Your ideas for improving data.gov.uk
What you would like to see happen on data.gov.uk next? Let us know!
We are always keen to hear your ideas for changes, improvements and developments you would like to see on data.gov.uk. Since launching to the public in January 2010, we have had a steady stream of feedback about the site, which we always review and look to incorporate in future releases of the site where possible. This thread is a forum to discuss what changes you would like to see on data.gov.uk and to comment on and discuss other suggestions submitted here.
It would be great if data sets could be filtered by the formats in which they are available for download - so CSV or XML etc. Perhaps having symbols by dataset search results indicating the formats they are available for download in would be helpful also.
Thanks for the suggestion - we've just added in the ability for users to facet by resource format (csv, xml etc) as requested. See the right hand filters on http://data.gov.uk/search/apachesolr_search/data for an example.
Below are some comments I submitted when the version before now was in beta - most of which I think might still be relevant...
- Applications/Uses of data: It would be better to talk about uses of data rather than only applications. Many of the use-cases of OGD use I discovered in recent research (http://practicalparticipation.co.uk/odi/) were not application building uses - but would be valuable to share and to inspire a wider (and more accessible) range of uses of OGD beyond simply applications.So - instead of/in addition to 'Share your app' - would an 'How have you used data?' submission to be worthwhile? Particularly if on each data page you made that 'How have you used this data?' and auto-filled a very simple submission form with the relevant dataset - and then displayed brief summaries of how certain datasets have been used in the white-space currently at the side of individual dataset pages. Right now a lot of opportunities to encourage open data re-use are being missed because the language used and examples given really narrow down on public understandings of the potential of open data re-use.
- Apps: In terms of Apps, it's not clear whether this section is an App Store (i.e. these are all things I can pick up and use), or a showcase. Some sort of 'how can I use this' taxonomy might be useful: including facets like Widgets you can embed; Web Services to Use; Mobile Application; etc. It would be good to also show the apps relating to a dataset in the WhiteSpace next to it - and to be relatively pro-active in making sure key 'Apps' or re-uses ofdata are listed. (E.g. someone viewing COINS should be able to easily find the Guardian, Where Does My Money Go, and Rosslyn Analytics remixes of that data - without having to trawl through 100s of comments)
- Ideas Section: On a similar theme ('data is not just for developers') under Ideas perhaps modify the language to "What great ideas have you go for using government data" and talk about helping people find "Support" to use the data - rather than help finding a "developer" only. In some cases - the support people will need will be just How To guidance on analysing data in Excel, or using a tool like Many Eyes. Some editorialised resources in the Ideas section on this might be handy (I'm planning to write some later this year - so happy to talk about possible ways to link into Data.gov.uk on that...)
- Linked Data: This section needs more context at the top of the page. It would also be useful to have links from the Linked Data page to the dataset pages for each of the datasets made available here - as right now working out which datasets sit behind, for example, 'Education' is difficult - and end-users have to really hunt around for the relevant meta-data. This section should probably also very clearly signpost the Linked Data API that has been made available.
- Dataset pages: It may be useful to collapse empty fields, or to think about how data-set listings can be displayed in slightly more visual or compact ways (e.g. Why separate lines for 'Temporal Coverage from' and 'Temporal coverage to' - it would be better to display that near the top, possibly even in timeline form...; The 'Wiki' link could do with an more action-oriented explanation - e.g. 'View or share notes on this dataset on the wiki') [Update: a lot of this has been done - but not sure the interface is quite right here yet...]
- Related datasets: Another use for the white-space at the side of dataset listings could be to show 'Related datasets' which should be possible with relevant Drupal modules / manual linking of datasets.
- Request new data button - should probably link to a data.gov.uk page before going to OPSI which would explain:
- That OPSI only unlocks national data.
- That people can ask their local council about local data
- That it is worth searching the data.gov.uk site well before requesting a dataset and that submitting a focus post may be helpful in tracking down data as well.
- Feedback form when I click 'Give Feedback to Department' needs a line explaining how feedback will be handled, and whether or non I should expect a reply when submitting feedback.
