Presentation given about Holder de ords topic model at Open Legislative Data conference at Science Po in Paris July 6th 2012.

1. Bringer politikken til folket
Open Legislative Data, 06.07.2012 Paris
Kristofer Rees, Head of Political Analysis
kristofer@holderdeord.no
Ingrid Ødegaard, Head of Digital Strategy
ingrid@holderdeord.no

2. Who are we?
! Based in Oslo, Norway
! Non-profit
! About 20 volunteers
! We connect voting data and
electoral promises
! Prototype of site is live at
http://beta.holderdeord.no
! We’ve won an advertising
campaign worth €3 mill. – to be
run prior to elections 2013! J

3. How does democracy work?
Get
elected
Campaign
Make
laws/
Pass
promises
policies
Accountability?
www.holderdeord.no 7/6/12

4. How does democracy work?
Get
elected
Campaign
Make
laws/
Pass
promises
policies
Open
data
=
Transparency
Accountability!
www.holderdeord.no 7/6/12

5. The problem
Accuracy
+
Accessiblity
! Data needs to be accurate and ! Present data in a way that
correct people can relate to
! Verifiable and methodologically ! Make political processes
sound easier to understand
Our
model
needs
to
be
both
accurate
and
accessible.
www.holderdeord.no 7/6/12

6. Our solution – a topic-based model
”See
what
poli,cians
voted
and
promised
on
topics
that
are
important
to
you!”
The
war
in
Afghanistan
Property
tax
Wage
regula;ons
! Based on these topics, we collect related votes and promises and
present them on the same page.
! The viewer can now compare votes to the promises and decide if
the politician has done what he or she promised.
www.holderdeord.no 7/6/12

7. How does our model work?
Topic:
The
war
in
Afghanistan
Created
by
us
What
needs
to
be
voted
to
be
in
Posi;on
favor
of
topic.
Promises
related
to
”the
Votes
related
to
”the
war
Data
war
in
afghanistan”
in
afghanistan”
www.holderdeord.no 7/6/12

8. Topic page
www.holderdeord.no 7/6/12

9. How do we create topics?
www.holderdeord.no 7/6/12

10. How to categorize promises
1. Collect promises
2. Make qualitative judgements:
– Is the promise general or specific?
– Assign relevant categories to the promise
3. Register source
www.holderdeord.no 7/6/12

11. Examples of promises
www.holderdeord.no NB:
Transla;on
by
Google
Translate,
not
accurate…
7/6/12

12. Challenges and lessons learnt
! Making sense of intricacies in
the parliamentary system
! Defining topics
! Processing incoming votes
! Technical architecture
! Finding out what triggers
people
! Get input for stakeholders
www.holderdeord.no 7/6/12

13. A call for collaboration!
! We are eager to discuss and share
experiences and best practices
! Wiki: https://holderdeord.atlassian.net/wiki/
! https://github.com/holderdeord/
! http://beta.holderdeord.no
! kontakt@holderdeord.no
www.holderdeord.no 7/6/12