Festival2012/Submit/Data Expeditions
Contents
Session Proposal: Data Expeditions
- Title: Data Expeditions: Scout the Data Landscape with our Data Sherpas
- Name and Affiliations:
- Michael Bauer, Open Knowledge Foundation: School of Data
- Lucy Chambers, Open Knowledge Foundation: OpenSpending
- Laura Newman, Open Knowledge Foundation: School of Data
- Friedrich Lindenberg, Open Knowledge Foundation: General Nerd
- Session Format: Learning lab
What will your session or activity allow people to make, learn or do?
In this session we will start expeditions into different datasets. The data we'll explore and cartograph will range from financial to environmental and geographical data - and possibly beyond! Participants will join an expedition and discover and map the landscape that they find. Throughout, there will be an emphasis on developing and improving data wrangling skills and techniques. This learning lab is open to anyone - no specific data related skills are needed.
How do you see that working?
After a short round of introductions of different expedition areas, expedition teams will form. The teams will then set out to explore the data at hand, create an expedition journal and map out the landscape they find. The expeditions are supported by the organizers, who will pull them out of the ditch whenever stuck. The time planned for the whole session is 3 hours.
How will you deal with 5, 15, 50 participants?
Each expedition will be done by a small team of 3-5 people, who will be supported on their journey by one of the sherpas. If more people join in, more expeditions will be done.
How long within your session before someone else can teach this?
The session is focussed on learning and discovery, and will rely heavily on peer-learning, cooperation and support. Ideally after two-three hours of working with data, participants will have learned something new to pass on.
What do you see as outcomes after the festival
Each team will create a "map of the data landscape". This does not literally need to be a map but will document the teams process and findings during the expedition and be aimed at helping others find their way through the data jungle so that new scouts don't have to start from scratch each time. The documents will then be published on the School of Data or OpenSpending to inspire further expeditions - there is plenty of land uncharted in the great white south of data.