- Wiki: Does the Wiki need a top-level navigation link? It's not really doing much right now... If it does get a top-level link, then perhaps showing a listing of the dataset wiki pages that have been created would be better than showing just the Wiki introduction page. It may also be good to create a strong link from 'Resources' to a Wiki page where people can build a directory of useful resources for working with data.gov.uk.
- Navigation - It is often not clear what section of the website I'm in - which can be particularly confusing between 'Ideas' and 'Apps'. Highlighting the active tab along the top, or adding a breadcrumb, may help with this. [This seems to be resolved now...]
- Comment updates or comment RSS - It would be good to have a way of subscribing to comment threads - either to get e-mail updates when new messages are posted, or with the provision of an RSS feed for each comment.
Hope these are useful.
All the best
Although it has been fantastic to watch the stream of new data sets being added to the RSS stream my reader picks up sometimes the amount of purely spend associated releases is tending to swamp the other data sets.
This situation is only going to get worse as LG spend > £500 washes into the system.
Is it possible to syphon any data sets containing say, the word "spend" into a different RSS feed? This would allow those that want to keep an eye on spend-related data sets to subscribe to that particular one.
I hesitate to suggest that perhaps there ought to be segmented RSS feeds of data sets because it is the very juxtaposition of random sets which may well spark off an idea in someones head, but really, the noise created by the spend data is becoming off-putting.
A great problem to have, by the way.
I agree with the above point about empty fields been hidden in someway. I find the current layout on data pages not very clear as it took me a while to realise I had to click on the titles to display the corresponding fields! Maybe these should all be open instead - if empty fields were not shown this would mean that not too much information was shown?
It would be great if the data on the site could be broken down to a more localised level to be able to compare features of - for examples - neighbourhoods within a given borough. Data related to education and crime - to name but two - would be much more powerful if given this additional geographical detail.
Could we have a standard geography?
For example if everyone tried to use postcode as the default geography developers could easily create apps which combine different data sets from different suppliers.
Currently the use of Wards, Police areas, postcodes etc makes it very difficult to join data sets together.
It would also mean that sensitive data, such as rape and other serious crimes could be published at a higher postcode level to protect privacy etc.
Thanks for the feedback about the hidden fields, it's certainly something we will be looking at as part of the next set of enhancements. As an interim measure all datasets now have their summary and resources sections expanded so users can get straight to the downloads they are looking for. Thanks for the feedback.
totally agree with the supply and demand. Some of the data here is pointless. I wonder if gov are trying for Quantity rather than quantity.
Thanks for the feedback. We've made some slight changes to the datapackage layouts as a result. Packages now default to displaying the main outline description and the download options so users can quickly get to the raw data. The 'details' and 'contact' sections can then be manually expanded for more metadata; with only fields shown that have information available. Hope this helps.
App stores are always great but you need to make sure that you do app's for both Apple and Android. Android has really caught up with Apple so you would be killing your self if you miss android out as hardly anyone is asking what is android any more as its so popular.Now Nokia is gonig to use microsoft and windows mobile thats another App platform
Would be nice to see some API services
A lot of public bodies are supplying data as required by the gov but I wondered if there any real demand for most of it from the public?
I’d really like to see some stats on usage of apps / data downloads. It would help data suppliers and developers see where the real demand is.
Totally agree with the lake of statistics for both suppliers and developpers.
And also, what is the percentage of Data being released as Linked Data ? And what does it cost to process raw data into this format ?
Hi,
Could data.gov.uk recommend and publish tools to protect privacy such as Barnardisation?
If there was such as tool it could make it easier for public authorities to publish small number data sets at small geographies. For example it can be difficult getting approval from risk adverse managers to publish data at sub local authority level.
data.gov.uk should lead on data standards
Once Upon a Time there was a website called GovTalk, which published common data format standards for the UK public sector to use to enable data exchange. Some of it was packaged under the banner of the Egovernment Interoperability Framework (EGIF). As far as I know the recommendations (and, in some cases, requirements) still stand, and the website still exists, but it's at an "interim" URL and very rarely updated which doesn't inspire confidence in it as a home for current standards.
