Open Data Manchester – Supporting responsible and intelligent data practice in Greater Manchester and beyond

Welcome to Open Data Manchester

Open Data Manchester has been leading the way in open data practice in Manchester since 2010. It was set up as an advocacy group to encourage and share open data practice between public bodies, business and citizens alike. It has been instrumental in the setting up of DataGM and various other open data initiatives in Greater Manchester and beyond. It is most well known for bringing together communities of practice to help disseminate and share knowledge, participate in policy making and support organisations using data. Now, having taken up residence at Federation in the centre of Manchester we are looking at building a centre for state of the art data practice by pulling in the knowledge and skills of the data community both in Greater Manchester and further afield. Get in touch and join us on our journey.

Wiki-edit-a-thon with InnovateHer

Wednesday 24th July, 18.30 – 20.30
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF.

In 2011 only 10% of wiki contributors were female and in 2018 only 17% of entries on the online encyclopedia were about women. It’s time we changed that together.

InnovateHer have teamed up with Open Data Manchester to organise a Wiki-edit-a-thon in July to address the diversity imbalance in Wikipedia entries.

During the edit-a-thon we’ll be working through a backlog of Wikipedia pages to help improve the coverage of women and diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) on Wikipedia.

Anyone can participate! We’re looking for experienced editors and those without editing experience who are enthusiastic about writing, fact-checking and tackling the diversity deficit in STEM.

The State of Open Data – book launch

Tuesday 25th June, 18.30 – 20.30
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF.

This month Open Data Manchester are proud to be hosting an event marking the launch of ‘The State of Open Data – Histories and Horizons’, a new book that provides a review of the first 10 years of open data.

Join Mor Rubinstein, who sat on the book’s editorial board, to talk about insights gained and the challenges still to be overcome as open data enters its second decade

The book brings together over 65 authors from around the world to examine open data from historial, sectoral, and regional perspectives, uncovering the issues that will shape the future of open data in the years to come.

Joy Diversion 6

Saturday 15th June, 11.00 – 16.00
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF.

Join us for another day of exploring, mapping and meandering in Central Manchester and Salford. Starting with maps of Manchester and Salford from 150 years ago, we’ll propose expeditions to uncharted territories or revisiting previously explored places, strange meanderings and any other diversions that people fancy.

Often viewed as a functional place of work, retail and leisure, our city centre bounded by Trinity Way, Great Ancoats Street and the Mancunian Way is imbued with history, iniquity, celebration and endeavour. Whether you’re new to the city or you’re a life-long local, let us go out and find what’s out there, discover the forgotten spaces, create stories and map our city.

Adventurers will be split into parties and encouraged to map, photograph, document and bring back their findings to share with everyone.

You will need:

Yourself
Comfortable walking shoes or what ever you need to get around
Weather appropriate clothing (it’s Spring – bring your waterproofs just in case!)
A phone: with a camera would be advantageous
We recommend bringing some lunch, but there’s plenty of places around the city to grab something.

The event is open to all, although minors need to be accompanied.

If you would like to help out on the day, let us know.

Data For Communities – Manchester

Tuesday 18th June, 18.00 – 20.00
Manchester Central Library,
Saint Peter’s Square,
Manchester M2 5PD.

There is a wealth of data that is created for and about the communities in which we live. Although much of this data is available publically as open data it is often hard to locate with the tools and understanding needed to interpret it unduly difficult.

How can we find this data and use it for community benefit?

Consisting of a mixture of presentation and practical exercises, this workshop will try to demystify the world of data, highlight what data is and isn’t available, what it can be used for and some easy tools that can help.

Whether you are a councillor, community worker, activist or interested in how data can be used for good, this is for you. No previous experience is neccessary.

By the end of the workshop, you will:

Understand the basics of what data is
Be aware of what data can and cannot do
Have some hands-on experience of accessing online data portals and tools.

You don’t need a laptop or tablet to participate, but we recommend bringing it along if you have one. This workshop doesn’t use Excel, and there’s no need to download or install any software – everything we’ll be looking at is freely available on the internet.

Open:Data:Night – Data Viz Special

Old visualisaion of causes of mortality in the army

Tuesday 28th May, 18.30 – 20.30
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF.

Open:Data:Night is an open session for anyone with an idea, project or interest related to open data and data practice.

Join us in May for a special visualisation-themed event.

We’ll have a couple of speakers presenting some interesting open data-based visualisations that they’ve created. If you have a project that you’d like to present, get in touch.

