ConferenceCall 2012 05 10

= Joint DATA.GOV-ONTOLOG "Big Open Data" Session - Thu 2012_05_10 =

Session Topic: "Fostering 'Big Open Data' in government through Open Collaboration - invited presentation on NYCFacets and introduction to New York City's 'Open' initiatives"

Session Co-chair: JeanneHolm (Data.gov / NASA-JPL) & PeterYim (Ontolog / CIM3) - slides

Panel Briefings from:


 * ChrisMusialek (Data.gov / GSA) - "Empowering City Developers with Federal Data" - slides
 * AndrewNicklin (New York City) - "Opening up municipal government data: past, present, and future" - slides
 * JoelNatividad (Ontodia) - "Smart Cities and Big Open Data" - slides

Archives:


 * Abstract
 * Agenda
 * Prepared presentation material (slides) can be accessed by clicking on each of the title links below:
 * [ 0-Holm ] . [ 1-Musialek ] . [ 2-Nicklin ] . [ 3-Natividad ]
 * Audio recording of the session [ 1:36:56 ; mp3 ; 11.1 MB ]
 * Transcript of the online chat during the session
 * Additional Resources

Conference Call Details

 * Date: Thursday, 10-May-2012
 * Start Time: 9:30am PDT / 12:30pm EDT / 6:30pm CEST / 5:30pm BST / 16:30 UTC
 * ref: World Clock
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Attendees

 * Attended (along with registered participants who may have joined but missed the roll call):
 * JeanneHolm (co-chair)
 * PeterYim (co-chair)
 * JoelNatividad
 * AndrewNicklin
 * ChrisMusialek
 * SamiBaig
 * GeorgeThomas
 * JesseWang
 * JoanneLuciano
 * HasanSayani
 * ShivaSaberi
 * DeirdreLee
 * MarthaPrzysucha
 * LisaHartigan
 * JackPark
 * KenBaclawski
 * BobSchloss
 * RichardLee
 * KingsleyIdehen
 * MikeBennett
 * DavidMason
 * MarieJeanMeurs
 * DavidCollins
 * MatthewKaufman
 * LeoObrst
 * KyoungsookKim
 * TerryLongstreth
 * FrankOlken
 * EdDodds
 * TomTinsley
 * JackRing
 * JerrySmith
 * PavithraKenjige
 * AliHashemi
 * AnushriMishra
 * BobLojek
 * DeborahMcGuinness
 * DeniseWarzel
 * ElizabethFlorescu
 * MarkDixon
 * MichaelGruninger
 * jgabriel
 * lisa_h
 * sdupd_glenn
 * NancyWiegand


 * Expecting:
 * (please add yourself to the list if you are a member of the community, or, rsvp to )
 * (please add yourself to the list if you are a member of the community, or, rsvp to )


 * Regrets:
 * MikeDean
 * AmandaVizedom (have conflict, but will view/listen to archive later)
 * ToddSchneider

Abstract
Fostering 'Big Open Data' in government through Open Collaboration - invited presentation on NYCFacets and introduction to New York City's 'Open' initiatives

This is the first of two sessions jointly organized by the US federal data.gov initiative and Ontolog. This follows quite naturally from a few very exciting recent events, notably:


 * (a) the recent US federal government's thrust toward developing and leveraging 'Big Data'
 * (b) the 3-month long OntologySummit2012 series of events that just finished a few weeks ago that was focused around the theme 'Ontology for Big Systems' and
 * (c) New York City's award of their 'Big Apps 3.0' grand prize to NYCfacets (developed by a member of this community, in an applications that leverages ontology and semantic technologies); and the City's 'open data' initiative that followed.

During today's session, we will look at the NYCfacets app, the New York City open data initiative and contemplate how open collaborative community effort can help foster 'Big Open Data'.

Agenda
Fostering 'Big Open Data' in government through Open Collaboration


 * Session Format: this is a virtual session conducted over an augmented conference call


 * 1. Opening (chair) - JeanneHolm [10 min.] ... [ slides ]
 * 2. Panel briefings [20 min. each]
 * ChrisMusialek - "Empowering City Developers with Federal Data"
 * AndrewNicklin - "Opening up municipal government data: past, present, and future"
 * JoelNatividad - "Smart Cities and Big Open Data"
 * 3. Q & A and open discussion [All: ~30 min.] - (moderated by the chair)  -- please refer to process above
 * 4. Wrap-up / Announcements - (chair)

Proceedings:
Please refer to the above

IM Chat Transcript captured during the session:

see raw transcript here.

(for better clarity, the version below is a re-organized and lightly edited chat-transcript.) Participants are welcome to make light edits to their own contributions as they see fit.

