[Summary: Today and tomorrow I'm getting the Open Data Impacts project 'field work' started with exploratory participant observation at Rewired State's DotGovLabs and Hack the Government Day 2010. If you're here/there then this post gives a quick bit of background on that and answers questions that participants in the event might have...]
Who are you?
Me: in case you want to play spot the researcher
I’m Tim Davies, currently an MSc Student studying Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute, but I’ve also been involved for a number of years in online engagement and participation work – and got interested in what people were doing with data through events like UKGovWeb BarCamp and LocalGovCamp.
What is Open Data Impacts
It’s my MSc dissertation project – but, I hope, also a more widely useful piece of research into the relationship between government data becoming more open, and interesting things happening with it.
Why are you at Rewired State DGL / HTG this weekend?
Rewired State events demonstrate a really interested model of how government data is being used and mediated. I’m at the exploratory stage of working out how to focus the Open Data Impacts research – so am keen to get a sense of how different models of engagement with government open data work. Emma and the Rewired team have kindly allowed me to come along as a participant-observer for the events, where I’m hoping to get a sense of:
- How decisions are made about what to focus on;
- What issues arise from the availability, or non-availability of data;
- What skills, roles and processes go into the creation of a ‘thing’ using data;
and - What sorts of things get created, and what issues are faced along the way;
Exploratory research?
Yes. That’s quite important to emphasise. It means that at this stage nothing I see/hear/participate in is being written up in detail for the final research project. If you say something so stunningly insightful that I just have to quote you in the final research, I’ll ask your permission for that, but otherwise, I’m taking part to get a feel of things, not to record who said what, or exactly what someone or other did.
This is important as (a) I’m still learning how to do participant-observation research work; (b) I don’t want to in any way disrupt the event by participants feeling their conversations / actions are being constantly noted down and could be written up.
Participant-observer?
I’m hoping to participate in the events rather than standing around to on side – though I won’t be attached to a single project. I’m no great coder, but happy to help out with:
- Bits of PHP
- Things involving Drupal
- Statistical stuff (mainly with R)
- Fetching and carrying
- Typing things up
- etc.
Do I have to talk to you/work with you?
No. Though it would be lovely if you do.
As this is exploratory work, I’ve not sought opt-in ‘consent’ from every participant. However, you are welcome to ‘opt-out’ and request that nothing from yourself / your project is observed for the exploratory research.
When does the data collection part of your research start?
Soon. I hope to have a survey put together to gather views of a wide range of people engaged with Open Data by mid-April, and to start talking to small groups or individuals for a series of Interviews during May. All updates will be posted on this blog.
Isn’t this FAQ a bit pointless? Why not JFDI?
Possibly. I’d love feedback on that. And any other questions that you want answered.
One of the interesting things about this project is not only working out how to collect research data (once this exploratory phase is over), but also working out what sorts of ethics and norms of behaviour are right for working with the emergent community of people using government provided open data. Working in a space between reflective and systems-based University Research Ethics Committee formal principles, and relatively fluid and action-oriented developer environments takes some thinking about – and I hope I’m getting somewhere towards the right balance.
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