100 word write up on issues you ran after when mapping I ran into multiple issues after mapping the data I had collected on Philadelphia's Public Health Department's Air Monitoring Stations. The data set included columns such as 'address', that included street address, and x and y columns, that included coordinates, which facilitated georeferencing. When selecting whether to georeference by address or x and y coordinates, I was prompted to manually enter a few other fields such as 'state and 'country' to ensure higher accuracy. Unfortunately, despite providing the prompted supplementary data, only some rows were georeferenced correctly when utilizing the latitude and longitude to map the stations and even less data points were mapped accurately when I attempted to use the street addresses to georeference the stations. I was not able to move any further in the mapping process because of CartoDB's limited monthly credits. 100 word write up on how condom distribution relates to asthma There are various ways in which condom distribution and asthma are related. Firstly, children of people who have or have had asthma are more likely to develop asthma than children whose parents are asthma-free. Secondly, there is a higher prevalence of asthma cases in more densely populated areas. Distributing condoms around the city is a method of preventing overpopulation and thus, preventing more cases of asthma.
As an open data social movement emerges (with almost all stakeholders supporting it), there seems to be not very clear understandings of how the responsibilities for pushing the system forward are divvied up (amongst governments, citizens, departments, "facilitators", etc.). Yet, Philadelphia has one of the most successful open data portals in the country. How do social movements move forward despite disagreement over how responsibilities should be distributed?
How do the scales at which data gets produced impact how we know about environmental issues at city, regional, state, national, and international levels?
3. What are the attributes/ variables/ features/ columns? Columns: Year, Good, Moderate, Unhealthy Rows, years from 1990 to 2014 5. What does each row/ observation represent? How many days of that year had good, moderate, or unhealthy air quality indices 6. How was/ is the data collected? Using air quality measurement tools (?) 7. What data are we ignoring, and does it have more features? We are ignoring what regions of Philadelphia had best/worst indices We are ignoring what standards they followed 8. Is the data in a usable form? How does it need to be cleaned? It is usable and clean 9. What metadata is available? Had to log in to view representation details 10. Where did this data come from? Office of Sustainability 11. What format is it in? CSV 12. Who designed it and why? Office of Sustainability to make public Philadelphia's air quality data from 1990 up to 2014 Although it was put together using Socrata API (Read more: https://dev.socrata.com/foundry/data.phila.gov/uqaa-4deq) 13. Who provided the data? Office of Sustainability
Professional Services Contracts
3. What are the attributes/ variables/ features/ columns? Original contract id, current item id, department name, vendor, contract structure type, short description, start date, end date, days remaining depending on reporting quarter, amount, total payments, original vendor, exempt status (?), advertised or exempt, profit status 5. What does each row/ observation represent? Each contract ID 6. How was/ is the data collected? Through a form (?). 7. What data are we ignoring, and does it have more features? None that I can think of 8. Is the data in a usable form? How does it need to be cleaned? Usable, maybe cleaned by changing full-uppercase fields to normal 9. What metadata is available? https://github.com/CityOfPhiladelphia/contracts/blob/gh-pages/professional-services/data/README.md Short overview with explanation of column names and notes 10. Where did this data come from? A form that companies had to submit (?) 11. What format is it in? CSV 12. Who designed it and why? Office of Innovation & Technology. Companies submitted to meet quarterly reporting requirements outlined in Section 17-1403 of the Philadelphia Code. 13. Who provided the data? Companies themselves and the Office of Innovation and Technology put it up on platform
Week 5:
Pick 3 datasets and justify why it's interesting to map them together to give context to the questions that you're researching. Air Quality Index Days (1990-2014) Litter Index Crime Incidents Professional Services Contracts City Operating Budget Property Assessments School district budget data + school disctrict school info + school progress report data + public school stats + SAT scores + ACT scores + school dropout rates 2004-2012
5 articles on OpenDataPhilly:
DATA CRUNCHED: how the country’s first community open data catalog got done Who is the audience for the article? The audience for the article seems to be anyone that is interested in the Open Data Philly movement whether they are from the city or just interested in how the community's open data catalog was created
What is the sentiment? (Is OpenDataPhilly praised? Why?) Open Data Philly is being praised for its noble purpose, but the article points out how small of a role the City of Philadelphia has taken in the whole project. The site's whole existence is due to Azavea, a small software development firm specializing in the creation of intuitive web and mobile solutions, as well as geospatial analysis services to enhance decision-making processes. While the city has not spent a dime on the project, a significant portion of Azavea's funding comes from local government contracts, including the City of Philadelphia.
