Strata NY: Best Practices for Publishing Data
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FIND AND UNDERSTAND DATA October, 2012 Hjalmar Gislason, founder & CEO - [email protected] Best Practices for Publishing Data
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A presentation by Hjalmar Gislason, founder and CEO of DataMarket at the Strata Conference in New York, October 2012
Transcript of Strata NY: Best Practices for Publishing Data
F I N D A N D U N D E R S TA N D D ATA
October, 2012Hjalmar Gislason, founder & CEO - [email protected]
Best Practices for
Publishing Data
Founder and CEO
HjalmarGislason
Twitter: @datamarketSlides: http://blog.datamarket.com/
HeavyData Consumers
Providers of
Data Delivery Technology
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Computers Humans
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Computers
• Structure
Humans
• Understand and use
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Computers
• Structure
Humans
• Understand and use
1. Simple formats2. Indexes, unique IDs and meta-data3. FAQs and feedback channels
Publishing for Computers
"Don't anthropomorphize computers - they hate it."
- Unknown
Simple Formats
Simple Formats
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Simple Formats:Tim Berners-Lee’s Five Stars
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Simple Formats:You lost me at “Semantics”
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Standards will emerge and there will be more and more of them
• RDF•OData vs. GData•DSPL• SDMX
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Indexes, unique ids and meta-data
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Indexes, unique ids and meta-data
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Indexes, unique ids and meta-data
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Indexes, unique IDs and meta-data
• Must: Unique ID, Title, Last updated• Should: Meta-data
• Why?• No need for scraping
• Less load on your end• Ensures full coverage• Ensures content removal and updates
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Indexes, unique IDs and meta-data
• Hard to emphasize enough!
• Unique IDs for everything: Datsets, columns, entities, ...
• Why?• Continuity: A small change for a man = giant leap for a
computer
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Indexes, unique IDs and meta-data
• Any relevant contextual information• URL(s), descriptions, methodology, next updated, authors,
keywords, units, license information, ...
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
FAQs and feedback channels
#1 reason for not publishing data:
“There are errors in the data and I don'twant others to discover them”
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
FAQs and feedback channels
#1 reason for not publishing data:
“There are errors in the data and I dowant others to discover them”
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
FAQs and feedback channels
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
FAQs and feedback channels
1. Simple formats2. Indexes, unique IDs and meta-data3. FAQs and feedback channels
Publishing for Computers
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Computers
• Structure
Humans
• Understand and use
1. Search / Discovery2. Visualization3. Download
Publishing for Humans
Search / Discovery
• Requirements differ from web/text search• A lot less textual content to base on
• Synonyms, dictionaries, autocomplete• But (hopefully) good meta-data = facets and filtering
• Give people ways to browse• Categories vs. tags vs. search• Serendipity: Random, related, interesting...
Search / Discovery
Visualize
109 columnsx
340 lines=
37.060 cells
Visualize
• What you should offer depends on the data
• Statistical data• Focus on the most common charts and get them right• Do NOT invent new visualizations or chart types
• Use standards compatible technologies• No Flash!• Charting and visualization libraries
Visualize
Visualize
Download
• Make it easy to use your data outside your tools• Play nicely with those providing functionality beyond what
you can offer: Tableau, R, SAS, MathLab, Mathematica, SPSS, ...
• Provide downloads in the formats most commonly used by your users:• Raw data: Excel, CSV, feeds (R, Excel live feeds, APIs)• Charts and visualizations: Bitmap, vector, PPT, embeds?
| BEST PRACTICES for PUBLISHING DATA | Hjalmar Gislason, [email protected] | October 2012
Computers
• Structure• Simple formats• Indexes, unique IDs and
meta-data• FAQs and feedback
channels
Humans
• Understand and use• Search / Discovery• Visualization• Download
F I N D A N D U N D E R S TA N D D ATA
Twitter: @datamarket · Facebook: DataMarket · E-mail: [email protected]
Hjalmar Gislason, founder & CEO
