateau
• Patiner Montreal
• Montreal Ouvert
• MaMairie
• Represent
• Resto Net
• Montreal Accessible
• RAPLIQ
• Hacking Health
• Hackons la Corruption
• Random Hacks of Kindness
• Open Data Ottawa
• Montreal Ouvert Hackathon
• Transit Camp
• Ajah Fundtracker
• Inuit Sea Ice and Occupancy Project
• Place Name Atlases
• Lake Huron Treaty Process Atlas
• Residential School Map
• WEHUB (Citizen Science)
• Human Development Council Saint John
• Pilot Atlas of the Risk of Homelessness
• Ecojustice and Great Lakes Alliance Court Case against Environment Canada
• National Pollutant Release Inventory
• FCM Quality of Life Reporting System
• Espace montrealais d’information sur la sante (Public health)
• CommunityView Collaboration (Public health)
• Wellbeing Toronto Indicator System
• Zone Cone (Traffic avoidance app, GeoConnections Funded)
• Geobase National Road Network file (Pro & Terr. Partnership)
• Safecast disaster monitoring & Citizen Sensors
• AAAS Satellite Imagery Analysis for Urban Conflict Documentation

Where to find data:

• Open Data in Canada
• Open Data Pilot project, Federal Government
• Canadian International Development Agency Open Data
• DataBC
• Donnees ouvertes Quebec
  
• Community Data Program
• GeoConnections Discovery Portal
• GeoGratis
• GeoBase
• GeoConnections Studies

Data Access Advocacy:

• Community Data Canada
• Open Data Society of BC
• Open North
• Datalibre.ca
• CivicAccess.ca List
• CCSD Equal Right to be Counted Court Case – Census
• IPY Research  Data Management Plan
• CIHR Access to Health Data Policy
• Research Data Strategy
• Information and Privacy Commissioners Open Government Resolution
• Policy Primers and Guidelines
• Open Government Partnership
• Canadian Internet Public Policy Clinic (Law)
• Mapping the Legal and Policy Boundaries of Digital Cartography