Does the article raise any concerns about the project? The city raises the question of "How big of a priority is getting data out there?" Tommy Jones, who served as interim CTO commented on how he only had 2 people in his network group. The project is still in its infancy; there are cultural concerns in some agencies and there is no consistent, secure place to host data. City councilman Jim Kenney says the project is a "5 on a scale of 10".
The article also mentions the fact that no one person owns the initiative. The site and domain name are under Azavea's CEO, Robert Cheetham, but he believes the initiative should be collaborative and hosted by the city. While the city does not have the resources to do so yet, many advocacy and nonprofit groups have offered to help out. (WHYY, William Penn Foundation's Center for Public Interest Journalism in Temple University, Windows, IBM)
How is the role of the "facilitators" (the people working at OpenDataPhilly) characterized? They stress how they should be used as a platform, continue to be facilitators and supporters. "Not necessarily doing all of it. More steering, less rowing"
Does there seem to be something cultural going on in the tone, content, and sentiment of the articles you're reading (including diversity)? Think both on the initiators and the journalists themselves. Do their goals seem to be the same? The author seems to be questioning whether the initiative is genuine and how much effort and money the government is willing to put in to make it a successful project.
Why the next mayor of Philadelphia must double down on open data: Mark Headd (Written by Mark Headd, former CDO of the City of Philadelphia) Who is the audience for the article? To the citizens of Philadelphia, specifically those voting for the next mayor of the city. "The record of the current administration on open data may provide some guidance for voters as they head to the polls in just a few short months."
What is the sentiment? (Is OpenDataPhilly praised? Why?) OpenData Philly is praised for allowing transparency between the government and the citizens. It stresses how much can be done with this data, but is not being done yet.
Does the article raise any concerns about the project? The article points out how the city has not yet released detailed spending information in an open format of the salaries for public officials and employees, which almost every other large city in America has made available. It also has not released data on property tax collections or ownership information for derelict properties that is of great interest in neighborhoods across the city. The processing of public Right-to-Know requests (processed by the city, not ODP) is slow and cumbersome and defeats the purpose of the initiative. The author wants the next mayor to send a message about being ethical and the importance of publishing open data.
How is the role of the "facilitators" (the people working at OpenDataPhilly) characterized? Not mentioned.
Does there seem to be something cultural going on in the tone, content, and sentiment of the articles you're reading (including diversity)? Think both on the initiators and the journalists themselves. Do their goals seem to be the same? The author brings attention to a lack of available open data information on ownership information for properties in poor conditions.
Lessons from Philadelphia's open data progress Who is the audience for the article? Anyone who is interested in learning about the inititative, its current state, and its goals moving forward.
What is the sentiment? (Is OpenDataPhilly praised? Why?) It is praised for various reasons, one of them being that it serves as inspiration for other cities. Another being that the direction it is heading towards (having departments participate and changing the way Philadelphia does business as a government) is the direction all open data policies should move to for continued success.
Does the article raise any concerns about the project? Essentially, improving the public open data pipeline for the city. The need for the city to create a formalization process to gauge demand of data from the public for access to this data. Also, asking for diverse public feedback to ensure that movement achieves its full potential impact.
How is the role of the "facilitators" (the people working at OpenDataPhilly) characterized? It encourages city to have bigger role because OPD does not have much power over getting data published and cannot really do much until they gather enough data to create a robust and public data inventory.
Does there seem to be something cultural going on in the tone, content, and sentiment of the articles you're reading (including diversity)? Think both on the initiators and the journalists themselves. Do their goals seem to be the same? The journalist was actually an advisor for the OPD group, so they agree.
