Comments on: Exploring Not-So-Open Data http://www.spacetimeresearch.com/archives/245.html This blog is about what we are up to and thinking about at Space-Time Research. We are passionate about data transparency and public intelligence, quality, a fantastic customer experience, and better software. Fri, 18 May 2012 06:38:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1.2 hourly 1 By: Don McIntosh http://www.spacetimeresearch.com/archives/245/cpage/1.html#comment-17 Don McIntosh Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:26:17 +0000 http://www.spacetimeresearch.com/archives/245.html#comment-17 @Starkie: thanks for you feedback. I was interested to learn more about people's views on this at a recent health informatics conference I attended here in Melbourne. I did a mini survey to with a dozen people and discovered that while everyone was aware of the importance of privacy in health, only the 1 researcher I talked with had any concern about how difficult it could be to access health data, and how that affected her productivity. And I'll add to that one cry for help from legostormtrooper on Twitter who responded to my tweet about the blog post with "Biggest barrier to analysing 'not-so-open data': Forms, oh so many bureaucratic forms! Filled out in triplicate!" @Starkie: thanks for you feedback. I was interested to learn more about people’s views on this at a recent health informatics conference I attended here in Melbourne. I did a mini survey to with a dozen people and discovered that while everyone was aware of the importance of privacy in health, only the 1 researcher I talked with had any concern about how difficult it could be to access health data, and how that affected her productivity. And I’ll add to that one cry for help from legostormtrooper on Twitter who responded to my tweet about the blog post with “Biggest barrier to analysing ‘not-so-open data’: Forms, oh so many bureaucratic forms! Filled out in triplicate!”

]]> By: starkie http://www.spacetimeresearch.com/archives/245/cpage/1.html#comment-16 starkie Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:47:31 +0000 http://www.spacetimeresearch.com/archives/245.html#comment-16 nice post - highlights some critical issues. As well as the issue you cover, I think the access and ethics approval process poses a real risk to our ability to train up new demographers and social researcher. A friend of mine recently had to go through 6month+ of approvals and state sanctions to carry out research with school students. I know this is a different situation, but the principle is the same, I think. EDA of government data has a lot to offer modern demography and social science, but I would think that the time lines for access place a lot of barriers on young researchers and PhD students. Even if you are researching stuff with small groups, you miss a big opportunity to study context and other broader questions without access to government data. nice post - highlights some critical issues. As well as the issue you cover, I think the access and ethics approval process poses a real risk to our ability to train up new demographers and social researcher.

A friend of mine recently had to go through 6month+ of approvals and state sanctions to carry out research with school students. I know this is a different situation, but the principle is the same, I think. EDA of government data has a lot to offer modern demography and social science, but I would think that the time lines for access place a lot of barriers on young researchers and PhD students. Even if you are researching stuff with small groups, you miss a big opportunity to study context and other broader questions without access to government data.

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