Data Scrambles and Map Filters

[Helen Campbell]

Hi All,  I wanted to share some updates on recent work to identify Decision Makers' Information needs, and priority datasets for humanitarian response.

Research:
1.  The Coordinated Data Scramble project aims to identify common data needs for emergency response, and facilitate cooperation around making the data available/usable.  We have identified the following datasets - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EN5j01i9z6lvN8H_AKYBdXD1rGnBRpERqjtIDDQmRDs/edit.  I hope that this will be endorsed soon by the global Information Management Working Group.
2. The Decision Makers Needs project have identified the following lists of key questions that generally need to be answered in the first few days of emergency response - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g8gulqc-63HJrUiC-YPvpws_0bJbP-8orRYhmwaM__0/edit#gid=360688877.  The two separate lists in this spreadsheet ideally need combining.
3. As part of the 72hr Focused Task Force at the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships meeting, we used both of the above lists to carry out a survey of NGO and UN organisations as to their priority data and information needs during emergencies - we are working with Statistics Without Borders on this, and will soon be sharing the results so that a variety of analyses can be done on the data.
I am hoping to work with HXL/HDX to turn these into controlled vocabularies/lists.

Operational testing:
For Fiji we did a number of tests to see how this work could be combined and operationalised (please note that these are just examples of what could be done and should not yet be used for operations).
1.  For the Coordinated Data Scramble we created a trello board based on the list of datasets identified above - https://trello.com/b/hfufF9m0/fiji-coordinated-data-scramble.  The idea is that it can be used to support the skype/slack groups during emergencies - ie. people can add information to each data-card about what work they are doing on each type of data, and as progress is made on the dataset, the data-card is moved to the right.
2.  In partnership with GISCorps and the Tableau Service Corps, we also had a go at using the lists above to create a map filter for the maps currently available for TC Winston on humanitarianresponse.info based on the identified data and information needs of decision makers - see http://public.tableau.com/profile/publish/HumanitarianResponse-MapReview-Fiji/TCWinston#!/publish-confirm.  For each map, information was collected on the key questions that it could be used to answer, and which datasets were shown on the map (all using the lists shown above).  The filter now enables you to filter out all the maps that could help answer specific questions, and/or all maps that show certain datasets.

All these projects need much more work doing on them, so please let me know if you want to join in with any of the projects!

Thanks, Helen

[Helen Campbell]

Hi All,  One quick note of clarification.  For the map filter mentioned below, the medium term aim is to crowdsource map metadata from all the main map sharing portals used during emergencies to include information such as map source, map production date, datasets shown on the map, sources of the datasets shown on the maps, key questions that the map could be used to answer etc.  This is being developed on GeoTagX and the database will be publicly shared so that everyone can build their own map filters similar to the one shown below, but highlighting the parts of the map metadata most relevant to them.  In the long-term we hope that this map metadata might be created by the map producers.  We hope that this will be useful for a variety of purposes from finding the most relevant maps to help answer specific questions, to impact evaluation on use of data from different sources, to identifying which key datasets are not available at key stages of a response.  Partners who have been involved in this work recently include the SIIEM project, ACAPS, OCHA, UNOSAT, DRL, GISCorps and the Tableau Service Corps as well as other members of the Decision Makers Needs Community of Interest.  We'll be very interested to hear how others might use this information.  Thanks, Helen

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From: helen_r...@hotmail.com
To: crisis...@googlegroups.com; dhne...@googlegroups.com; coi-data...@googlegroups.com; coi-decision...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Data Scrambles and Map Filters
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2016 14:51:34 +0100