Maybe it would be worthwhile adding an additional field to the input API to flag activities as “of general interest” and then having some kind of call that could be made to the output API that wouldn’t be location specific and would return just these activities?

Potentially this could add a whole new dimension to the project I suppose!

One of the things i’ve noticed whilst trawling through a lot of the positive activity data is that a huge amount of it is delivered via the Third Sector.

Qualitative feedback is invaluable to funded organisations as ammunition to prove their delivery is effective and warrant’s further funding.

If you could somehow create a feedback module that also doubled as an place for an organisation to gather feedback on their clients – kind of like a really informal case management system – then you could see a huge take up of this.

As James said, being able to feedback this info back would be great.

If you linked it to an orgs specific outcomes (that they’ve agreed with funders) it would be hugely beneficial to them and perhaps create more meaningful data for prospective clients’ benefits.

E.g
Outcome: improved self esteem, Question: Do you feel more confident since you’ve been attending this Youth club?

I Also think the reflective feedback over time becomes a really important aspect here too – being able to measure the development of client’s satisfaction of an orgnisation over time – more ammunition when writing bids.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Keep up the good work,

Pete

Hope it gets sorted soon because in theory there is lots of useful things that can be done with the PKHD data feed.

Our feasibility found that the metadata underneath PKHD *is* adopted, and so utilisation of it would be a good next step. If, for example, the “positive activities” category was in wider use, it could also help us. Although, this then relies on a widespread agreement on what positive activities are!

Pete and colleagues are now in the process of writing and testing various tools to extract the data out – using some of the methods described in the study. We will try and get as much as we can out for inspection and discussion. I know some early data from Halton has come through this route – http://plings.net/la/00ET – not masses, but a start..

As for how long to post data for, I agree that is an interesting question. We found the same issue also applies when thinking about building an application/interface with the data. How long / how much data do you draw down/cache, and how much do you query live? As you suggest, some more focus and discussion on this thorny issue is needed

The scraping kits and API sound very interesting too (as does the central calendar of geek events – now that would be useful!). From the other end, we have often thought that if a youth club – for example – could format and prepare their data on a webpage in a fairly uniform way, then we could authenticate (eg: the URL associated with that Youth Club) and scrape it. I suppose the trick is to put this in language that the Youth club would follow, presuming that Linked Data and APIs are not top of their long agenda of things to keep on top on!

Just thought I’d say Hi. I’m responsible for the development of the open source metadata aggregation platform that sits underneath the PKHD system. Although it feels like I’m a million miles away from PKHD propper, I’m about as familiar is it’s possible to be with the PKHD system in a soup-to-nuts way (Don’t blame me for the rubbish bits, although in honesty it’s probably my fault )

Many of the issues you raise here have been banded around the various technical working groups for a long while no. They often play off the need for accurate information against the ability of LA’s and system vendors to provide that information. There are ways to modify, improve and extend the schemas, but no ways unfortunately to ensure that data is provided, or that the spirit of the schemas will be adhered to.

your info about converting free text descriptions into instance data is really interesting. Is that out in the public domain? Certainly, once thing we could do is automatically apply metadata enrichment routines to the records uploaded into PKHD… Is that something that would interest you? Also really interested in the question “How far ahead should we project”. We’ve (At times) asked ourselves how long a record should last in PKHD. If it’s not touched for 18 months, should it be deleted etc? Seems to me that a shared understanding of this question would be really helpful.

Also, with my other hat on, I’m one of a small team that organises grass-roots events in sheffield and south yorkshire (monthly GeekUp events, barcamps, Social media surgeries etc) and we’ve been working with some people in similar roles over the country to create a diary of (Apologies for the name) Geek events. One of the ideas I’ve been playing with there is a data submission API and some example html scrapers that will allow hyperlocal data providers to scrape local sites and contribute the data to a central portal. Are there ways to restrict event information to a specific sub-class of activity in Plings? We might be able to send you some events data. Now I think about it, those screen-scraping kits could be easily adapted to generic events and activities.

Anyways, you’ve gained a reader, cheers for the interesting blog!

best,
Ian.

We live up in the lake district and never has a truer word been spoken.

At the local primary and secondary schools we have run competitions to encourage more use of our fells by the local children. We offered a Deuter Futura 32 rucksack from one of our local walking shops to the first to complete 5 named fells in the Lake District.

It took nearly the whole summer for just one girl (!) to provide the information to win the rucksack!

Sharing news items, for example, is a doddle – they have a simple, widely agreed & understood structure. This contrasts with events, activities etc, where there’s more going on in the data so more scope for divergence & incompatibilities – the mismatches that you talk about. These mean that info that’s meaningful in one system might not fit into another &, even if it does, can easily lose a key part of its meaning (turning high quality info in one context into what seems like poor quality info in another).

When we were setting up Cambridgeshire.net, we looked for models/standards for event & activity data with a view to inter-operability, but there seemed to be little consensus beyond the obvious. If Plings or PKHD had been further on at the time, this could well have influenced aspects of our approach!

When designing schemas, another pressure, of course, is that collecting data involves compromise – keeping things quick & simple for your data providers whilst providing useful options for data users. Compromise differently than your neighbour & your data maybe shares badly as a result.

Data sharing with its obvious benefits will get easier: 1. the more agreement there is on the base entity types in this area (eg. events vs regular activities vs organisations) & 2. the more compatibility there is between the data schemas in use.

I always think projects like Plings are important in providing the space to work through questions like these, finding practical answers & – most importantly – getting them out there. Good, then, to see today’s Plings blog posting – (Plings.net going national – 30 Jan 10).

Anyway, just a few thoughts.