Learning about the COINS database: a few useful links
A couple of weeks ago the government did something really significant. No, it wasn’t anything to do with the Big Society – significant though that may be. It was the release of one enormous database, known as COINS. Essentially COINS (and I do really like writing it in capitals) is the detail on everything the [...]
SpeedData: Jon Bounds
Jon explained why people do stuff for free on the web by talking about Cliche Kitty and Domo Kun. For those who don’t know, Cliche Kitty and Domo Kun were brought together on the internet. Have a look here. Jon described how people started to use these images and add to them and create new and [...]
SpeedData: Dave Harte
Dave was interested in creating a map for the hyperlocal blog Bornville Village. He took data from Birmingham City Council’s website on gritting. He spent a lot of time doing it, by manually taking data, creating a spreadsheet and then transferring it to a Google Map. Eventually it was taken on by Mappa Mercia who [...]
So how generous is Ordnance Survey OpenData?
At the beginning of this month (apologies, we’re a bit late) the Government announced that much of the mapping data held by the Ordnance Survey would be released free to the public.
Mapping road death data
The BBC recently undertook a web project to make road death accidents “relevant to people” during a week’s coverage. Deaths were plotted on a map and searchable by postcode with links to the relevant news article. You can see and interact with the map on the BBC website here. The way the data is presented [...]
Hackitude gets down and dirty with data
Over the weekend a small tremour was felt across Birmingham. The distinct rumble was caused by a group of web developers, data hackers and HTML magicians who had gathered to do something wonderful – and the result was explosive. Held at the Aquila TV studios, Birmingham, Hackitude took place from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 [...]
The Gen-Y of data mashers: using what the government gave you
As more and more data becomes available to the public online, how we present and use this information becomes increasingly important. Now young people are getting involved to create a generation of data mashers. Young Rewired State was a two-day project in London focused on technophile 15-18 year-olds encouraging them to construct something new and [...]
The value of data, a tale of Birmingham parking tickets.
Through the Help Me Investigate site , I came across an investigation regarding parking tickets, with the aim to find the most ticketed street in Birmingham in FY09. It sounded interesting, and I was delighted to see a FOI request from Heather Brooke (here it is on What Do They Know) Data, it’s a rather [...]
Can we use public data to create jobs?
This is really a post designed to encourage people to read an interesting piece by Birmingham based Paul Bradshaw over that the Online Journalism Blog. It’s a month or so old because Paul was responding to news that Tim Berners Lee (the man who invented the World Wide Web) will be working on ways to [...]
