Open data, implications for teaching and learning Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design & Technology Robert Griffin EdTech 2013

1.Background 2.Implications for teaching and learning

The public create 2.5 Quintillion bytes of new data per day That is 48 hours of video uploaded to YouTube 47 seven thousand apps downloaded 570 new websites created 2 million Google searches Every minute (Zikopoulos, 2012)

The public sector also creates a lot of data The European Commission in 2011 estimated economic gains from public data to be worth €140bn throughout the EU (Vickery, 2011).

Why Keep all this valuable data locked up?

The Lisbon Treaty eGovernment Reform plan The European Commission The Open Government Partnership

Open Data Three criteria 1.Accessible, preferably on the Internet 2.Machine readable in non proprietary formats 3.Free to use with no restrictions

Implications for teaching and learning 1.Resources 2.What we teach 3.Academic Publishing

Resources

Property Price Index + Google Fusion = +?

Google Fusion

Fingal County Council

Dublinked.ie

A National Data Portal?

What we teach Digital literacy The ability to identify, retrieve, evaluate and use information to both ask and answer meaningful questions.

Research about Open Data The economic impact of open government data (Vickery, 2011; Pollock, 2009; Arzberger et al., 2004; Uhlir, 2009) The democratic potential of open data (Mayo and Steinberg 2007). Open Data can be used for making better government decisions.(Puron-Cid, Gil-Garcia, & Luna-Reyes, 2012). Transparency and open data can increase trust in government (O'Hara, 2012). Open data can be used to improve the effectiveness of aid (Linders. 2012)

Academic Publishing Open data offers new ways of disseminating academic knowledge called “open access”. All research papers that describe work paid for by the British taxpayer will be free online by 2014 (Willetts, 2012). The United States announced that federally funded research will be available to the public for free within a year (Felsenthal, 2013)

Find out More The Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) in Galway is an internationally recognised institute in semantic web research, education and technology transfer. OpenData.ie : The Open Data group meets on a monthly basis to bring together people who are passionate about sharing, learning, using and progressing Open Data in Ireland together. The meetings consist of guest speakers and networking opportunities.

Conclusions The open data movement is gathering momentum worldwide. Ireland is well placed to capitalise upon the opportunity that it presents, with a strong technology sector and being home to many of the companies involved in big data, cloud computing and application development. Membership of the OPG will bring many benefits such as more transparency, public participation, collaboration opportunities and economic benefits. Open Data is undoubtedly a driver for economic growth which is sorely needed in Ireland at the moment. The eGovernment Reform Plan needs to be followed and the proposed actions implemented. A central portal for publishing data needs to be created. A standardised format for data needs to be agreed upon which is open and non-proprietary. Ireland needs an open data licence which will make the data available free to use for any purpose. Awareness of what is available and what can be done with the data is needed. Educators need to be trained in the required skills to use this data and programmes and modules need to include them in their curriculums. As shown above there is a lot of public sector data which is valuable but being underutilised. Ireland is behind other countries in the amount, quality and availability of this data. Publishing it should become automatic and the norm. If the experience of the other OGP countries can be replicated here it could be of great benefit for the economy and civic society.

Thank You Any Questions?