Some sort of guidance on formats must be in the remit of the data.gov.uk project. For example, you've recently specified a common CSV encoding. It seems to me that this project should encompass what GovTalk was trying to do. Assuming that this is all still current I'd like to see
1. short term: a link to and endorsement of EGIF, BS7666 and the other standards held on GovTalk to show that they're still current. I'd expect the link to be on the resources page and go to http://interim.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govtalk.asp
2. longer term: ditch the GovTalk branding and incorporate the content into a new section of data.gov.uk covering data standards.
A lot of standards have emerged since the bulk of what's on GovTalk was published, so as part of the same section I'd like to see data.gov.uk providing some sort of guidance on formats, specifically XML schemas and RDF ontologies. This doesn't have to be a long and bureaucratic approach to official standardisation like the one that produced EGIF. In fact it shouldn't be that, because focus inevitably moves on and the recommendations aren't kept up-to-date.
A popularity-contest approach would be just as helpful - a list of which schemas and taxonomies are in use and by how many datasets. This would enable publishers to see what's in use already and coalesce around the same standards. This would be particularly useful for local authorities where the same kind of data needs to be published by many different organisations. The really clever way would be to interrogate the various data sources linked from the catalogue and do it all automatically, but perhaps a simpler alternative would be to allow publishers to tick yes or no for whether they're using a particular schema/ontology, and to add their own if it's not already listed.
On a smaller point, one of the standards on GovTalk is the Egovernment Metadata Standard (EGMS). It would help a little if the terminology for metadata when publishing to data.gov.uk was the same as when working with the EGMS, where the terms mean the same thing.
Comparitive list of datasets
For datasets which should be published by many different organisations in different areas - eg crime stats from local police forces, libraries information from county and unitary councils - I'd like to see a table showing who has published and who hasn't, perhaps with a score showing something like "50 datasets published out of 200". Why? Because that kind of comparison motivates public sector organisations to act - it gets a "Why aren't we doing what they're doing?" response. It would be particularly effective if you could work with SOCITM to include the comparison in their annual Better Connected report, and should drive up the amount of data published from local authorities.
An API for updating the catalogue
I've already mentioned this to the data.gov.uk team. I'd like to see an API for adding and updating packages. This would enable integrating the publication of data to data.gov.uk into existing systems such as website content management systems. Rather than being an extra job on top of all other work, updating data.gov.uk would become part of the process, and hence would be more likely to be a complete and up-to-date record of the data we're publishing.
Too much of what is available on this site is not data but information - it would be a vast improvement if the data.gov.uk project got to grips with this.
I'm not saying that it is not valid, but quite often it is unusable as data.
Take the 'Annual Business Inquiry' data-set (sic). It is published in an excel file without a consistent format. There is no possibility of re-use without manipulation by extraction, ergo, this is not data, it is information.
The data.gov.uk project is full of stuff like this. Before the body of available data grows, which it is sure to do under the transparency arrangements, the distinction between data, information and knowledge must be clearly codified, existing sets must be dealt with and clearly provisioned for.
I agree with the above, what is on offer is just information and not data. Wouldn't it be a good idea to have all the data available in usable formats? So companies can actually do something creative and useful with the datasets? Why not make the data available in XML, JSON or CSV format?
Wouldn't that allow people to actually take interest in the data? One of the ways we as a company try to make boring data interesting is through infographics.
Apart from that I think this website is great and I can't wait to see some XML stuff available on here.
Thanks for opening up and sharing insight!
I agree with betamodel. This is just information, not data.
Why not make the data available in proper data formats such as XML, JSON or CSV? That way companies can actually put that data to use. We could create mashups and other useful apps that could help the public understand the information.
In principle you are right, Betamodel.
In practice, the Annual Business Inquiry asks different information of different industries (for example, gross margin is only asked of the distribution industry; it would make no sense for others) so the traditional formats have been inconsistent. Let's also remember that this is probably fine for most users!
