Please note: the competition has now closed.
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Be a part of Chi’s 2015 Open Data Competition by submitting an app or infographic using Newcastle upon Tyne Central’s constituency casework open data for the last parliamentary term. The entry who is the most innovative, interesting or useful in their use of the data will be judged the winner.
The 2015 Open Data Competition will be using casework data from the whole of the last parliamentary term, not just the last year as in previous years. This is a unique opportunity to have an insight into the work of an MP over the length of a Government.
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. Examples include insolvency notices in the London Gazette, Government spending information, natural environment information such as the presence and level of pollutants, and information from the Official National Statistics such as the census.
The winner will win tea in the House of Commons with Shadow Cabinet Office minister Chi Onwurah.
Aim
The aim of the competition is to find a creative way of presenting the data so that constituents can see why people come to Chi.
It is also to highlight that open data from public sources can enable creative people to take that data and use it to make the world a more open and understandable place.
Used properly, with proper concern for privacy, transparency and service design open data can be a powerful tool and reshape how government and citizens interact with each other.
Open data by definition is data that anyone can access, use and share.
Chi wants to show that data can be shared safely and creatively and that open data should be the default for those in the public and private sectors.
Data
Chi publishes pie charts on www.chionwurahmp.com summarising her casework each month.
The link below contains an anonymised summary of last parliamentary terms casework (2010-2015), and this is the data that should be used when submitting your app or infographic.
Annual Data Reports (2010-2015)
Background
- Chi has two caseworkers (1.5 full time equivalents) and the data represents the cases they work on in a fortnightly reporting period.
- An individual case can take between an hour and up to five to six hours though there will be outliers that take even longer.
- A policy case can take between 5 minutes and again up to five to six hours for complex policy questions. Policy work will have more cases which take a short amount of time
- Chi is happy for you to make reasonable assumptions as to the distribution of the amount of time per case.
- Chi also spends time working on cases, particularly the more complex ones, so the total may exceed 1.5 FTE.
- Cases generally refer to an individual. We may be aware of other family members, for example in a child support case, but the case is referenced by the individual constituent who has contacted us.
- Office enquiries refers to more administrative calls to arrange an appointment or the delivery of documentation
- Government departments refers to casework which is directed to a particular department such as the Home Office but is not on an issue frequent enough to be broken out separately like Education.
Guidance
Submissions are encouraged to be as imaginative and creative as the data allows, and inclusion of other relevant open data is absolutely fine.
The entries will be judged on these three main criteria:
- How easy it is to engage with.
- How creativity it conveys the data.
- How successfully it inspires interest in the power of open data more generally.
Entrants can view previous winners’ attempts in the links below.
2014 – Anthony Macey
2013 – Dr Tim Brock
https://chionwurahmp.com/Onwurah/index.html
Also look at the Open Data 2015 Awards if in need of some inspiration: http://awards.theodi.org/
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Please submit all entries, and any queries, to Mark Simmonds at simmondsma@parliament.uk
The closing date for entry is 7th September 2015.
What good is an open data competition if the winning entry is not openly announced?