Week 4: Philadelphia's Open Data Strategic Plan
https://cityofphiladelphia.github.io/slash-data/phl_opendata_plan.pdf Philadelphia's Open Data Strategic Plan's second phase was published in October 2014. Since the former Mayor Nutter established an open data policy in 2012, Philadelphia has been putting effort into using open data as a metric to measure the city's transparency. The second phase focuses on utilizing open data to evolve the way Philadelphia does business as a government. This required changing the program's frame in 3 ways:
"Renewing the focus on the general public as the ultimate customer"
"Shifting open data to be less technology and more about departments making open data policy decisions"
"Focusing on a broader data management strategy that empowers departments to share data internally as well with the public."
Since establishing the open data policy, open data releases on crime incidents from the Police Department; Permits, Licenses & Violations from the Department of Licenses & Inspections; Property Assessments from the Office of Property Assessment, among others. The second phase addresses the lessons the city has learned since establishing the open data policy. These are: having one primary open data portal, prioritizing the work of sharing data depending on its demand, providing tools that automate the publishing of data and ensuring that the published data is standard throughout all datasets, sharing data between governmental departments, and presenting data with proper context to avoid misinterpretation. Philadelphia's open data team hoped to change their open data framework by making the general public their ultimate customer of open data, having departments make open data policy decisions, and developing a broader data management strategy to facilitate data sharing between departments. To do so, the team created a process that encompasses the full lifecycle of data. The steps to this process are as follows:
Meet with each department to discuss data challenges and discover needs
Conduct data inventory that contains basic information about each dataset such as title, description, accuracy, and sensitivity
Review and prioritize
Getting prioritized data and cleaning it up to get dataset to shareable state
Make data accessible in consistent way by internal users, tech savvy users, and the general public
Weeks 2 & 3: Mapping initiatives in Philadelphia (cont.)
Who's running it/? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Park Service, tribal, state, and local agencies developed the AirNow system to provide the public with easy access to national air quality information. What map is trying to show?
Current Air Quality Conditions - Nationwide and regional real-time ozone and particle pollution air quality maps covering 46 States and part of Canada. The maps are updated hourly
Who's running it? Azavea, a Philadelphia-based geospatial software firm. Azavea is an award-winning geospatial analysis (GIS) software development firm specializing in the creation of location-based web and mobile solutions, as well as geospatial analysis services to enhance decision-making. Azavea is a certified B Corporation that applies geographic data and technology to promote the emergence of more dynamic, vibrant, and sustainable communities.
Partners are: The City of Philadelphia Office of Innovation & Technology’s mission is to increase the effectiveness of the information technology infrastructure, where the services provided are advanced, optimized, and responsive to the needs of the City of Philadelphia’s businesses, residents and visitors.
Temple University School of Media and Communication is a leader in advancing the role of communication in public life. This mission is pursued by educating students for leadership careers in communication and media, through advancing research and creative activity in these fields, and by serving the public need for free and open communication. The school's Center for Public Interest Journalism has been managing the OpenDataPhilly web site since the re-launch in early 2015.
Technical.ly Philly is a news site covering the community of people who use technology in Philadelphia. They also operate sister media sites in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Delaware, and Washington DC.
What is the map trying to show? How many days of the year were good, moderate, or unhealthy from 1990 to 2014 in terms of air quality index. How is it funded? The William Penn Foundation provided part of the funding for collaboration features in the original OpenDataPhilly data catalog in 2011 The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation provided part of the funding for the redevelopment of the data catalog in 2015. Azavea provided the balance of the funding to develop both the original web site and the new version in 2015.
What does it seem to be running on? OpenDataPhilly is powered by the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN), an open source data portal platform. OpenDataPhilly is itself open source and on GitHub.