-- begin in-session chat-transcript --

PeterYim: Welcome to the

= Joint DATA.GOV-ONTOLOG "Big Open Data" Session - Thu 2012-05-10 =

Session Topic: "Fostering 'Big Open Data' in government through Open Collaboration - invited presentation on NYCFacets and introduction to New York City's 'Open' initiatives"

Session Co-chair: JeanneHolm (Data.gov / NASA-JPL) & PeterYim (Ontolog / CIM3)

Panel Briefings:


 * ChrisMusialek (Data.gov / GSA) - "Empowering City Developers with Federal Data"


 * AndrewNicklin (New York City) - "Opening up municipal government data: past, present, and future"


 * JoelNatividad (Ontodia) - "Smart Cities and Big Open Data"

Session page: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2012_05_10

Mute control: *7 to un-mute ... *6 to mute

Can't find Skype Dial pad? ... it's under the "Call" dropdown menu as "Show Dial pad"

Proceedings:
PeterYim: Attention ALL: because of time constraints from some of our panelists, we will have to start promptly today. ... therefore if you have any logistics questions, please be ready to ask them as soon as you get online, and before we mute everyone!

anonymous morphed into EdDodds

anonymous morphed into AndrewNicklin

PeterYim: Hi Andrew!

anonymous morphed into JoelNatividad

PeterYim: Hi Joel, Hi Terry ... and everyone!

anonymous morphed into jgabriel

jgabriel: Hi everyone!

JoelNatividad: Howdy everyone!

anonymous morphed into DeirdreLee

anonymous1 morphed into HasanSayani

anonymous morphed into JeanneHolm

anonymous morphed into DavidMason & MarieJeanMeurs

anonymous1 morphed into SamiBaig

DavidMason & MarieJeanMeurs: hey all

JesseWang: Hi, all! Good morning, afternoon, evening!

SamiBaig: Hi all

anonymous morphed into chrismusialek

anonymous morphed into TomTinsley

anonymous1 morphed into EdDodds

anonymous1 morphed into sdupd_glenn

JackPark: Hi

PeterYim: == JeanneHolm presenting the intro slides now ...

anonymous morphed into BobLojek

PeterYim: == ChrisMusialek presenting ...

JeanneHolm: ChrisMusialek is now presenting Empowering City Developers with Federal Data. Slides can be downloaded at the session page (above)

JesseWang: what is the search engine used in data.gov? did you develop your own text/query analyzer/parser?

JeanneHolm: Jesse--we are using Bing as the search engine as part of USA.gov's search capability. one of the things we all want to improve on Data.gov is the search capability. It's currently limited by both the complexity of the queries you can build, as well as the fact that it only searches the metadata of the data tool or dataset. We are moving toward a federated model that would allow us to search the metadata or other attributes of the tools and data sources that are made accessible.

JackRing: Has Data.gov calibrated the false positives and false negatives achieved with keywords?

JeanneHolm: Jack--I'll have to check on the false positive and false negative calibration.

anonymous morphed into DeniseWarzel

DeirdreLee: Latest W3C Editor's draft of Data Catalog Vocabulary (dcat) (managed by W3C Government Linked Data (GLD) WG): http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/gld/raw-file/default/dcat/index.html

anonymous1 morphed into MarkDixon

AndrewNicklin: Will data.gov look at third-party API key & rate management tools instead of rolling your own?

JeanneHolm: Andrew--Data.gov is definitely looking at third-party API tools and any emergent standards in this area. The intent is that we are a connector amongst a set of data of national interest, even beyond just the federal government.

PeterYim: == AndrewNicklin presenting ...

anonymous1 morphed into ElizabethFlorescu

AndrewNicklin: The site I mentioned for NYC open data standards is http://www.nyc.gov/datastandards

PeterYim: == JoelNatividad presenting ...

JackRing: What will be the relevance of Ward Cunningham's expedition into Federating wiki's?

JackRing: Jeanne, Pls do clarify the FP-FN results because both are likely to be dismal.

JeanneHolm: Jack--completely agree. Just need to verify what's been done.

EdDodds: I saw a story about crowdfunding movies this a.m. (passer.by) and it got me thinking: are there any crowdfunded open data efforts anybody has heard of? Any fellowships sponsored by foundations?

JeanneHolm: Ed--like a Kickstarter for open data? Interesting...

DeborahMcGuinness: i like this idea and would be happy to point our students to such a call. I would also be willing to help sell such a message

EdDodds: Yes, I've seen a few stories proposing crowdfunding for investigative reporting recently--haven't seen if they were actually successful

JackPark: @Jeanne, re federation: I will be giving a talk at a bigdata meetup with these slides http://www.slideshare.net/jackpark/big-datasciencemeetup-final

JeanneHolm: Jack--Very interesting presentation. Is the meeting open for others to attend?

