Introduction to open data for Information Services at NHS Scotland

1. Leah Lockhart, volunteer community
coordinator, Open Knowledge
Scotland
An introduction to open data

2. Why?
• Transparency and trust- a well functioning democratic
society allows its citizens to access and share its
information so they may be aware of what it is doing
• Releasing social and commercial value- opening data
can help drive the creation of innovative businesses
and services
• Participation and engagement- open data allows
citizens to be more directly informed and involved in
decision making
• The art of the possible! Innovation means
developments and discovery comes from unlikely
places.

3. Open
• Available and accessible: data made available as
a whole and at no more than a reasonable
reproduction cost, preferably by downloading
online. Data must be available in a convenient
and modifiable form.
• Reusable and able to be redistributed: make
data available under terms that permit reuse,
intermixing with other data sets and
redistribution by anyone
• Universal participation: no discrimination against
fields of endeavour, groups or people.

4. Data
• Data that has potential uses and applications
like cultural, scientific, financial, statistical,
environmental, transport or weather data
• Excludes data that is restricted for security
reasons or data that contains personal details

5. Some examples…
How has data been used to create helpful things
and make wonderful discoveries?

6. Florence Nightingale, 1854
Infographics and ‘data based public decision
making’

7. John Snow, 1854
Mashed up maps, statistical information and
interviews with citizens to find the source of a
cholera outbreak in Soho. ‘A map of deaths that
created a whole new way of life.’

8. GP Provision Planner

9. Emerging Scottish community

10. Tim Berners-Lee/W3C open data star
rating system
Created to encourage people- especially government data owners- to move
toward ‘good linked data.’ Expectations of behaviour:
Use URIs as names for things
Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names.
When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF*, SPARQL)
Include links to other URIs. so that they can discover more things.

12. Open up and engage
• Tell the world! Press releases, web and social media,
proactively contacting prominent organisations,
mailing lists, contacting prospective users
• Engage the data community
– Largely digital communities
– Very willing to share new information but consume
rapidly- communicate accordingly
– Step away from the Office suite! Could create inaccessible
document that creates an imperfect copy in operating
systems. Could also give the message you are unwilling to
move toward working with the tech community.

13. How to start?
• Start small, simple and fast- you don’t have to open
everything up at once! Moving as fast as possible
means you can fail fast, learn and move on.
• Engage early and often- work with actual and potential
users of your data early and often to ensure the next
iteration of your service is relevant. Keep in mind data
doesn’t usually reach ultimate users directly but
through ‘info-mediaries.’
• Address common fears and misunderstandings-
identify the most important ones first and address
them early

14. Get involved with Open Knowledge
Scotland
Twitter: @okfnscot
Website: scot.okfn.org (member contact details on
the ‘about us’ page.)
Meetups:
www.meetup.com/OpenKnowledgeFoundation/Edi
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