Citizen science still needs specialism - UK Guardian

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

Citizen science still needs specialism

The public can be involved in constructing knowledge. But some data sets are more easily offered for external use than others

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/20/citizen-science-data-sets

 

Two recent examples of successful projects in "citizen science", Opal and Galaxy Zoo, deal with topics many people enjoy as hobbies. They also happen to be able to identify tasks in scientific research that are relatively easy to pick up. In these respects they are lucky. However, I also want to stress that these projects work because they offer collaborative relationships between scientists and the public. They have a capacity for mutual learning. Precisely because data needs context and often requires specialist skills to analyse, projects such as these succeed because they are discursive.

and

One key point was summed up by physicist Tom Whyntie: "open data is useless (dangerous?) without an open methodology too?"

I like that there is some critical thinking about open data emerging.  It is good to work for open data, and concurently we need to be aware of some of the perils.

******************
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault

[Marcel Fortin]

I am forwarding a message I sent to CARTA-L this morning:

I wonder if any of you might have read the article in ArcNorth Magazine
about North Vancouver. They have opened up their data in a big way. Not
only do they have a mapping portal, they even have most of their gis
layers available for download. What is even more impressive is the types
of layers they have on offer. Things we in Toronto could only dream
about such as Zoning, bike routes, contours at 1m, 10m, 20m, and 100m
intervals, buildings, even crime data and more.   The data are also
available in in CAD, KML, Shapefile, and even geodatabase.  This is a
really good open data model. The license isn't bad either!  It seems to
be interested more in accuracy and quality, rather than protecting
themselves.  There also does not appear to be a click wrap requirement
for data use. One little problem in the licensing though is that it
states that NV does not permit the user to rent, sell, distribute,
transfer, or grant any rights to the content in whole or in part to
another person or organization. Not sure what that really means!
The article can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/2wrpaum
and the north vancouver data can be found here:
http://www.geoweb.dnv.org/data/

Marcel

------------------------------
Marcel Fortin, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Map Librarian
Map and Data Library
University of Toronto 5027 Robarts Library
130 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1A5
tel: [phone] fax: [phone]
http://mdl.library.utoronto.ca
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mapsgis

[Marcel Fortin]

I am forwarding a message I sent to CARTA-L this morning:

I wonder if any of you might have read the article in ArcNorth Magazine
about North Vancouver. They have opened up their data in a big way. Not
only do they have a mapping portal, they even have most of their gis
layers available for download. What is even more impressive is the types
of layers they have on offer. Things we in Toronto could only dream
about such as Zoning, bike routes, contours at 1m, 10m, 20m, and 100m
intervals, buildings, even crime data and more.   The data are also
available in in CAD, KML, Shapefile, and even geodatabase.  This is a
really good open data model. The license isn't bad either!  It seems to
be interested more in accuracy and quality, rather than protecting
themselves.  There also does not appear to be a click wrap requirement
for data use. One little problem in the licensing though is that it
states that NV does not permit the user to rent, sell, distribute,
transfer, or grant any rights to the content in whole or in part to
another person or organization. Not sure what that really means!
The article can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/2wrpaum
and the north vancouver data can be found here:
http://www.geoweb.dnv.org/data/

Marcel

------------------------------
Marcel Fortin, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Map Librarian
Map and Data Library
University of Toronto 5027 Robarts Library
130 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1A5
tel: [phone] fax: [phone]
http://mdl.library.utoronto.ca
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mapsgis