data sets of local facilities: what do you want?

[b3rn]

Good day OA - I work for a council in Sydney, and am looking to scope
an approach to publishing data on local parks, playgrounds, sporting
fields, beaches, car parks, etc. Their location, facilities, opening
hours, etc.

I'm leaning towards simple XML & KML - here is an example from the
U.K.:
http://www.lichfielddc.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?categoryID=200116&documentID=1182

As likely users of this information, I'd be interested to hear from
you regarding what could be made available and how .

Thank you.

[Rob Manson]

KML would be fine and GEORSS or GEOJSON would be great too...


roBman

[Adam Kennedy]

In regards to the types of information that would be ideal in the
data, I'd want some form of unique identifier, location (a point for
small things, potentially polygons for big things), opening hours
sounds fine, but I imagine a big item would be a contact phone/email
for reporting faults etc.

Public/social interfaces to this data will inevitably involve public
comments and reports, so a way for the website to channel those
comments back to the appropriate person or group in council would be a
huge win (and I'd guess that the media would like it as well, that the
council is treating this as a public engagement opportunity from the
start).

The LGA might also be interested in getting involved in this. I'd love
to see the beginnings towards a common method/format for publishing
this information. But in the short term, going it alone would be fine.

Adam K

[Yuval Ararat]

Can you elaborate a bit about the facilities? as a parent i want to know if my kid has something to do in a location like a playground.

May be put facilities by age groups.

Will you be supplying binary data as well like images and videos?

y.

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 10:29 AM, b3rn <nor...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Adam Kennedy]

For anything near a street, it would be fairly easy to find a streetview nearby.

That said, perhaps the council can add in a recommended street view link?

Adam K

[Jeffery Candiloro]

G'Day,

As useful as the data is, a license to use it is even more important.

Cheers

Jeffery

[Henare Degan]

Hear, hear

On Nov 10, 2009 8:33 PM, "Jeffery Candiloro" <jef...@astraaustralis.com.au> wrote:


G'Day,

As useful as the data is, a license to use it is even more important.

Cheers

Jeffery

Adam Kennedy wrote: > For anything near a street, it would be fairly easy to find a streetview near...

[Matt Joyce]

Agreed.

For Parks, consider the following...

Activity Equipment?

Activity Equipment Age Range?

Activity Equipment is enclosed or open?

Width of gate?

Sun Shade?

Number of swings with bucket seat for toddlers?

Number of benches/seats within enclosure?

Surface material; rubberised, bark chippings, other

Nearby Toilet Facilities?

Facilities are double pram accessible?

Change table?

Opening times?

Dog space?

Nearest car park?

Nearest cafe?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 2:18 PM, Yuval Ararat <yar...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Yuval Ararat]

inline

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 7:10 AM, Matt Joyce <matt....@gmail.com> wrote:

Agreed.

For Parks, consider the following...

Activity Equipment?

Activity Equipment Age Range?

Activity Equipment is enclosed or open?

Width of gate?

Sun/rain Shade?

Number of swings, how many with bucket seat for toddlers?

Number of benches/seats within enclosure? [y] Tables.

Surface material; rubberised, bark chippings, other [y] should be descriptive and not other its better to know if concrete

Nearby Toilet Facilities?

Facilities are double pram accessible?

Change table?

Opening times?

Dog space?

Nearest car park?

Nearest cafe?

These should come from other data sources and not the one described,unless the coffee shop is a part of the park.

 

[b3rn]

Thanks!

@ Adam Kennedy, Matt Joyce -
The 'social' (public comments, reports) and 'associated data' (nearest
coffee shop) aspects are probably beyond the scope of the project, but
the data would hopefully provide the foundation for these type of
applications. Having said that, it'd be great to have (potentially)
the whole community maintaining the accuracy and currency of the data
set. Put it all in Wikipedia?

@ Jeffery Candiloro, Henare Degan -
Sure, a clear and explicit licence is essential - a primary objective
of this project is to encourage reuse of the information. We're using
Creative Commons on a limited public data set at the moment
(Development Applications).

Is there "a common method/format for publishing this information"? A
widely used metadata element set (like Dublin Core) for physical
assets? Does anyone have experience of asset management systems? I see
things like this http://www.tams.nsw.gov.au/About%20TAMS.asp but I'm
not optimistic about getting live data out of these type of systems in
the short term.

On Nov 11, 7:20 pm, Yuval Ararat <yara...@gmail.com> wrote:
> inline
>

> >>>http://www.lichfielddc.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?categor...

[James Purser]

On Thu, 2009-11-19 at 02:31 -0800, b3rn wrote:
> Is there "a common method/format for publishing this information"? A
> widely used metadata element set (like Dublin Core) for physical
> assets? Does anyone have experience of asset management systems? I see
> things like this http://www.tams.nsw.gov.au/About%20TAMS.asp but I'm
> not optimistic about getting live data out of these type of systems in
> the short term.

Hi B3rn,

If you're looking for someone knowledgeable on asset management in
council, you can't go past a guy called Wayne Eddy.

He's the guy behind

http://lgam.wikidot.com/
--
James Purser
Collaborynth
http://collaborynth.com.au
Mob: +61 406 576 553
Skype: purserj1977
Twitter: http://twitter.com/purserj

[Adam Kennedy]

A few notes about file format strategies (with which I am more
familiar than I care to be).

The people consuming your data are going to be be at all kinda of
different levels of experience, using different programming languages
(or not using any at all) on different operating systems, with
different goals in mind.

Given this, the optimum strategy for most situations is to find the
highest resolution/quality version you can, and export that if you can
(which you basically refer to with the comment about asset management
systems).

Once you've made the big high quality export intended for specialised
tools and experts, assume that 80% of people will find that too
complicated.

Now take that main data set, and start culling it down into simpler
datasets, and move towards simpler file formats at the same time.

Examples.

1. Huge asset tracking export, anyone not in the field will need to
spend a month learning from scratch.

2. SQLite export of the main subset of useful data, in a zip file with
an ESRI shapefile holding all the geometry.

3. Simple ESRI and MID/MIF dumps with data only at single table resolution.

4. CSV with the core names, types, descripts, and basic lat/log positions.

Pick a few places in the continuum from CSV to giant industry-specific
program data files that seem useful for your data, and release at
those points.

Then see what feedback you get back over the first few weeks/months,
add new high demand formats, drop the stuff nobody wants (but try to
keep the highest resolution version if only for the principle behind
it).

Adam K

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