TM
The Open Indicators Consortium:
A Local, Regional, National and
International Resource
William Mass
Director, Center for Industrial Competitiveness
Associate Professor, Regional Economic and Social Development
and
Georges Grinstein
Director, Institute for Visualization and Perception Research
Professor, Computer Science
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Charlotte Kahn
Director, Boston Indicators Project
The Boston Foundation
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Motivation:
“We’re living in a cold war between
open and closed systems.”
– Tim Wu, Professor and Internet expert
Columbia University (New York Times, 11/12/07)
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Goal: Create high-performance open
source data visualization tools
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increase access, distribution and use of public data
facilitate the understanding of complex patterns
support comparisons from micro to macro levels
foster collaboration to solve complex problems
encourage innovation and creativity in an open source
environment
• enable transparency and accountability
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Values:
• Expanded access to high performance tools
• Democratization of data capabilities
• Low financial hurdles to participation for
nonprofits and government
• Continuous innovation through universitycommunity-industry collaboration and
partnership regionally, nationally and
internationally
–Functionality developed in response to diverse
stakeholders’ needs and preferences to create a
“universal” platform.
–Source code and software free for non-commercial use.
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
OIC Founding Members
1.
Metro Atlanta/Atlanta GA (Neighborhood Nexus Partnership)
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Metro Boston/Boston MA (Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the
Boston Indicators Project at the Boston Foundation)
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Metro Chicago/Chicago IL (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning)
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Columbus/Central OH (Community Research Partners)
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State of Arizona, State University of Arizona, Innovation and County
Indicators
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State of Connecticut (CERC & state agencies)
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State of Rhode Island (Rhode Island Department of Education and the
Providence Plan)
With participation from the Greater Lowell, Boston, New Haven and
Rhode Island Community Foundations through a matching grant from
the James L. Knight Foundation
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
The UMass Lowell Team
• Computer Science Department
– 6 Professors
– 1 Postdoctoral student
– 8 Graduate students
– 4 Undergraduate students
• Regional Economic and Social Development Department
– 2 Professors
– 6 Graduate students
• Staff
– 2 Staff (Administrative & Technical) with diverse industry experience
– 1 Technical writer
• Faculty and graduate students have degrees from US, China,
Ghana, India, Israel and many also have successful commercial
software experience
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Application to Early Education and Care (EEC) to
track fine-grained progress and disparities
• Provider level
– quality measures linked to child care center or school growth or
attrition and performance of children served by income eligibility,
school readiness, MCAS scores, other
• Service regions
– municipality, school district, other
• Geospatial layers
– point, line and area data
– School (students, staff, teachers), municipal, regional and state
aggregation
• Comparisons
– student cohorts, classrooms, schools, districts, regions, states
• Trends over time
– change and progress
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Screen Snapshots of Demos
Each of the following static images depicts
highly interactive visualizations
on customizable web sites
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TM
Child Care Provider Capacity, 2004-09
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TM
FCC Capacity by Town, 2009
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TM
Live Demos
• Concentration of MA children in poverty by
census tract
– using 2000 Census data
• Location and capacity of MA child care facilities
– by municipality (2009)
• Child care capacity
– aggregated by municipality (2009)
– multiple data providers (income eligibility, MCAS, …)
• 3rd Grade reading proficiency
– Boston (2009)
– all schools, Turnaround, and Circle of Promise Schools
by all student cohorts
• Rhode Island school performance
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Current Release 0.7
• Founding members have a release
– with their own data for mapping and data visualization
• Agile development process
– release frequently with continuous user feedback
– management structure and operational responsibilities to
assure collaboration, integration & cross training within
UML and with OIC member staff
• Members have their own sites
– up for internal testing and/or public access
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Current Innovations
• Open Source
– open standards used throughout software (Flex,
Geoserver, Apache, …)
• Technological innovation
– microAPI
– incremental compression of shape files
– anticipatory computation
– continuous zoom
– ease of data import
– session history
– collaboration
… and much more on the data side
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Achievements
• High performance
– high level of interactivity (fast response time)