It needs some thought as to what to do with these inconsistencies, some knowledge of how to implement it and some resource to actually do it. Not insuperable in normal times, I am sure, and also pretty interesting work. But the poor guys who have to do this are probably losing resource - and some of what they retain is probably having to service the requests for fine detail on spending referred to by some others in this thread. Goodness knows whether they have time for "interesting work" rather than simply trying to keep things going.
Perhaps you should be more concerned about the likelihood that the government will cut back some of the inquiries. If it ain't collected, it can't be made available as open data. You might get less data items, or less detail because samples are produced, or a mix of both. (Compare the level of detail now published for the Index of Production compared with three or four years ago. A lot of detail has gone.)
There is obviously a balance to be struck between how much data is collected and costs to business in providing it and to government in collecting it, so we are never likely to get a really great dataset. Fair enough, but users of business data seem to be much less vocal at arguing their corner than users of social statistics.
So argue for better presentation of the data by all means, but please don't just assume that the breadth of the underlying dataset (or even the dataset itself) is safe.
my whole point is that data should not be 'presented' - in all of the major frameworks that I'm aware the presentation layer is always distinct from the data layer.
I'm not requesting more or less data, I'm requesting that the data is not 'presented' by formatting it into a structure to make it information.
If I was happy with their presentation structure then I would not be requesting the data.
The presentation structure of lots of so-called 'data' on data.gov.uk renders it unviable for re-use. And, for the most part, many of these 'data-sets', like the ABI, have been released in this format on ONS website for several years.
"No presentation" is still a presentation, I could argue if I wanted to be particularly pedantic!
All that has been done with the vast majority of statistical outputs is to parallel on data.gov.uk the links that already existed on the National Statistics Publication Hub. Which (for ONS datasets) in turn paralleled links that existed on the ONS website for many years. For the most part, nothing has been done to the actual outputs. There is a pretty good argument in my view that it was a waste of time setting up the set of links on data.gov.uk in the first place, not least becasue it raises expectations on changes to what is made available. As you have identified for the ABI dataset, there has been no change whatsoever to the actual output to which all links go.
This was the easiest way of meeting a commitment quickly, and without substantial resource; the people actually working on the inquiry have not had extra work to do ... yet. The questions to ask now include:
- Should there be a next stage of development?
- If so, what should it be?
- In particular, is CSV good enough, given that everyone was worshipping the great god RDF for the first few months, which the vast majority of those required to produce outputs had never heard of, never mind got a capability in!
- Where is the resource and skill set to come from?
The questions are interrelated; the last one is probably a lot less important if CSV is the choice. But even then there are issues about a common format within the file. For the ABI, there are the industries where different questions are asked, for very good reasons - do you end up with a file which contains data for all questions asked for any industry for all industries, which would mean a lot of empty fields? Would suppression of disclosive data be a problem? - probably not but it has to be considered.
But most fundamentally someone has to commit to whatever resource is needed, rather than assuming (as Cabinet Office seems to) that it takes no resource, or can easily be provided by cutting out (unspecified) waste. I'd love it if it this could be advanced, but it is going to be very difficult with reducing and possibly demotivated resources.
Just to say I added up the datasets taken from the ONS Hub today, and it totals about 1700, so 29% of all on data.gov.uk. So data.gov.uk has gone a lot further than to simply republish ONS Hub. Also, I think it is valuable to have them listed on data.gov.uk along with all the other public data.
In what way has data.gov.uk gone further than the hub? But are there any links to National Statistics on data.gov.uk that aren't on the National Statistics publication hub (there should not be) and do the links from data.gov.uk take you anywhere but exactly the same place that you would go from the publication hub itself? They should not do, as the publication hub was established as the first port of call for all National Statistics, to emphasise that they independent, in the sense that they are not messed around with by ministers or policy guys. To my mind, linking from what appears to me to be an increasingly politicised data.giv.uk (look at how the lead stories major on the "inefficient and overpaid public sector" agenda) runs the risk of diluting that image of independence. But we are where we are, as they say!