JackRing: Jeanne, when you are ready to escape the limits of key words and rapidly assay data with respect to large, complex, interconnected cominatorial networks I will be happy to offer some insights. Long buried in highly classified systems but now patented in soon to be implemented in a chip equivalent to 3,600 microprocessors on a grid.

JackPark: @Jeanne, afaik it's sold out but contact me jackpark[at]topicquests.org - http://www.meetup.com/Big-Data-Science/events/51766642/

JeanneHolm: Thanks Jack.

JackRing: @JackPark, I think your slides evidence great work. Thank you. Pls consider joining us at the Symposium in July at San Jose, particularly the Sunday workshop. http://isss.org/world/index.php

JackPark: @JackRing I would love to attend isss but it's just not in the budget; my friend Judith Rosen is giving a tutorial I'd really like to attend. Your workshop, if it's open, I'll try to attend. Many thanks

JeanneHolm: Are there any questions for the speakers? We are about to go to question and answer...

PeterYim: when we start, we will ask people to click on their "hand" buttons (lower right) ... and queue folks up for Q&A and remarks ... amke sure you test your voices first, and start by telling us who you are.

DeirdreLee: I have to head out now, but thanks for lots of interesting presentations

JeanneHolm: Thanks Deirdre!

LeoObrst: Thanks all, must leave.

PeterYim: == open Q&A and discussion now ...

anonymous morphed into PavithraKenjige

JeanneHolm: PeterYim: Presentations were fantastic. Congratulations to federal people who started the movement in opening up government data; to NY developers for providing open data; and to Joel and everyone who provided technology in helping Joel's app stand out from the crowd.

JeanneHolm: PeterYim: Next week's discussion will focus on the technical details of implementing some of these solutions.

JackRing: Is anyone concerned with cybersecurity/privacy?

AndrewNicklin: JackRing: there are two aspects to our approach to security. First is not letting out sensitive info (comparatively easy); Second is - potentially - evaluating whether our data, when combined with outside information poses more risks.

sdupd_glenn: We'd love to see some case studies of municipal opendata in order to pitch to management the benefits of a public-facing GIS system coupled with ERP data (merged visually with other public data)

sdupd_glenn: a lot of our staff understands the potential of all this, but are unable to articulate its benefit to the higher ups who control the purse

JeanneHolm: Are challenges a good way to get developers to focus on and consume government data? Are there better ways?

JeanneHolm: JoelNatividad responded: The first time we submitted to a challenge was just to do something with our partners. The second time was really to accomplish something. It wasn't about the money, but the recognition and ability to build something useful was what drew us.

sdupd_glenn: sdupd_glenn: For the private sector, yes. For public agencies, the challenge is how to incentivize the action of making data public in the first place

MikeBennett: I have to go now - thanks for great presentations

JeanneHolm: Thanks Mike!

EdDodds: It might be that the start up weekend or hackathon model of drawing everyone together geographically for 48 hours (though I much prefer virtual innovation clusters such as Ontolog) might be a tactic, especially if you could find sponsorships from firms who are likely to consume the data, add their own and make a profit.

EdDodds: Nonprofits, community foundations, united way types also stand to benefit and could have skin in the game

JoelNatividad: And to Ed's point, that is what we want to do at Ontodia. We want to collaborate Open Data with all kinds of databases, both public and private.

JoelNatividad: And do what Bloomberg did for Finance data, and do it for Open Data.

JeanneHolm: Ed--The hackathon model is good, but as you point out it's really important to have a business model that brings those ideas to a sustainable service.

AndrewNicklin: @JeanneHolm, EdDodds: in terms of sustainability, we've also (informally, unofficially) considered tiering access to our services such that the costs of operating open data platform can be recovered from high-volume commercial users.

TerryLongstreth: @JeanneHolm - I agree that sustainability needs to be considered. Moreover, data ages quickly, and there's little in today's talks about maintaining data qualilty and timeliness

JoelNatividad: @TerryLongstreth, in NYCFacets, that's why we derived "extrametadata" to characterize and score each dataset

AndrewNicklin: @TerryLongstreth that's why automation is really important.

EdDodds: @JeanneHolm, all: strenuously agree. Caveat: just because something *should* be valuable doesn't mean the market has "eyes to see" at the time a product is launched

JoelNatividad: [in our "extrametadata"] we score it along freshness, sparseness, uniqueness, no of downloads, views, etc., and we plan to make the scoring algorithm transparent and not opaque, so publishers can respond; and in the future, we do plan to do time series as well, but not yet.