– broad usability support (e.g., choices for color deficient individuals,
session support)
• Visual and analysis tools to enable deep analysis and
critical thinking
• Several types of visualizations on the same page
- Linked visualizations (selections in one highlighted in others)
• Flexible platform for web page look and feel
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Second-Year Development (2010)
• Session history
– for personalization
– to save multiple states and preferences
– to understand web usage and patterns (web analytics)
• Collaborative visual tools
– to enable joint analysis from multiple sites
– to provide support and training
– with integrated voice chat
• Cutting-edge hardcopy and dynamic reports
– classic hardcopy with state-of-the-art images
– interactive animations on web pages
• Controlled and secure user and data access
– based on groups
• Ontology and Middleware
– to support search for data and trend similarities across OIC member
and National Data Commons sites
Software architecture is already designed for these features
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Data Organization
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Nested geospatial data
Multiple geospatial layers
Multiyear comparisons
Variable and custom geographic boundaries
across multiple jurisdictions
• Base ontologies and standard protocols
–Supports differences in regions and comparisons across
regions
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Multiple Levels of Access and Use:
1. Novice user (general public)
– seeks to get summary information and narrative description
– wants basic visualizations of bar or pie charts with maps
– wants to compare one or several nearby regions
– works with predefined indicators and preconfigured maps
2. Intermediate user (educator, planner, media)
– weeks more interaction and access to larger database
– reviews a range of predefined queries and selects from
– predefined indicators
– data visualization options
– preconfigured maps
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
3. Advanced analyst (researcher, statistician, expert)
– needs a high level of interactivity
– explores the data by specifying parameters to configure “on the fly”
data visualizations and maps
– generates reports with visualizations
4. Expert users who help others, strengthen the system
– the development of community or regional web sites for use by the
typical and intermediate user
– collaborative planning, technical assistance, training
5. An open community of practice
– innovators and developers
– early adopters
– data intermediaries – academic and community groups
– planners who can now work collaboratively
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Client
Flex Application(s)
Architecture
Web Services
HTTP
Centralized Server (at UML, …)
HTTP Server
HTML/JavaScript and Flash
Web Services
Interface to Middleware
OIC Site Lookup Services
Consortium Directory Services
Ontology Definition Services
etc…
Consortium Member Site running Middleware
Data Server
•Site defined
data access
•Ontology
mapping
Shape Server
GeoServer
R Server
(statistics /
models)
App Server
(other servers
for additional
functionality)
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Collaboration
GeoServer
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TM
Network Security & Anonymization
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Weave 2.0 and 3.0 Plans
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Tools for comparative/similarity studies
National Data Locator
Ontology/taxonomy/metadata editor & support
Vision-impaired user support
Report generator with dynamics
Intelligent visualizations
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Why Should EEC & Partners Join OIC?
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Administrative use and/or public data access
Leverage resources for priority applications
Early learning from local server installation
Influence on design priorities in development
Prestige and access to resources
High visibility
Help drive standards in EEC
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Questions?
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
The Fundamental Mission
• Enable data visualization of any available data
anywhere by anyone for any purpose
(under administrative and user controls)
–to provide data visibility and increase access
–to increase data understanding and knowledge
–to support exploration and comparisons
–to enable planning and accountability
–to support communication and collaboration
–to enable innovation and creativity
–to facilitate data dissemination and distribution
–to solve complex problems needing multiple people and
organizations
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
Civic Engagement Goals
• Fill the vacuum of highly consumable, quality
data for the use of stakeholder communication
Data Rich, Insight Poor
–explore and communicate local community and economic
conditions
–enable regional, national, global comparisons
–have stakeholders define and shape the new tools for
visualization and collaboration: charts, scorecards,
dashboards, narrations and animations
–support advanced use of visualizations in local blogs,
websites, newspapers and television
–provide visual and analytic information for public debate
and community problem solving
–promote collaboration on program and budget planning
–support greater governmental, foundation, organizational
transparency and accountability
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
STEM DEGREES, MA, 2003 – 2008
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
©2010 University of Massachusetts
TM
©2010 University of Massachusetts