I'm sure David is right that links to National Statistics form a substantial proportion of the datasets available via data.gov.uk. That's why they was so much pressure to put them there, to increase the count of sets available quickly, irrespective of what they actually linked to. It immediately raised expectations as to the form in which statistical data would be presented. I expect that some statistical providers have made some progress in terms of providing diurecly machine readable outputs, but my impression is that most haven't and will find it difficult to resource in the current climate, certainly if more than simple CSV is expected. The expertise isn't there to go much further than that.
It was suggested that all data.gov.uk has done is copy the public listings from ONS Hub (i.e. provided nothing new), when in fact there are another 4000ish datasets on data.gov.uk which are often related data, but not National Statistics. data.gov.uk is a focus point for a big push to open lots of data that was closed before. It's all about the public body default being 'open' rather than 'closed'. data.gov.uk is a central place to browse, search, discuss, which adds value to public data.
As regards machine-readable formats we are pushing in that direction, with plenty of success so far. Perhaps you'd like to add some good Ideas to data.gov.uk and help push for the particular datasets that are less easily machine-readable?
First point to make is that Statistics got half the point years ago, when virtually all government statistics were made available free of charge via the web.
As is that when that was done in a rush, the only way it could be done quickly was to produce PDFs of the existing outputs. PDFs were harder to get data out of than they are now, and it wasn;t helped by some outputs using spaces rather than comments to denote thousands, millions etc! Some producers seemed to have problems appreciating that PDFs were not enough, while others were keen to provide in Excel form. Interfaces like NOMIS, StatBase and Neighbourhood Statistics provided further forms of access to more detailed data than were formally published. So, it was a long way from perfect, but statistics did "get" open data and, where resources allowed, improved the methods by which data could be accessed. More recently, the National Statistics hub provided links across the board to all National Statistics outputs and to some other official (but not National) statistics. (National meaning "produced in accordance with certain peinciples", as opposed to "not regional" or "of guaranteed quality".)
Move on a bit, and we have a parallel of sorts. Data.gov.uk appeared in a rush, with all kinds of pressure to get a high number of datasets visible through it. This led to some next to useless datasets (lists of departmental Ministers, anyone?) appearing, but I hope we are past simply counting numbers of datasets. For statistics, the only way anything could be done quickly was to reproduce the existing NS hub links. I'm sure statistics "gets" the desriability of moving beyond the mix of PDFs, Excel and so on to which the links take you and I would expect progress on making more data directly machine readable. But it does take some resource, and in a world where some large Departments are apparently about to cut 40 per cent of their staff at a stroke, that is going to be a bigger barrier than moving away from PDFs. In this environment, I am a little cautious about pushing too vigorously. There is a danger that resource gets diverted into the machine readable aspect, while the range and qaulity of the data available suffers. To take the Annual Business Inquiry, I would rather have information on 4 digit industries on a spreadsheet than 2 digit data in machine readable form. Hopefully I am overestimating the amount of resource required, and it may be that decent guidance is now around for producers as to how to meet the requirements quickly and efficiently - but it certainly wasn't initially. That help is the best way of pushing difficult datasets into the right format and that is what I would push for, rather than just saying "I want that dataset". It is all too easy to do that without recognising that it costs.
There may be some official statistics which are accessible via data.gov.uk but not via the NS hub. There are certainly lots of datasets which drop out of accounting or record systems, which I wouldn't describe as statistics as such, though the distinction can be a fine one at times! So when we talk about "statistics" we may be talking about slightly different things. If there are proper statistical datasets available via data.gov.uk but not via the NS hub, I'd be inclined to ask why that is so.
One area outside statistics where I have noticed progress is the opening up of transport information such as timetables, potentially enabling prospective passengers to biew information in a way which suits them rather than the way in which Journey Planners force them to view it. TfL has done a lot through the London Datastore, which I take to be opertaing in paralle with data.gov.uk. However, anyone seeking to download the data apparently has to register as a developer. For all I know this may be a formality, but why do they have to register at all? I thought that the principle was that data were available to all without question, not just to developers.