Week 7:
100 word write up on issues you ran after when mappingI ran into multiple issues after mapping the data I had collected on Philadelphia's Public Health Department's Air Monitoring Stations. The data set included columns such as 'address', that included street address, and x and y columns, that included coordinates, which facilitated georeferencing. When selecting whether to georeference by address or x and y coordinates, I was prompted to manually enter a few other fields such as 'state and 'country' to ensure higher accuracy. Unfortunately, despite providing the prompted supplementary data, only some rows were georeferenced correctly when utilizing the latitude and longitude to map the stations and even less data points were mapped accurately when I attempted to use the street addresses to georeference the stations. I was not able to move any further in the mapping process because of CartoDB's limited monthly credits.
100 word write up on how condom distribution relates to asthma
There are various ways in which condom distribution and asthma are related. Firstly, children of people who have or have had asthma are more likely to develop asthma than children whose parents are asthma-free. Secondly, there is a higher prevalence of asthma cases in more densely populated areas. Distributing condoms around the city is a method of preventing overpopulation and thus, preventing more cases of asthma.
As an open data social movement emerges (with almost all stakeholders supporting it), there seems to be not very clear understandings of how the responsibilities for pushing the system forward are divvied up (amongst governments, citizens, departments, "facilitators", etc.). Yet, Philadelphia has one of the most successful open data portals in the country. How do social movements move forward despite disagreement over how responsibilities should be distributed?
How do the scales at which data gets produced impact how we know about environmental issues at city, regional, state, national, and international levels?
Week 6:
Compared to state-level, city-level is much more accessible and usable. Most state-level data was not even in downloadable forms or hard to reach.Examples:
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/aq/aqm/aqi.htm
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=817459&mode=2
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/aq/aqm/pollt.html
Air Quality Index Days
3. What are the attributes/ variables/ features/ columns?Columns: Year, Good, Moderate, Unhealthy
Rows, years from 1990 to 2014
5. What does each row/ observation represent?
How many days of that year had good, moderate, or unhealthy air quality indices
6. How was/ is the data collected?
Using air quality measurement tools (?)
7. What data are we ignoring, and does it have more features?
We are ignoring what regions of Philadelphia had best/worst indices
We are ignoring what standards they followed
8. Is the data in a usable form? How does it need to be cleaned?
It is usable and clean
9. What metadata is available?
Had to log in to view representation details
10. Where did this data come from?
Office of Sustainability
11. What format is it in?
CSV
12. Who designed it and why?
Office of Sustainability to make public Philadelphia's air quality data from 1990 up to 2014
Although it was put together using Socrata API
(Read more: https://dev.socrata.com/foundry/data.phila.gov/uqaa-4deq)
13. Who provided the data?
Office of Sustainability
Professional Services Contracts
3. What are the attributes/ variables/ features/ columns?Original contract id, current item id, department name, vendor, contract structure type, short description, start date, end date, days remaining depending on reporting quarter, amount, total payments, original vendor, exempt status (?), advertised or exempt, profit status
5. What does each row/ observation represent?
Each contract ID
6. How was/ is the data collected?
Through a form (?).
7. What data are we ignoring, and does it have more features?
None that I can think of
8. Is the data in a usable form? How does it need to be cleaned?
Usable, maybe cleaned by changing full-uppercase fields to normal
9. What metadata is available?
https://github.com/CityOfPhiladelphia/contracts/blob/gh-pages/professional-services/data/README.md
Short overview with explanation of column names and notes
10. Where did this data come from?
A form that companies had to submit (?)
11. What format is it in?
CSV
12. Who designed it and why?
Office of Innovation & Technology. Companies submitted to meet quarterly reporting requirements outlined in Section 17-1403 of the Philadelphia Code.
13. Who provided the data?
Companies themselves and the Office of Innovation and Technology put it up on platform
Week 5:
Pick 3 datasets and justify why it's interesting to map them together to give context to the questions that you're researching.Air Quality Index Days (1990-2014)
Litter Index
Crime Incidents
Professional Services Contracts
City Operating Budget
Property Assessments
School district budget data + school disctrict school info + school progress report data + public school stats + SAT scores + ACT scores + school dropout rates 2004-2012
5 articles on OpenDataPhilly:
DATA CRUNCHED: how the country’s first community open data catalog got done
Who is the audience for the article?
