Category Archives: information

CFP: Technological imaginaries and the production of space

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Conference of Irish Geographers 2015, Queens University Belfast, 21-24 May 2015

This session aims to think through the complex relationship between space and technology. The proliferation of smart phones and city-scale embedded devices is reshaping homes, work places and cities. Rather than focus explicitly on how technologies might autonomously and automatically produce such spaces, our focus is the broader imaginaries which pre-empt and prefigure sociotechnical systems. We are interested in submissions that explore how space is produced or performed through contested relationships between technologies, imaginaries and situated practices. This might mean, on the one hand, to approach technologies by reflecting on cultural representations or utopian visions of the future. On the other hand, imaginaries might be understood through the ways communities, social groups or initiatives think about already existing technologies. We are open to a broad range of theoretical and methodological approaches.

Contributions may respond to various topics, including but not limited to urban planning, surveillance, emergency response, energy management, sustainable transportation or everyday consumption and mobility. The following questions might be addressed:

  • what kinds of urban futures are being imagined and what are the technologies mobilised for such imaginaries?
  • how are technologies evoked as a solution to contemporary problems or perceived threats?
  • what space-times are evoked or rearranged?
  • what forms of resistance to dominant visions are being practiced or displayed?
  • how are politics articulated within utopian and dystopian imaginations?
  • how are the coupling of bodies, technologies and data imagined, planned and enacted?
  • how is human and nonhuman agency perceived and practiced in relation to technological imaginaries?

Potential contributors are free to contact us prior to submission of their abstract. Contact email: james.white.2014@nuim.ie.

Abstracts must be submitted online at the Conference of Irish Geographers website.

Deadline: March 20, 2015.

Industrial Heritage: Software enabled preservation of dispersed and fragile knowledge in miniature.

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Developments in software and digital technology have had wide ranging impacts on our leisure time, from movies on demand on our mobiles, internet on public transport and the ‘selfie’  saturated world of social media. Yet advancements in technology have also reached creative activities that are often considered far from mainstream and groups of individuals, who though they share a common interest, may pursue their leisure activity individually and in relative isolation.

One such social group is that of model railway enthusiasts. For these collectors, builders and hobbyists the developments in software have enabled fundamental changes to the way they explore and express their interests.  Geographically dispersed and relatively few in number (estimated in the low hundreds in Ireland) software has offered a means of augmenting the traditional physical locations of interaction, socialising and knowledge sharing. Software and connectivity have enabled a network of online interactions that has linked individuals more closely with the commercial suppliers and the specialist manufacturers of the models they consume, extending the reach of the community beyond the traditional clubs or shows. It has facilitated efficient access to, and the sharing of, previously inaccessible or unknown historic and practical knowledge regarding even the most obscure topics such as window size and seat positions.  Building upon more traditional sources of historic data such as printed media and journals, software has also enabled the capture of dispersed and divergent forms of data and facilitated their transformation, via computerised production methods, into ready-to-run models with unprecedented levels of physical detail and functionality. Continue reading →

Job: Three year postdoc on the Programmable City project

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We’re pleased to announce the advertisement of a three year postdoc position on the Programmable City project.   Full details of the project can be found on the Maynooth University HR page, but essentially the post will study algorithms and code used in smart city initiatives (broadly conceived) from a software studies perspective.  As such, the project will critically examine how software developers translate rules, procedures and policies into a complex architecture of interlinked algorithms that manage and govern how people traverse or interact with urban systems.  It will thus provide an in-depth analysis of how software and data are being produced to aid the regulation of city life in an age of software and ‘big data’. The primary methods will be a selection from those set out in the paper ‘Thinking critically about and researching algorithms’.

We are seeking applications from researchers with an interest in software studies, critical data studies, urban studies, and smart cities to work in an interdisciplinary team. Applicants will:

  • have a keen interest in understanding software from a social science perspective;
  • be a proficient programmer and able to comprehend other developer’s code;
  • have a good, broad range of qualitative data creation and analysis skills;
  • be interested in theory building;
  • have an aptitude to work well in an interdisciplinary team;
  • be prepared to undertake overseas fieldwork;
  • have a commitment to publishing and presenting their work;
  • have a willingness to communicate through new social media;
  • be prepared to archive their data for future re-use by others;
  • be prepared to help organise and attend workshops and conferences.

