Open Data and Mind Mapping

Open Data and
Mind Mapping
(C) Infoseg, S.A. 2013 All Rights Reserved
http://www.infoseg.com/

Definition of Open Data
Open data is data that can be freely used,
reused and redistributed by anyone - subject
only, at most, to the requirement to attribute
and sharealike.
http://opendatahandbook.org/en/what-is-open-data/

THE PROBLEM WITH OPEN DATA

The problem with Open Data (1)
“When released in its raw form, data is not open to
the public in any meaningful sense. It is only open
to a small elite of technical specialists who know
how to interpret and use it, as well as to those that
can afford to employ them. Providing open data
uncritically in this way is therefore likely only to
further advantage already privileged groups. There
is a real danger of adding a new “data divide” on
top of existing digital and economic divides.”
http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/The-problem-with-Open-Data

“that open data empowers those with access to
the basic infrastructure and the background
knowledge and skills to make use of the data for
specific ends”
http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/open-data-empowering-the-empowered-
or-effective-data-use-for-everyone/

“In my time working with the politicians and civil
servants, I’ve realised that success breeds
success: the best way to convince them to open
data is to show an open data project that’s
useful to real people. Not a catalogue or similar
tool aimed at insiders, but something that’s
making citizens, voters, constituents happy.
Then they’ll get it.”
http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/02/rethinking-open-data.html

“the data required to compile it is located in
different sections of hundreds of different council
websites. The information is presented in many
different formats and many different ways, and the
only way the information can be compiled for re-
use is manually - a laborious affair involving finding,
cutting and pasting lots of individual pieces of
information published by 433 different councils.”
http://data.gov.uk/blog/publishing-local-open-data-important-lessons-open-election-
data-project

• Navigation of the Open Data Web site
• Too many items of data
• Very little structure
• Very little sense of context
• No links between different data items
• Navigation problems
• Lack of visual clues
• How to decide if you have all data
• How can users solve real problems with the items of data?
• How to organize such a big amount of information after
download?

MIND MAPPING AS A POSSIBLE
SOLUTION

Advantages of Mind Mapping
• Tree structure
• Context
• Visual Clues
• Hyperlinks
• Many items of data in a single file
• A single “screen”
• Free viewer
• Possibility of machine reading data
• Automatic generation from data

AN OPEN DATA EXAMPLE

MIND MAPPING SOLUTION TO THE
NAVIGATION OF AN OPEN DATA
PORTAL

Initial view of the portal

About…

“Data” topic

“Top Publishers” topic

Detail of publications of a Publisher

Detail of a publication

Hyperlink to the Publisher

Resources of the Publication

Content of one of the resources (a pdf)

Detail of one of the resources

Full detail of one of the resources

“Applications” topic

The Digital Agenda Scoreboard (1)

The Digital Agenda Scoreboard (2)

“Linked Data” topic

Detail of “Technical Information for
developers” (1)

Detail of “Technical Information for
Developers” (2)

Detail of “Metadata vocabulary” (1)

Detail of “Metadata vocabulary” (2)

Detail of “Further reading”

How can this type of navigation Mind
Map be generated?
• The portal creates an XML file containing the
information of the Web pages
• The Mind Map is generated by the proper
software processing the XML file

Result of an extraction of information

Detail of the content

Description of the extraction of
information

Detail of each unit of information

PDF document

Tables contained in the PDF document

Detail of a Table

Detail of a Chart

Comparison of a table from 2
documents

Complementary notes

AFTERTHOUGHTS

Afterthoughts
• Mind Mapping is a very useful tool for Open
Data
• Mind Mapping opens a new World of
possibilities
• Mind Mapping is user friendly
• Mind Mapping overcomes the traditional
limitations of Open Data sites
• Mind Mapping multiplies the productivity of
users and developers

Contact Information
José M. Guerrero
jm@infoseg.com
Infoseg, S.A.
Mind Mapping automation
http://www.infoseg.com/mi_01_en.shtml
Images courtesy of
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

Open Data and Mind Mapping

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