Where might I be able to find the percentage of gov spending by each department (primarily education, social services, health, defense, local government financing) set out as a pie-chart, for each year, or five year period perhaps, from at least 1970 to the present? This is not my metier, but I am trying to understand how it is, for example, that I had a free University education and this seems impossible now. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that it would be helpful to have an idea of the percentage of the whole 'income' (including borrowing) available spent on various areas over the years. I can only relate this to personal domestic budgeting, where the percentage of available funds spent in each area will change but general principles hold good, such as the percentage of income in an emergency fund, the percentage spent on accommodation, essentials, leisure etc. Appologies if this seems very niave, or perhaps it is a case of the emperor's new clothes?
Many thanks,
Steve
There is a lot of very specific data available which may be of use to a select group of people, but the most helpful thing would be a file containing very basic things like all of the local authorities in the UK (name, address, contact details), all of the different courts, etc. Right now I can only find this information on a Directgov page and if you want to put this into an application you have to keep an eye on Directgov to see if anything has changed (especially in instances such as a few years ago when the local authorities were overhauled).
If there was a dataset with this very basic type of information it would be worth 1000 'live water consumption rates for the Home Office'. Unless info on all of the local authorities is in here and I can't find it.
I realise this isn't a dataset as such, it's more information, but surely this would be very helpful to have.
I'd really like directories data. I know this is mostly private sector data but the Royal Mail must have records of businesses and their locations across the UK. Perhaps an open database of businesses across the UK could be created which would be freely released for websites and other applications. So far I've emailed Yell, 192.com, BT and none of them seem to have a working API which can be used to make applicatons for free.
I have developed a simple Excel spreadsheet to analyse Bristol City Council expenditure, as each month data is released I can just add a new worksheet to my workbook and insert a column in my analysis worksheet(s). However, within the Bristol City Council at least there are many inconsistensies of supplier name, for example, sometimes a spelling mistake AVON & SOMERSET PROBABTION SERVICES yet other times it is spelt correctly AVON & SOMERSET PROBATION SERVICES, sometimes abbreviations are used BATH & NORTH EAST SOMERSET COUNCIL other times thay are not BATH AND NORTH EAST SOMERSET COUNCIL, in some cases LTD is stripped off SITA UK other times it is included SITA UK LTD there are many other examples of this. Personally I am very surprised that the problem occured at all but it would be great if you could press councils for some consistency here.
I have also ccreated a similar spreadsheet for a nearby council, having developed the first it was easy to adapt it for another council, it was neccessary to adapt the speadsheet first argely because the columns are different. Councils were requested to supply details of exenditure over £500 and this is excellent, ideally though they would be producing it in a consistent way which would enable simple comparison with other Councils.
We need a consistent policy on a Councils use of REDACTED, In Bristol the third largest supplier was REDACTED and I found this surprising bearing in mind that the Council had already pointed out that Banking investments, Salaries, Refunds, Member allowances, Payments relating to employee remuneration and Payments relating to benefits and homelessness payments were not included. Yet on the 10th January 2011 £103,215.57 paid to REDACTED for TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT (Description 3 – Cycle City). Why Radacted?
I think that 'encouraging' councils to make this data available was an excellent idea and have raised several issues with my local councillor. I am surprised by many of the grants to third parties particularly in a time of austerity.
Great to hear about the analysis you're doing. Do write a blog or feed stories to the press!
For matching up company names, have you seen Open Corporates? Check it out: http://opencorporates.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/press-release-opencorporates-launches/
On redacted expenditure, I agree we should try and get as much info as possible. At least now we know what we don't know, and can campaign for an explanation for every last redaction.
- Redacted data: Please make a Freedom of Information request via whatdotheyknow.com. The result will either be an unclassifing of the data or a published reason for the redaction. This should make for a more informed dicussion with your local councillor.
- Inconsistent data: This is a endemic problem, and the "gardening" of data should become a more clear legally-required step before publishing any data, open or not. You can use powerful FOSS tools like Google Refine to increase the integrity of data. As for company details in your case (SITA UK [LTD]), Bristol City Council is breaking the law if they do not also provide the company registration number (guaranteed unique). You can find sympathy with the guys at openlylocal.com.
