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.

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.

Mapping Your World – a beginner’s guide to using Open Street Map

Tuesday 26th February, 18.30-20.30
Tech Incubator
Oxford Road
Manchester M1 7ED.

OpenStreetMap is a free and editable map of the world, created and maintained by a huge international community. It’s used in numerous projects by local communities, governments, software developers and more, with nearly 5 million registered users and 1 million contributors from all over the world.

It includes data about roads, buildings, addresses, shops and businesses, points of interest, railways, trails, transit, land use and natural features, and much more.

We’ll explore the fundamentals of mapping with OpenStreetMap, some tools and apps, best practice, and some re-use by 3rd part projects.

Whether you’re completely new to OpenStreetMap, or whether you’ve used it before and wish to dive a bit deeper, then this is for you.

An Introduction to Open Street Map

Saturday 2nd February, 11.00 – 17.00
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF

Join us for a day’s introduction to Open Street Map, the free and editable map of the world, created and maintained by a huge international community.

This workshop will act as a ‘beginners guide’ to OSM, but with a slant towards looking at how we might map accessibility and mobility features, as informed by our Mapping Mobility Stockport project.

Whether you’re completely new to OSM and want to know more, you’ve used it before and wish to dive a bit deeper, or you’re an OSM pro but wish to explore accessibility and mobility features in more detail, then this is for you.

We’ll be joined by OSM pro Andy Mabbett, who will take us through the fundamentals of mapping with OpenStreetMap. We’ll explore some tools and apps, best practice, and how the map has been re-used by 3rd party projects. Some of the things that we will be covering include:

What is Open Street Map?
Policies and rule
OSM editing tools, including ID and JOSM
Basic OSM mapping concepts, tagging & accessibility-related tagging
Hands-on editing
Apps
Where to find help
Data imports, explorts and 3rd party re-use.

Things Manchester 2019 – We Are Open

Tuesday 21st January, 18.30 – 21.00
Tech Incubator
Oxford Road
Manchester M1 7ED.

The Things Network and LoRaWAN is the breakout technology in the IoT space. Increasingly adopted by industry, civic and commercial bodies – but still supporting experimental and small-scale usage – The Things Network has seen rapid evolution over the last few years.

Join us for our first meeting of 2019. After a few months away, we’ll have a recap introduction to LoRaWAN and TheThingsNetwork, with slots for show-and-tell and open discussions. Bring your plans for devices and deployments, questions, ideas or just plain old networking hats, and join the biggest – and original – Award-Winning open IoT community in the UK!

Started in 2015 the Things Network has become an global IoT phenomenon. Manchester was one of the first communities to develop outside Amsterdam and since September 2018 the Things Manchester network has been under the custodianship of Open Data Manchester CIC.

Open:Data:Night

Tuesday 29th January, 18.30 – 20.30
Federation House
Federation Street
Manchester M4 4BF

Kicking off our 2019 programme of public events, Open:Data:Night is an open session for anyone with an idea, project or interest related to open data and data practice.

As in previous sessions, we’ll have a couple of speakers talking about the work they’re currently doing in open data in the Greater Manchester area, but we’ll also have a number of quick-fire slots available on the night.

If you want to present what you’re doing, find a collaborator, co-conspirator or get feedback on a project, come along.

If you’ve never been to an Open:Data:Night before, you can read a summary of the previous event here.

Find out what the Open Data Manchester community is doing, what it’s all about and the benefits!