Tag Archives: Open Data

Wednesday’s a Monday, and reading/blogging assignments for 2/23

Today we discussed participatory media and open data. We ran out of time before we could discuss the differences between open data and big data; this article does a nice job with the concepts. I was hoping to discuss some of the participatory open data projects [Buiilding Inspector, What’s on the Menu?] of NYPL labs in class, so explore those projects on your own time if you like. Remember our collaborative writing on participatory media?

What does participatory media mean to you?

What does participatory media mean to you?

 

 

 

 

 

On Monday, February 23 we will talk about copyright and fair use and the open access movement. Please read and view the following:

Center for Social Media, The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education, sections Code and FAQ only

Jeanty, “US Copyright Office Rules that Monkeys Can’t Copyright their Selfies”

Videos: Grey, “Copyright: Forever Less one Day

Lessig, “Laws that Choke Creativity

Faden, “A Fair(y) Use Tale

Your blogging assignment is one reading/viewing response blog post.

~Prof. Leonard

Open Access to Any Information

Open data is a dream, and not a healthy one. Access to any possible information at any time for everyone for free will bring more problems than benefits. People just try not think about it deep, but for real – copyrighting, credibility, responsibilities from the both sides (users and contributors), hosting and many other moments are making the idea utopian. Moreover, same way as a gender gradation in wiki blogging I, personally, do not consider open data very seriously. Today it is not that important who posted more articles – men or women, same as for what information people has full access to. Right now we are living in an era of political, economical, financial and ecological crisis, that can easily end not in a good way for all of us. And this is showing us how regular people can’t deal with all presented information, even with limited data available, where facts presented nice and simple, regular users can’t see bright and are staying frustrated, which for example, can cost  life for seven shuttle crew members.

Open Data Right !

Open data simply, demonstrates concepts of non control and free availability- at least for “certain” data of essential theme in our everyday life.

I support a such policy since vital circumstances concern our social, economical, and medical aspects of today life  is of an urgent importance, with which the scheme of “open data” is inevitable.

In a dynamic fast world of today which is characterized by interests exchange , data revolution in terms of internet, and world wide web (www)  – play a significant role in making people share their life experiences; thus they can contribute with prosperous ideas that serve the society.

In general, open data is consistent with our age’s nature and rhythm; moreover, I don’t exaggerate if i claim that open data (most often) be a right as well as- other basic rights that have been sponsored by constitution!

 

 

Open Data/Gender Gap/Visual & Statistical Thinking: William Maldonado

Reading the information on about open data made me think of the outro song “Note to self” by the hip hop artist J. Cole, when he says “you were inspired by the world, allow the world to be inspired by your s**t and use your s**t“. The artist said this because while working on his album he couldn’t clear some samples he used for his album. Although the artist said it in a derogatory manner I believe he has a point that data should be free for anyone to use. I also agree with some of the for open data arguments on wikipedia that facts cant be copyrighted because it’ll get to a point where if I write in a research paper that the sky is blue i have to give credit to someone that has copyrighted that information and thats just ridiculous. The other argument that was subtly touched upon was about how by not letting information to be accessible to the public for free, we are preventing the progression of humanity’s knowledge and advances. In the end I believe that open data should be handled the same way open source software is where the user pays the person providing the service whatever they would like if they’d like and surprisingly people do pay.

The gender gap article really surprised me, I had no idea that only 15% of publications on “public thought-leadership forums” are contributed by women. This reading sparked my to think about how women “supposedly” have equal rights in todays society but the media and upbringing of women deprives them of thinking they do have these equal rights. For example women in media women are always portrayed as a damsel in distress or in a weaker position than a man, then there are the young girls watching these things and subconsciously are being told that a man is suppose to be in a stronger position even though they can be the ones in a stronger position. Another example is how young girls are told by parents or anyone things like “thats not a girls sport”.  Although with each generation the thoughts of portraying women in such a way is slowly diminishing, sexism is still alive under it all along with racism. Personally I would like to see women be more active in more “public thought-leadership forums” and support equal rights all the way!

What caught my attention in the visual and statistical thinking article was how oblivious the nasa official was to the warnings from the engineers that the Challenger was not ready for launch and they should stop the launch. Now because the nasa official didn’t heed their warning 7 people passed away. This made me realize how it is better to visually show your evidence no matter your position in an organization. Also how important it is to test out your equipment before a presentation.

Wikipedia and Data Contribution

The last article, about the gender gap in Wikipedia’s contributors, was quite interesting. It pointed out that less than 15% of Wikipedia’s contributors were women, which I believe, but then it tried to bring up another fact. It compared articles on Wikipedia that had tendencies to different genders. One example used was friendship bracelets as opposed to baseball cards. Although I generally agree with the articles, I felt like its examples were weak. I could be biased, but there could be many reason for that such as the fact that baseball cards have a more well known origin than friendship bracelets. There’s also examples where a popular subject is compared to an unpopular subject, and although that probably contributes to what the article is trying to say, it is still weak.

Open Data The Gift & The Curse

In reference to the open data argument I think that can be considered the gift and the curse. Open data would serve as a positive because it would give everyone access to the information they need. For example a young scientist testing out his/her new hypothesis for an experiment would be able to access all the previous research in whatever field he/she was in. This makes advancing civilization as a whole much more easier. Also if a student such as myself is doing a paper I’d easily be able to access scholarly works without all of the financial hassle. The downside to this is that with all the reproducing of data it would be hard for the original author to receive credit because it’d be hard to distinguish who’s the original. Also with all this data going around it’d give people less of an incentive to create something because they know someone(s) going to take it and claim it as there’s. I think what we need is semi open data, data would be open but would have basic copyright restrictions intended to give the original author credit.

A little Open Data never hurt anybody.

I agree with the open data concept in the Wikipedia entry, especially in certain circumstances.  Imagine if the Tufte reading about John Snow finding the origin point of cholera happened today and that information was restricted to the public.  It’s basically like the Wikipedia entry states; data that contains information on “genomes, organisms, medical science, environmental” should be open to the public.  All of the previous things listed do not belong to anyone; facts about these things should always be open to the public domain.  Another reason which the Wikipedia entry brought up but I actually first read in Badke was the idea that if the data was funded with public money than it should at some point be made available to the public for free.  If the research was funded by government grants or through taxes then it was actually funded by the people and so why should we have to pay for it twice.  Some people might say’ if you discover something first you should be allowed to make a profit to fund future work or to be compensated for your time’, I do not disagree all I am saying is that at some point you have to turn that information over to the public.

Tufte’s reading on John Snow painted Snow as a man whose main focus was stopping a deadly cholera outbreak that was claiming nearly 100+ lives a day.  It wasn’t until after the incident he received the recognition of being called one of the fathers of epidemiology.  All in all I do not believe the advancement of humanity should be for profit, sometimes doing the right thing is truly its own reward.