- Standards on secrecy: Your question "why redacted?" highlighted to me the need to use more explanatory language during the redaction process – every instance of redaction should be accompanied by a reference to the legal clause supporting its use, and the person/body responsible. I'm reminded of the phrases I saw a lot in cablegate documents, eg. "Classified By: Pol-Mil Counselor Carl Siebentritt, reasons 1.4 (b,d)" Data.gov.uk should contain a dataset in RDF of all the different types of data secrecy reasons.
Could you please explain how exactly they are doing this? The link you give takes me to e-commerce regulations, and seems to be about the vendor having to make their own identity clear on, for example, their website. I cannot see anything forcing the purchaser to provide CRNs of its suppliers when confronted with a FOI request. If there is no business reason for Bristol CC to record the CRN (or even the supplier name in an entirely consistent format) it is quite likely not to be there. Do we, as private individuals, always write down the names of businesses or individuals that we deal with in a consistent manner? I know I don't.
Given the importance of data linking, there may well be a case for mandating the holding of CRNs etc for future transactions. It is hardly reasonable to expect councils to revisit old data. All we are entitled to under FOI is a copy of what exists. Make "gardening" compulsory and you hugely increase the costs, which should then be set against the benefits gained.
A final point - would a CRN always exist? I don't now whether local authorities ever use non-corporate suppliers, but if they do then by definition there will no CRN to record. Of the 5 million businesses in the UK, the majority are non-corporate, though the vast bulk of non-corporates (and indeed of all businesses) are very small.
Phil, I think it flows from the publication of this information, which I support, that we - the public - can ask about specific lines of expenditure. I have seen a statement reported today by Francis Maude and Danny Alexander in which they are reported to have said "Freezes on ... the use of consultants will continue". That is interesting when I look at the last published data for Cabinet Office contracts over £25,000 (September 2010), and I see that £3.3m was spent on consultants (and that based on a simple word search - there are probably others that do not actually have the word in the title). So what is this "freeze" Ministers are talking about continuing? I think it would be a daft thing for Government to stop using consultants who can offer great value for money when technical expertise is needed for a short time; but where is my right to challenge this inconsistency?
I'm trying to get students at school to use data for A Level as part of their Geography course. They have to study inequalities, and use official data sources. I want to match postcodes with LSOA IMD data from 2007. This exists on the CLG web site but nowehere else. Not important in the grand scheme of things, but it would be nice to access this data, and to help students access relevant infromation and l=allow them to see the nature of deprivation and the isses involved with mapping it.
I'm currently working on a project to publish ONS statistical geography data and it's containment relationships down the postcode unit level. This data should hopefully be available between April - July. We'll then look to update the geographic data after the Census as some of the OA and LSOA data may change.
Data should be two way. At the moment there are plenty of feeds where the government gives information - but people's dealings with the government are not just from the government to the people - but at times the people must give information. From Corporate and Personal Tax returns, paying council tax, parking permits, much information comes from people to the government (the Census is another example). So APIs need to be created allowing data to come from people to the government - yes there are issues of security, but these are not insurmountable. Opening up data this way would also open up opportunities for developers to create services and reduce the cost of IT Services to councils and central government.
Feature RequestAll documentation on data.gov.uk should be moved to the wiki
As I see data.gov.uk, there are four core features:
- Feature: Indexes of datasets, applications, and feature requests that are searchable, browsable, and curatedImplementation: /data, /apps, and /ideas
- Feature: Communication platforms for the providers, curators, developers and consumers of the dataImplementation: /blog and /forum
- Feature: Documentation for datasets, tools and theoretical conceptsImplementation: /linked-data and /resources and /wiki
- Feature: Hosting of metadata and endpointsImplementation: reference.data.gov.uk subdomain et al and /services
The indexes, metadata services and communication platforms function as intended. Whether the content (be it tags, categories, posts, submissions, responses) is of adequate quality and quantity is irrelevant to issues facing the architecture and core functionality of the site.
The documentation does not function as intended. The documentation is scatted around the site and lacks structure. The documentation under /linked-data and /resources is uneditable by the majority of people who know valuable things about the datasets, tools and concepts. The documentation under /wiki is orphaned by the absence of links from the wiki Main_Page, and lacks interconnection with the rest of the site.