The audience for the article seems to be anyone that is interested in the Open Data Philly movement whether they are from the city or just interested in how the community's open data catalog was created
What is the sentiment? (Is OpenDataPhilly praised? Why?)
Open Data Philly is being praised for its noble purpose, but the article points out how small of a role the City of Philadelphia has taken in the whole project. The site's whole existence is due to Azavea, a small software development firm specializing in the creation of intuitive web and mobile solutions, as well as geospatial analysis services to enhance decision-making processes. While the city has not spent a dime on the project, a significant portion of Azavea's funding comes from local government contracts, including the City of Philadelphia.
Does the article raise any concerns about the project?
The city raises the question of "How big of a priority is getting data out there?" Tommy Jones, who served as interim CTO commented on how he only had 2 people in his network group. The project is still in its infancy; there are cultural concerns in some agencies and there is no consistent, secure place to host data. City councilman Jim Kenney says the project is a "5 on a scale of 10".
The article also mentions the fact that no one person owns the initiative. The site and domain name are under Azavea's CEO, Robert Cheetham, but he believes the initiative should be collaborative and hosted by the city. While the city does not have the resources to do so yet, many advocacy and nonprofit groups have offered to help out. (WHYY, William Penn Foundation's Center for Public Interest Journalism in Temple University, Windows, IBM)
How is the role of the "facilitators" (the people working at OpenDataPhilly) characterized?
They stress how they should be used as a platform, continue to be facilitators and supporters. "Not necessarily doing all of it. More steering, less rowing"
Does there seem to be something cultural going on in the tone, content, and sentiment of the articles you're reading (including diversity)? Think both on the initiators and the journalists themselves. Do their goals seem to be the same?
The author seems to be questioning whether the initiative is genuine and how much effort and money the government is willing to put in to make it a successful project.
Why the next mayor of Philadelphia must double down on open data: Mark Headd
(Written by Mark Headd, former CDO of the City of Philadelphia)
Who is the audience for the article?
To the citizens of Philadelphia, specifically those voting for the next mayor of the city.
"The record of the current administration on open data may provide some guidance for voters as they head to the polls in just a few short months."
What is the sentiment? (Is OpenDataPhilly praised? Why?)
OpenData Philly is praised for allowing transparency between the government and the citizens. It stresses how much can be done with this data, but is not being done yet.
Does the article raise any concerns about the project?
The article points out how the city has not yet released detailed spending information in an open format of the salaries for public officials and employees, which almost every other large city in America has made available. It also has not released data on property tax collections or ownership information for derelict properties that is of great interest in neighborhoods across the city. The processing of public Right-to-Know requests (processed by the city, not ODP) is slow and cumbersome and defeats the purpose of the initiative. The author wants the next mayor to send a message about being ethical and the importance of publishing open data.
How is the role of the "facilitators" (the people working at OpenDataPhilly) characterized?
Not mentioned.
Does there seem to be something cultural going on in the tone, content, and sentiment of the articles you're reading (including diversity)? Think both on the initiators and the journalists themselves. Do their goals seem to be the same?
The author brings attention to a lack of available open data information on ownership information for properties in poor conditions.
Lessons from Philadelphia's open data progress
Who is the audience for the article?
Anyone who is interested in learning about the inititative, its current state, and its goals moving forward.
What is the sentiment? (Is OpenDataPhilly praised? Why?)
It is praised for various reasons, one of them being that it serves as inspiration for other cities. Another being that the direction it is heading towards (having departments participate and changing the way Philadelphia does business as a government) is the direction all open data policies should move to for continued success.
Does the article raise any concerns about the project?
Essentially, improving the public open data pipeline for the city. The need for the city to create a formalization process to gauge demand of data from the public for access to this data. Also, asking for diverse public feedback to ensure that movement achieves its full potential impact.
How is the role of the "facilitators" (the people working at OpenDataPhilly) characterized?
