Online Data for All

- Data Visualisation Facilitates the Use of Research Data

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Proponents of Open Access argue that scientific results should be accessible to all. Now, the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, wants to take it one step further and make all the data in the world accessible online. The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has already launched an initiative aimed at data sharing. Design researcher, Ph.D. scholar Pia Pedersen from the Kolding School of Design points out that increased data sharing can be facilitated by data visualisation.

By Jeppe Morgenthaler

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, recently visited Denmark to receive UNESCO’s Niels Bohr Gold Medal for prominent physicists for developing the html code and the World Wide Web. He and the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), of which he is the director, are strong proponents of increased online data sharing.

Data Sharing on the International Agenda

At the international TED Conference (Technology, Entertainment, Design) in February 2010 in Long Beach, California, Tim Berners-Lee presented some of the early results of data sharing, offering concrete examples of how new knowledge can be generated by reusing existing data. TED is a non-profit organisation, which is dedicated to promoting good ideas in the fields of technology, entertainment and design.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. Today he is the director of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and a strong advocate for increased online data sharing. Photo: Le Fevre Communications

Data Visualisation Offers More Profound Insight

Professor of Public Health Science at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Swedish Hans Rosling, is an example of an internationally renowned scientist who is already reusing and sharing data with others. His organisation Gapminder has developed a piece of software called Trendalyzer, which graphically visualises quantitative data as something other and more than columns and rows of numbers.
“Data visualisation is capable of revealing and presenting information that is not visible in the raw data alone,” says Ph.D. scholar Pia Pedersen, who studies data visualisation at the Department of Communication Design at the Kolding School of Design. She has been studying the history of data visualisation from French cave paintings to Hans Rosling’s Trendalyzer software, and she views graphic data visualisation as a design area in rapid development. She points out that we are currently seeing the rise of technologies that expand our ability to convey statistical data graphically, with Hans Rosling as one of the leaders.
“Thorough knowledge about the data that is being visualised is crucial for data visualisation. Hans Rosling’s Trendalyzer software manages to balance data amount and graphic expression and has helped eliminate prejudice about data visualisation and data sharing for my design students,” says Pia Pedersen.

Data Sharing Already on the Agenda in Denmark

The underlying ideas behind Tim Berners-Lee’s goal of revolutionising and promoting the reuse of existing data have been implemented both by the White House, the World Bank and several European countries, including Germany, the UK, and Denmark. With the initiative ODIS, Offentlige Data i Spil (public data in play), the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has put data sharing on the agenda, starting with data that has been generated for tax-payer money. According to the Danish Centre for Digitisation, which is part of the National IT and Telecom Agency under the Ministry of Science, the plan is to make vast amounts of data available to the public through a system called the data source catalogue in order to let entrepreneurs, researchers and the general public use the data to generate new knowledge.

ODIS is part of a larger initiative in extension of the efforts of the Centre for Digitisation to make data transferable between public IT-systems, to promote provider independence, and to ensure that digital solutions in the public sector also facilitate innovation and creativity both in the private and public sectors. The scheduled re-launch of the data source catalogue will make it even easier to share data.

The Linked Open Data Cloud is a cloud of data that has been made accessible to everybody in the world based on the requirements and standards formulated by Tim Berners-Lee and W3C. The cloud already contains billions of data sets, grouped together into large or small clusters. In many cases, the clusters are interlinked. The largest and most central data set is DBpedia, which contains data sets from Wikipedia, the user-generated online encyclopaedia. Illustration: Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch www.lod-cloud.net

Researchers Are Encouraged to Share Data

The Danish Centre for Digitisation encourages researchers to share the underlying data that form the basis of their research publications.

Communication Adviser Cathrine Lippert and Deputy Head of Division Janus Sandsgaard are both involved in the ODIS campaign at the Centre for Digitisation. Cathrine Lippert points out that one of the objectives with ODIS is to raise awareness about the possibilities in reusing public data in new contexts and to eliminate preconceived notions about the cost and effort involved in doing this. These objectives are close to statements from the W3C about the possibilities in data sharing.
“The academic tradition is based on people building on each other’s work and exploring other people’s thoughts on an issue – and for design research this offers a great opportunity to demonstrate that one is capable of producing knowledge that can be used more than once,” says Cathrine Lippert.
“What we’re proposing is really that researchers should do things in the most hassle-free way,” says Janus Sandsgaard and points out that data standards should not post an obstacle for someone wishing to share data. Thus, all data is essentially applicable – even qualitative data, as long it is equipped with metadata to characterise and categorise the qualitative data.

New Perception of Data Visualisation

In the past, statisticians might have held some professional reservations in relation to designers’ graphic data visualisation, but Pia Pedersen now sees clear evidence of a new perception. In working with Statistics Denmark, she has found that statisticians now view graphic data visualisation as an important tool for data sharing. A change of attitude that Janus Sandsgaard confirms. “A big part of the explanation is that many have put on their Yes-cap,” he says, adding that the Danish Centre for Digitisation is already seeing a growing group of so-called data reusers in Denmark, both companies and private individuals.
“In many cases, entrepreneurs will be able to strengthen their business by drawing on public data. The same goes for inquisitive and creative individuals as well as for established companies working with data and data visualisation” says Cathrine Lippert.

Growth Potential for Design Researchers and Designers

Pia Pedersen is looking forward to continuing to study the balance between data amount and graphic expression. She believes that design research can benefit from positioning itself as a knowledge-generating research field in relation to data visualisation and data reuse. And that interaction designers and graphic designers, for example, will have a considerable growth potential in coming years in relation to developing and implementing new methods for data visualisation and knowledge sharing.

Top illustration: Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar / www.weefeelfine.org