The closing data is 5th December.  See the full job description here for more details.

We would encourage any interested candidates to apply for the post and for readers of the blog to bring the post to the attention of those who you think might be interested, or circulate in your networks/social media.

Working Paper 3: Republic of Ireland's Open Data Strategy: Observations and Recommendations

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Republic of Ireland’s Open Data Strategy: Observations and Recommendations

Tracey P. Lauriault, Programmable City Project, NIRSA, National University of Ireland Maynooth, County Kildare, Republic of Ireland

The Programmable City Working Paper 3 (Complete Working Paper is available here)

Executive Summary

Working Paper 3 of the Programmable City Project is a response to the Republic of Ireland’s Department of Public Expenditures and Reform (DPER) Open Data launch and the reports produced by Insight at the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), who were awarded the contract from a government call for tender (CfT).  The Working Paper provides background context to the open data plan and critically considers governance; infrastructure; records management as well as information management and information technology (IM/IT); Legal, policy and ethical frameworks; public engagement; data curation; data dissemination and publication, and evaluation.  The Paper proposes reconceptualizing open data as a function of government record keeping, information management, shared services and national spatial data infrastructures as opposed to a standalone program.  By doing so, it is suggested, open data simply becomes a good governance strategy and by integrating it into broader government administration information management provides it with sustainability, especially if it becomes a normalized data dissemination strategy and a public engagement mechanism.  The Working Paper also includes a number of recommendations for consideration in addition to or to complement those provided by Insight.  Recommendations are as follows:

1. Good Governance

  • Open data should be a natural extension of good governance strategies and not stand alone programs.
  • Open data should be a key component of government information management (IM), record management, IT and national spatial data infrastructures (NSDI).
  • Open data should be part of a coordinated data and information dissemination strategy, which should also include publicly funded research data, scientific data, data from the humanities, and other qualitative data.
  • Focus on the production and maintenance of good quality public sector, administration, research, geospatial and scientific datasets and less on commercialization, innovation and ‘high value’ datasets.
  • Focus on data that have societal and environmental value, and also on core/framework datasets upon which other datasets can be integrated into.

2. Open Data, Records & Information Management and Thinking more Critically about Data

  • Consider open Data as a good governance strategy and as part of data and information management.
  • Integrate Open Data into IM/IT, Shared Services and integrate with the NSDI
  • Data infrastructures are critically important, Open Data should be considered with cloud computing, high speed internet, and hardware and software.
  • Open datasets should be thought of as government records (data & information) and should be managed accordingly.
  • Adopt a life-cycle and data curation approach to the management, preservation and dissemination of Open Data datasets.
  • Implement the NSDI and consider the CGDI principles for the NSDI and for Open Data in Ireland.
  • Critically reflect on data more broadly and not just as objects at the end of an information pipeline.
  • Consider evaluating the contents of an open data portal to see if these can be used to construct indicators of well-being and quality of life.

3.  The DPER / Insight Roadmap and the Best Practices Handbook

  • 3.1.      Governance

  • Develop an open data public interest mandate, vision and mission, and clear objectives against which performance can be evaluated.
  • Reconsider the organizational structure as per the schematic in Figure 5.
  • Reconsider appointments on the SIG to be expertise and skills based and less political, and that appointments be made by peers.
  • Create an open data institutional entity that will operationalize the work of the ODB, SIG and Working groups and integrate these with other government programs.
  • Open data officers should be appointed in all government offices
  • Create temporary expert working groups to develop and implement infrastructure wide practices (see figure 5).

3.2.      Legal, Policy and Ethical Framework

  • Develop a data and information legal and policy framework with open data as a component of it.
  • Conduct an inventory of collaborative and data sharing instruments (e.g., MOU, procurement contracts, data sharing agreements, etc.).
  • Assess the outputs of the Intellectual Property Activity in Ireland Based on Existing Data report resulting from the RfT in the spring of 2014.
  • Conduct an inventory of all laws, regulation, policies and directives that would govern how data are collected and disseminated.
  • Develop a set of explicit legal, policy and ethical guidelines for the management of public sector data and open data based on laws, regulation, directives, policies and practices in Ireland for public sector officials.
  • Include these guidelines as part of the data dissemination decision-making tree (Figure 6).

