Armchair auditorin action

Armchair auditorin action

Gianfranco Cecconi / @giaceccoDigital Contraptions Imaginarium Ltd.

Presentation for the 21/3/2014 #odifridays lecturehttp://dico.im/armchair-auditor

The armchair auditor

"We’re going to rip off that cloak of secrecy and extend transparency as far and as wide as possible. By bringing information out into the open, you’ll be able to hold government and public services to account. (...) With a whole army of effective armchair auditors looking over the books, ministers in this government are not going to be able to get away with all the waste, the expensive vanity projects and pointless schemes that we’ve had in the past."

Podcast by the UK Prime Minister, 29 May 2010

Armchair auditorin action

or

Armchair auditorinaction ?

Inaction

1) Because "open data is an abstract issue"

"(...) the public currently do not understand how open data applies to them or what they care about; research (...) has found that awareness is low in part because open data is perceived as an abstract issue, with unclear benefits to everyday life."

Involve’s submission to the Public Administration Select Committee question paper on “Statistics and Open Data”

Inaction

2) Because "geeks alienate people"

RSA blog

R e a l l y ?

I must build a better map!

• Checked if anyone got there first
• Studied the DECC documentation (with moderation)
• Surveyed all data related to the above
• Surveyed all tools I could use
• Asked DECC for what I was missing
• [ the geeky data science part ]

... and...

*Do* try this at home

• Read the news remembering that you are now an armchair auditor
• Pick one piece of news you feel connected to and be curious about it
• Identify and browse the data sources closer to that news or to your domain of interest
• Play with the data
• Engage with the data publishers and providers, let them know that you are there
• Work with others!

Perfect vs good

"(...) the Government should adopt a “twin-track” approach to data release is a practical and realistic way of maintaining the momentum on open data, which recognises that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good: a simultaneous 'publish early even if imperfect' imperative AND a commitment to a 'high quality core'. (...) As long as Government is clear about its limitations, there will always be a role for data that is imperfect but improvable."

Cabinet Office's "Statistics and Open Data" report

Open data wants you, too

Resources

This presentationhttp://dico.im/armchair-auditor

Birkbeck College's Ben Worthy blog post"Where are the Armchair Auditors?"http://dico.im/ben-worthy-odi

The Guardian's Patrick Butler blog post"Mrs Angry: how to be an armchair auditor"http://dico.im/patrick-butler-mrsangry

Cabinet Office's "Statistics and Open Data" reporthttp://dico.im/statistics-and-opendata

The Open Data Institute learning and courses offeringhttp://theodi.org/courses

Johns Hopkins' data science free courses offering on Courserahttp://dico.im/johns-hopkins-datascience