We’ll also have some quick-fire presentation slots available on the night too.

Further details and presenters to be announced soon.

Local Election Data Hack – what does the data say?

Rosary with the word 'vote' written on it

Tuesday 14th May, 18.30 – 20.30
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF.

It is hard to not be distracted by what goes on in politics at a national level, but outside of the Westminster bubble good people are giving up their time to ensure their communities are represented in the development and scrutiny of how local authorities develop, manage and deliver services.

On the 2nd May approximately 270 councils across England will be holding local elections electing approximately 20,000 councilors. These council elections were last contested in 2015 on the same day as the general election and although local elections are fought primarily on a local agenda, they may be seen as a barometer of national political opinion.

These elections will create a wealth of fascinating data. for us to explore. Come on down, bring a computer, bring an idea or just bring yourself. We don’t know where we’re going, but we’ll sure have fun getting there.

Saving The Environment With Data

Tuesday 30th April, 18.30 – 20.30
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF.

We are facing massive environmental crises that are intertwined with our current way of consumption and living. The complexity and scale of these problems can be disempowering, making individual positive action seem directionless and futile.

However, we can take appropriate action and measure the difference we make by using data to understand our environment, to help build evidence-based arguments for change and to hold people to account – whether it’s through seeing the impact of switching electrical devices off (and not leaving them on standby), understanding the air pollution around us so that we can make more environmentally sound choices, or by making sure our waste is recycled appropriately.

This month we’re showcasing initiatives that are using data to help the environment through tracking waste, energy monitoring and pollution, with presentations from:

If you have a data-enabled environmental project & would like to share it, then we’d love to hear from you. Send us an email.

Joy Diversion

Saturday 27th April, 11.00 – 16.00
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF

Joy Diversion is back for 2019!

Join us for an day of exploring, mapping and wandering in Central Manchester and Salford. Starting with maps of Manchester and Salford from 150 years ago, we’ll propose expeditions to uncharted territories or revisiting previously explored places, strange meanderings and any other diversions that people fancy.

Often viewed as a functional place of work, retail and leisure, our city centre bounded by Trinity Way, Great Ancoats Street and the Mancunian Way is imbued with history, iniquity, celebration and endeavour. Let us go out and find what’s out there, discover the forgotten spaces, create stories and map our city.

Adventurers will be split into parties and encouraged to map, photograph, document and bring back their findings to share with everyone.

See a round up of the last Joy Diversion, which took place at ODCamp 6 in Aberdeen here.

The event is open to all, although minors need to be accompanied.

If you would like to help out on the day, let us know.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Data!

Tuesday 26th March, 18.30 – 20.30
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF

Do you have a tale of bad stats, strange correlations, malicious intent or plain, downright stupidity?

Toy Story 2’s production famously hit a snag after losing a couple of months worth of work due to an accidental and erroneous command being executed.

In 1999 the Mars Orbiter Climate spacecraft crashed because engineers used computer software which produced output in non-SI units of pound-force seconds (lbf·s) instead of the SI units of newton-seconds

And in 2003, Manchester City Council received a £7,500,000 budget cut due to an error with the census data, which essentially lost 25,000 people.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Data is a night for sharing YOUR data horror stories.

Similar to Open:Data:Night we’ll have a couple of speakers but we also want to hear from YOU. If you have a story or cautionary tale that you’d like to share, drop an email to sam[at]opendatamanchester[.]org[.]uk. There’ll also be some quick-fire slots on the night.

Tuesday 26th March, 18.30-20.30

Techniques for learning and teaching data skills #2 Storytelling with Data

Thursday 14th March, 13.00 – 17.00
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF

In partnership with 360Giving

In this increasingly complex and digital age, knowing how to turn data into information is a powerful thing. Communicating complex numbers and crafting meaningful stories from them is a desirable skill that can help to move policies, create new partnerships and lead to positive change.

During this workshop, we will build compelling stories for grantmaking from datasets. We will start by focusing on the ‘who’ we are telling the story to and how to craft a narrative that is compelling to them.

We will also review best practices for using stories crafted from data to build a better understanding of our stakeholders and their needs. We will explore data – 360Giving’s, your own, or other data sources – and think about the story it tells us, drafting stories for our audiences.

This is a train the trainer session where we will teach how to facilitate this activity, but it’s open to everyone who wants to learn how to tell stories with data.