Skip to main content

Bates Guests as International Expert on Open Data Practices

On 10 April 2014 Dr Jo Bates appeared by video conference before the Canadian Parliament's Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates as an invited international expert to present and answer questions for their study on Open Data practices.

She was joined by three other panellists: Richard Stirling, International Director of the UK's Open Data Institute; Barbara Ubaldi, an expert from the OECD; and Lyne Da Sylva, Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Science, Université de Montréal.

Jo presented on how Canada's Open Government Data initiative compares to other countries, and discussed the types of value that could be generated from opening up government data. 

During the questions session of the conference issues which were discussed included the relationship between open data, democracy and social inclusion; the economic value of Open Government Data and some of the risks around some types of commercial re-use; where the drivers for opening government data do and should come from; how open government data might impact upon the behaviour of public bodies in their data collection practices; privacy issues around the opening of public data; and, the benefits of Open Government Data for developing economies.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Raspberry Pi Weather Project now live

A project to create a raspberry pi weather station is currently live in the Information School.  The Sheffield Pi weather station has been created by Romilly Close, undergraduate Aerospace Engineering student at the University of Sheffield.  The project was funded by the Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) scheme and is being supervised by Dr Jo Bates, Paula Goodale and Fred Sonnenwald from the Information School. Information about the Sheffield Pi station and how to create your own can be found on the project website .  You can also see live data from the Sheffield Pi station on Plot.ly , and further information can also be found on the Met Office Weather Observations Website .    This work compliments the School’s existing project entitled ‘The Secret Life of a Weather Datum’ which explores socio-cultural influences on weather data.  This project is funded under the AHRC’s Digital Transformations Big Data call.  It aims to pilot a new approach to im

Our Chemoinformatics Group wins Jason Farradane Award

The Information School's Chemoinformatics Research Group has been awarded the 2012 UKeiG Jason Farradane Award , in recognition of its outstanding 40 year contribution to the information field. The prize is awarded to the three current members of the group,  Professor Val Gillet , Dr John Holliday and Professor Peter Willett . The judges recognised the Group's status as one of the world's leading centres of chemoinformatics research, a major contributor to the field of information science, and an exemplar in raising the profile of the information profession. The School has a long association with the Farradane prize. Its second recipient was long time member of staff Professor Mike Lynch in 1980.

Professor Mike Thelwall gives inaugural lecture

Professor of Data Science Mike Thelwall recently gave his inaugural lecture at the University of Sheffield, entitled  How helpful are AI and bibliometrics for assessing the quality of academic research? The lecture, delivered in the University's Diamond building, was introduced by Head of the Information School Professor Briony Birdi. It covered Mike's research into whether Artificial Intelligence can inform - or replace - expert peer review in the journal article publication process and what this could look like, as well as to what extent bibliometrics and citation statistics can play a role in assessing the quality of a piece of research. Mike also discussed whether tools like ChatGPT can accurately detect research quality. The inaugural lecture was well attended by colleagues from around the University.