Exploring how rights advocates use information and digital technology to create positive change
Tactic 7 - How to use complex data
This tactic is good to use when you need to present and share complex or hard-to-access information with the people who need it most. This tactics card includes:
- video stories
- a case study
- suggestions for the different ways you could use this tactic
- a featured tool
- tips
To download this card click here.
VIDEO STORIES
Tactic 7 - How to use complex data from Tactical Technology Collective on Vimeo.
Examples from this video:
- Mapping Farm Subsidy Payments in Sweden - by FarmSubsidy.org and advocates in Sweden
- Visualising the Crisis in Darfur - By advocates/technologists working with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, Fair Play gathers invoices and other documents that show how the Slovakian government spends its money, adds this material to a database connected to its website, and invites people to use this information to influence political change. Zuzana Wienk from Fair Play says, “We started to experiment with this during a huge scandal we had in Slovakia recently concerning European Union (EU) funding. The media learnt that contracts were given to companies that are closely connected to the government’s leaders. Using FOI laws we started to request more and more data about contracts between these companies and Ministers, also requesting invoices and other accounting data. We produced graphs from this information and put them online, and we also scanned all the invoices and made them available.” Soon after doing this, NGOs, journalists, concerned citizens and academics started to analyse the data themselves and write about it. “There were very active forums based on these articles”, says Zuzana. “This made us feel it was important to include the public in these investigations – that people have the interest, skills and expertise”. By making the information easy to access, a debate was created around public spending and pressure for change became so great that one Slovak construction minister had to resign.
Tools used: Custom-built database, using open source tools (mySQL, Apache server, and PHP). Data imported from Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests, in Excel spreadsheets, but sometimes they needed to be scanned or retyped. Web-scrapers are used to bring in data from online sources.
Reach: The project tracks public spending in the Slovakian government. It is now expanding to track assets of Slovak members of European Parliament. During the EU funding scandal, the Fair Play website was one of the top three most visited in Slovakia.
Cost: USD$4000 in 2003 for the first programming and technical phase. One coordinator was employed in 2004 to update the database, costing USD$12,000.
Resources: Student volunteers assist in updating the database. Volunteer developers and programmers attended a BarCamp organised by Fair Play to plan the project.
Time: Nine months to get the first database up in 2003. Updated continuously, every three to 12 months, with data from new FOIA requests.
Level of difficulty: 4 out of 5.
Links to learn more:
DIFFERENT WAYS YOU CAN DO THIS
1. If a government makes data available on an issue but it is spread across multiple websites, you can aggregate it on your website with your own tools for searching and commenting on it.
2. For campaigns where total anonymity is not necessary, you can crowd source the gathering of images, stories, and videos for your campaign by using a wiki – a website you can give anyone permission to edit. On the wiki, people can post items that need verification, and you can work with others to investigate and share findings. You should always carefully consider how you will verify information and ensure people are not portrayed wrongly.
3. If you aren’t skilled at graphic design, you can pose your campaign as an invitation to others to create a visualisation or map from your data to best reach your target audience.
4. You can use maps to make a network map, that illustrates the power relationships and transactions between corporations, individuals, donors, and others.
5. Think about whether your campaign or project is dynamic or static. Making it dynamic will take more time, but it may be vital if you are trying to report on rights abuses. Either way, be open and clear on what you are trying to achieve and how quickly you will respond.
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Visualise data over time:
ZUZANA WIENK FROM FAIR PLAY ALLIANCE, ON LOCALISATION:
“Be sensitive to what tools are best in your country or region. In Poland, we couldn’t create an online database as we had done in Slovakia because they didn’t have access to this kind of data – for example, we could not create a database to show both donations to political parties and public procurement. Also, FOIA laws will be different in each region.”
JACK FROM FARMSUBSIDY.ORG, ON GETTING ACCESS:
“It’s really important to know exactly what you’re asking for. You’ve got to know that government holds this data, and that requires a bit of research on what the government holds - you may also develop relationships with friendly civil servants who can tell you, or you can look at the laws to fi nd out what they are required to hold.”
ZUZANA WIENK FROM FAIR PLAY ALLIANCE, ON CROWD-SOURCING:
“My feeling is society is really changing towards more informal collaboration and ad-hoc activism. People are skilled and open to interact and contribute, but we have to create spaces for that, and that space has to be attractive and give people some kind of public recognition or their work. A web space is great for that.”
Read the whole of Tactic 7. This card includes more links, tips and examples: DOWNLOAD CARD (PDF)