3.3.      Public Engagement

  • Engage with stakeholders on developing the mission, vision and mandate for the Open Data strategy.
  • Engage with stakeholders to shape how an Open Data roadmap and strategy could look.
  • Engage with, study, build upon and harmonize the Open Data strategy with existing public sector data dissemination programs.
  • Review and assess existing technologically mediated engagement tools and social media applications in other jurisdictions.
  • Public sector officials and departments should develop processes and be receptive to evidence based public input into public policy and planning, and learn to solicit feedback from the public in a useful and educated way.
  • Consider crowdsourcing, VGI and citizen science as a public engagement strategy.

4. Data Curation or a Data Audit?

  • Adopt a digital data curation and life-cycle approach to the management of data and conduct the data audit accordingly.
  • Adopt the Data Audit Framework.
  • Ensure that additional elements are added into the data audit (e.g. geocoded, scale, time).
  • The high value approach to the selection of data should be reconsidered, and an evaluation of what current data ‘clients’ value, should be considered.
  • Recognize the limitations of a machine only audit, and broaden search criteria to include all data not just those in open formats and under an open licence.
  • Conduct a full inventory of portals and catalogues from all sectors in Ireland and integrate their metadata to ensure cross disciplinary discoverability.
  • Publish the results of the data audit.

5. Data Dissemination and Publication

  • It is highly recommended that DPER consider adopting the well established data curation life cycle management approach similar to the one developed by the Digital Curation Centre, and consider taking a data curatorial approach in lieu of a data audit.
  • Adopt the Data Audit Framework for data curation as well as those developed by the Digital Curation Centre and consider developing an Information Management Directive which incorporates the ideals of Open Data, preservation and archives.
  • Create a decision making tree to help public officials determine what can and cannot be published.  Figure 6 is an example to guide decisions on the management and dissemination of sensitive data.
  • The outcomes of the decision derived from the application of the open data publication decision making tree would then form the basis for the decision supporting why some datasets are not published by default.
  • A data management and dissemination WG should be created along with those in Figure 5, and invite experts from the Digital Repository of Ireland, library and archives and information studies, geospatial community to help develop a comprehensive access, dissemination, data management and preservation plan for Ireland.

6.  Evaluation

  • Assess current performance and evaluation frameworks within the Irish public sector, including auditing frameworks, or those commonly adopted and reported on in other countries that have well established Open Data programs such as Canada, the US and the UK and as per the RfT.
  • Reassess the Open Data Barometer evaluation recommendation in the DPER/Insight report in light of its objectives and its target use and determine if it is a suitable model for a western developed national Open Data program.
  • Consider high impact datasets, those of public, social and environmental significance along with those considered to be of high value.

Dublin Dashboard launched

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We’re proud at the Programmable City project to be launching the Dublin Dashboard, one of the first major outputs from the project.  Below is a short video overview, part of the press release, and our slides from the launch.

The Dublin Dashboard provides citizens, researchers, planners, policy makers and companies  with real-time information, time-series data, and interactive maps about all aspects of the city.  It allows users to gain a better understand how the city is performing, to undertake evidence-informed analysis, and to improve their everyday decision making.  For example, you can learn about how the city economy is performing at a glance, visualise crime levels by garda station and district, and monitor traffic flows and car parking spaces in real time.

Owen Keegan, Chief Executive for Dublin City Council officially launched the Dublin Dashboard.  “The Dublin Dashboard is a great example of a local authority and a university working together for the benefit of citizens. The real value for city leaders is how the dashboard will help Dublin to monitor performance.

“A massive wealth of data is being made available, including real-time data, about the economy, transport, planning, housing, health, population, the environment, and emergency services. We are committed to further developing and improving the range of city data and information available on the platform.”

The dashboard is made up of a number of modules that can be easily used to explore hundreds of graphs, maps and apps concerning how Dublin is performing over time and in relation to other locales, what is happening in the city right now, the location of all kinds of facilities, and how to report on particular issues.

The dashboard has been developed in conjunction with the All-Island Research Observatory at Maynooth University and Dublin City Council, and is funded by the European Research Council and Science Foundation Ireland.