The solution in my opinion is to consolidate the nuggets of information that do exist into a single document repository which is collaborative and categorised (ie. a wiki). This will turn a motley collection into the foundations of a valuable resource.
The information on http://data.gov.uk/linked-data serves as a great starting point for discovering the various parts of this web site, and web sites which harness OGD. Currently the /linked-data content is scattered, limited, and outdated. If that page became the basis for the wiki's Main_Page, it could serve as an entry point to wiki categories and pages containing a greater depth of detail, written by experts of that field.
Personally I would be quite happy to aggregate the web site's content into a wiki structure if you would find that helpful. All I would need is a commitment to restructure the main site menu and access to the Main_Page.
The most common opposition to moving valuable content to wikis is "wont it get wrecked?" Thankfully wikis address this in several ways: 1. Pages can be "watched", meaning you are notified of all changes immediately; 2. Crowds are remarkably good at policing themselves; 3. Page editing can be restricted to a specific group of users as a last resort; 4. Most users are honest. The benefits in added value far outweigh the dangers. If a philosophy of this site is about "opening up", shouldn't that start with something as simple as documentation?
Quick one, when searching for data sets and using the filters sometimes you are given the option to filter by "CSV" or "Csv" etc - would be useful if the publishing metadata in regards to "file type" was controlled - the publishers could then select from a drop down file type ... or if this isn't technologically feasible some controls around file types names maybe possible and submission wouldn't be allowed if incorrect filetypes were used ....
I totally i agree with you on this filter option,it will be useful if the publishing metadata in regards to "file type" was controlled .
regards
Jacky
Hi.
I'm a developer specialising in maps. It would be great if I could easily find all datasets that contain geographic information. Ideally geographic information would be exposed in terms of latitude/longitude, rather than postcode / localities names.
If that's not available, it would be great to have other resources/datasets that provide a mapping of postcode to latitude/longitude. Same for other type of locations (more or less granular than postcodes).
Thanks
I thought the free Codepoint Open dataset contained grid references for each postcode. Of course it is for the centroid, and in sparse areas each address with the same postcode can be some distance from the others.
I think we can check the free Codepoint Open datase, we can know exactly how it be useful for us. And then we could do something, you know.
I would like to suggest: sure, make a beautiful website, but first, give us - all of us - the unadulterated data. We have to ask for raw data now.
There must be an xml web services api system and a good documentation for usage. Maybe samples etc...
I'm new to this site, but I had no idea it was so full of spam. You should really do something about it, because it ruins the quality of the forum. I've been here like 2 minutes and I'm already sick and tired of reading spammy comments..
Really sorry for this being my first post, but I couldn't hold it in.
Thanks for the feedback.it's certainly something we will be looking at as part of the next set of enhancements.Packages now default to displaying the main outline description and the download options so users can quickly get to the raw data.Thanks for the feedback ukash
Another circumstance that adds to this is that the reasonable pricing of generic Viagra does not affect its quality. Viagra is extravagant as its manufacturers acquire to bear the cost of getting the panacea researched upon, snap notes in its casting and marketing and later go through heavily on notify marketing reconnaissance to be intelligent give social of this drug in the market.
order pills online no prescription
Totally agree with the lake of statistics for both suppliers and developpers.
John
website: giochi online
If you are trying for starters delicates Marc Jacobs Ladies handbag material regarding colorings most superstars after contained in the chanel handbags grape fruit being the delicates Marc Jacobs Purse.Exactly how considerable am i going to want to provide home this specific private carrier. Bill money 13 1,000. while using the world of fashion Lv Alma Roses M95869 Purse Orange On Sale, is not the initial time period parallels some type of bag chanel outlet associated with yellow metal Louis Vuitton Neo Initialed or monogrammed Eden M98672 Handbag Dark brown On discount sales, seasoned at the moment revealed an indicator Fendi chanel bags and also Lv. The actual bag Minaudo Vermeil Spend is perfect for gala through the night, what can you consider.
http://www.chanelbag-2012.com/