It encourages city to have bigger role because OPD does not have much power over getting data published and cannot really do much until they gather enough data to create a robust and public data inventory.
Does there seem to be something cultural going on in the tone, content, and sentiment of the articles you're reading (including diversity)? Think both on the initiators and the journalists themselves. Do their goals seem to be the same?
The journalist was actually an advisor for the OPD group, so they agree.
Week 4: Philadelphia's Open Data Strategic Plan
https://cityofphiladelphia.github.io/slash-data/phl_opendata_plan.pdfPhiladelphia's Open Data Strategic Plan's second phase was published in October 2014. Since the former Mayor Nutter established an open data policy in 2012, Philadelphia has been putting effort into using open data as a metric to measure the city's transparency. The second phase focuses on utilizing open data to evolve the way Philadelphia does business as a government. This required changing the program's frame in 3 ways:
- "Renewing the focus on the general public as the ultimate customer"
- "Shifting open data to be less technology and more about departments making open data policy decisions"
- "Focusing on a broader data management strategy that empowers departments to share data internally as well with the public."
Since establishing the open data policy, open data releases on crime incidents from the Police Department; Permits, Licenses & Violations from the Department of Licenses & Inspections; Property Assessments from the Office of Property Assessment, among others.The second phase addresses the lessons the city has learned since establishing the open data policy. These are: having one primary open data portal, prioritizing the work of sharing data depending on its demand, providing tools that automate the publishing of data and ensuring that the published data is standard throughout all datasets, sharing data between governmental departments, and presenting data with proper context to avoid misinterpretation.
Philadelphia's open data team hoped to change their open data framework by making the general public their ultimate customer of open data, having departments make open data policy decisions, and developing a broader data management strategy to facilitate data sharing between departments.
To do so, the team created a process that encompasses the full lifecycle of data. The steps to this process are as follows:
Weeks 2 & 3: Mapping initiatives in Philadelphia (cont.)
http://www.airnow.gov/Who's running it/?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Park Service, tribal, state, and local agencies developed the AirNow system to provide the public with easy access to national air quality information.
What map is trying to show?
- Air Quality Forecasts - Nationwide daily forecasts.
- Current Air Quality Conditions - Nationwide and regional real-time ozone and particle pollution air quality maps covering 46 States and part of Canada. The maps are updated hourly
How is it funded?http://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.dynamicpatnerslist
What does it seem to be running on?
JavaScript?
Week 1: Mapping initiatives in Philadelphia
Open Data Philly
Who's running it?Azavea, a Philadelphia-based geospatial software firm. Azavea is an award-winning geospatial analysis (GIS) software development firm specializing in the creation of location-based web and mobile solutions, as well as geospatial analysis services to enhance decision-making. Azavea is a certified B Corporation that applies geographic data and technology to promote the emergence of more dynamic, vibrant, and sustainable communities.
Partners are:
The City of Philadelphia Office of Innovation & Technology’s mission is to increase the effectiveness of the information technology infrastructure, where the services provided are advanced, optimized, and responsive to the needs of the City of Philadelphia’s businesses, residents and visitors.
Temple University School of Media and Communication is a leader in advancing the role of communication in public life. This mission is pursued by educating students for leadership careers in communication and media, through advancing research and creative activity in these fields, and by serving the public need for free and open communication. The school's Center for Public Interest Journalism has been managing the OpenDataPhilly web site since the re-launch in early 2015.
Technical.ly Philly is a news site covering the community of people who use technology in Philadelphia. They also operate sister media sites in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Delaware, and Washington DC.
What is the map trying to show?
How many days of the year were good, moderate, or unhealthy from 1990 to 2014 in terms of air quality index.
How is it funded?
The William Penn Foundation provided part of the funding for collaboration features in the original OpenDataPhilly data catalog in 2011
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation provided part of the funding for the redevelopment of the data catalog in 2015.
Azavea provided the balance of the funding to develop both the original web site and the new version in 2015.
What does it seem to be running on?
OpenDataPhilly is powered by the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN), an open source data portal platform. OpenDataPhilly is itself open source and on GitHub.