Professor Rob Kitchin, the project principal investigator, welcomed Dublin City Council’s support in making data available for the Dashboard.  “The aim of the site is to empower people living and working in Dublin by providing them with easy to access intelligence about the city,” he said.  “For example, users can jump onto the system before they leave for work to see how the traffic is flowing or see what spaces are available in different car parks.  Prospective house buyers can explore the characteristics of an area and how close different amenities are.”

Dr Gavin McArdle, the lead developer for the Dashboard, explained that the site is based on a principle of openness.  “We wanted to create an open platform where anyone can take the data we use and build their own apps, or to connect their own apps back into the site to add new functionality,” he said.  “Our approach has sought to avoid re-inventing the wheel, so if a good app already exists we just link to that rather than creating our own version.”

The data underpinning the website is drawn from a number of data providers — including Dublin City Council, Dublinked, Central Statistics Office, Eurostat, and government departments, and links to a variety of existing applications.  The underlying data is freely available so others can undertake their own analysis and build their own applications and visualisations.

There are plans in place to add new real-time datasets, including maps of social media, and new interactive mapping modules.

Our slides from the launch are below.

Visit the Dublin Dashboard

Preservation of Geospatial Data Primer

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This document (French and English) is the last in a series that I wrote while in Canada on the preservation of geospatial data and I just received the finals today.  Fitting, since I have now been in Ireland for exactly one year today.  The past is however always part of the present and the future is it not?  In my view, the preservation of data should be part of any spatial data infrastructure and open data strategy.  It is simply part of the lifecycle management of a nations knowledge resources.  Data are modern artifacts as important as manuscripts, films or paintings.  If we invest so much in their capture, then we should also invest in their long term maintenance.

This primer is part of a series of Operational Policy documents developed by GeoConnections intended to inform Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) stakeholders about the nature and scope of digital geospatial data archiving and preservation and the realities, challenges and good practices of related operational policies.  GeoConnections produces a number of excellent documents on a wide range of contemporary data topics such as VGI, managing sensitive environmental data, data licences, data access, best practices for sharing data, open source, and a host of many others that are very relevant to governments world wide.

This primer starts by examining preservation responsibilities, legislation, acts, directives and policies.  3 preservation frameworks were also discussed:

  1. the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) (CCSDS, 2012), developed by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS);
  2. the European Long Term Preservation of Earth Observation Space Data: European LTDP Common Guidelines (LTDP Working Group, 2012), developed by the Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) Working Group of the Ground Segment Coordination Body (GSCB); and
  3. the Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification (TRAC) Audit and Certification: Criteria and Checklist (OCLC and CRL, 2007), developed by the Center for Research Libraries and the Online Computer Library Center, Inc.

The stucture of the document loosely follows the The International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES) 2 record creator and preserver guidelines.  The work is grounded in the stufy of four cases were and includes challenges and best practices :

  1. The Canada centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) Earth Observation Data Management System (EODMS)
  2. Land Information Ontario (LIO) Geographic Information Archive (GIA)
  3. Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), the Integrated Science Data Management Service (ISDM)
  4. International Polar Year (IPY) Data Preservation

Finally, the section on Establishing a Geospatial Data Preservation System guides data creators and preservers through a series of processes based on the frameworks, case studies, and guidelines.

GeoConnections has been studying the preservation and archiving of geospatial data since 2005. The following are the three reports in this series.

  1. Archiving, management and preservation of geospatial data summary report and recommendations (2005)
  2. Geospatial Data Archiving and Preservation – Research and Recommendations Executive Summary. (2011), Tracey P. Lauriault and Ed Kennedy, Hickling Arthurs and Low (HAL) NOTE – if you email me or GeoConnections, we can send you the full document.
  3. Geospatial Data Preservation Primer GeoConnections (2013) Tracey P. Lauriault, Ed Kennedy, with digital preservation subject matter expertise from Yvette Hackett, Library and Archives Canada Retired, reviewed by Marcel Fortin, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) & Map Librarian. Map and Data Library, University of Toronto. Hickling Arthurs and Low (HAL)

These documents are not for the faint at heart, but they inform practioners in all sectors, they are governmentality in action and are the datasets upon which critical data studies take shape.