JoelNatividad: @TerryLongstreth, we're actively tracking the wikidata effort and will sync up with that

JoelNatividad: so "facts" and unstructured free form text are separated

anonymous1: In regards to competitions concerning opengov-- Chicago recently held a contest to encourage app development and recieved a toyal of 60 submissions. Chicago's he open data portal stats include:

328 datasets 470,000+ embeds 1000 + user views 50+ apps

EdDodds: Toronto's @buzzdata tries to socialize static data sets (streams too maybe?) marketing, news gathering, conferences, higher education all could benefit; but I think until we get a mass of aggregated micropayments for data feeds the challenge to fund will continue

JackPark: Great conference. Many thanks to the speakers.!

KingsleyIdehen: Please upload the slides to slideshare etc..

JeanneHolm: @Kingsley the slides are at http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2012_05_10 for today's call.

KingsleyIdehen: @JeanneHolm: I've seen the presentations, but just suggesting slideshare for broader audience etc..

EdDodds: + 1 Kingsley

JoelNatividad: We will upload the nycfacets overview to slideshare as well

EdDodds: There may be a few up at http://www.slideshare.net/eddodds/ already

JackPark: A thought: having slides up at slideshare means they can be viewed without downloading.

sdupd_glenn: slideshare, yes please

sdupd_glenn: Can I please suggest that someone or agency put together a series of webinars for agencies that know opendata is crucial but cannot get C-suite or management approval to get an opendata program started in the first place (all of us local municipalities and districts)!

PeterYim: thank you all, great session!

JoelNatividad: Thanks everyone! Special mention to Peter for all the great work to make this possible!

SamiBaig: Thank you all!

anonymous morphed into lisa h

sdupd_glenn: we local municipalities feel like we get to applaud the state and federal efforts but have no funding or champions to help us get off the ground. We can't participate without your help!

JeanneHolm: @sdupd_glenn I'm happy to help out with providing discussions on the value of open data to cities and municipalities. Part of Cities.Data.gov (coming soon!) will be to do that as well. Feel free to reach out to me at jholm@jpl.nasa.gov

sdupd_glenn: JeanneHolm: Great I'd love to discuss with your team. We've been in touch with you already via Barbara Moreno

PeterYim: come back, same time next week, when we will cover the technical aspects of the same subject next Thursdau (May-17)

PeterYim: -- session ended: 11:18am PDT --

-- end of in-session chat-transcript --

... More Questions

 * For those (who are members of the Ontolog community) who have further questions or remarks on the topic, please [mailto:ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net post them to the [ontolog-forum]] so that everyone in the community can benefit from the discourse.
 * information about joing the Ontolog community can be found here.

Additional Resources:

 * the US federal Data.gov initiative - http://data.gov
 * Cities.data.gov initiative - http://cities.data.gov
 * The 'NYCfacets' app - http://nyc.pediacities.com/facets/
 * announcement on NYCFacets winning the Grand Prize at [[NYCBigApps] 3.0]
 * NYC Open Data - http://nyc.gov/datastandards or http://nycopendata.pediacities.com/wiki/index.php/NYC_Open_Data
 * webcast of the White House 'Big Data' event of 29-Mar-2012 - http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_videos.jsp?cntn_id=123607&media_id=72174
 * initiatives and related program solicitations highlighted during the above event can be found on the NSF press release at: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=123607
 * a presentation of the upcoming NITRD 'Big Data Challenge' at the 13-Apr-2012 OntologySummit2012_Symposium - http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2012_Symposium#nid397A
 * SMWcon-Spring2012 - http://smwcon.projecthalo.com/index.php/SMWCon_Spring_2012
 * OpenOntologyRepository (OOR) - http://oor.net
 * OntologySummit2012: "Ontology for Big Systems"
 * read the OntologySummit2012_Communique - the collaboratively authored work product by the OntologySummit community that took 3 months in rigorous discourse to develop
 * Quick! - the solicitation for endorsement of this communique is still open (it closes by end-of-day 12-May-2012). Therefore, if you can read through it, and sends in your endorsement quickly, you will be permanently added to the roster of endorsers for this historical document! ( ... instructions for endorsement are available near the top of the communique page.)


 * Join us, same time next week, when we will feature a sequel to today's session. Next Thursday's (2012.05.17) session is entitled: "Implementing 'Big Open Data' in government through Open Collaboration" - case examples and possibilities" where we will spend a bit more time on the technical details, and expose the community on some of the state-of-the-art in implementations.

Audio Recording of this Session

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 * Conference Date and Time:	10-May-2012 9:34am~11:18am PDT
 * Duration of Recording:	1 Hour 37 Minutes
 * Recording File Size:	       11.1 MB (in mp3 format)
 * suggestions:
 * its best that you listen to the session while having the respective presentations opened in front of you. You'll be prompted to advance slides by the speaker.
 * Take a look, also, at the rich body of knowledge that this community has built together, over the years, by going through the archives of noteworthy past Ontolog events. (References on how to subscribe to our podcast can also be found there.)

For the record ...

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