Open Data Communities - User Research

Hello! We’re carrying out a review of Open Data Communities (ODC), DCLG’s Linked Data platform. ODC is currently mostly aimed at data power users (i.e. statisticians, analysts, and software developers). But we’re trying to find out how it’s used by different people so we can make some recommendations on how it can be improved and extended, to enable more people to take advantage of the data available.

Since 2011, Open Data Communities has provided access to a range of official statistics for information and reuse, covering data which ranges from housing to the Index of Multiple Deprivation - a dataset that is used by hundreds of organisations to target funding and services. The site allows you to search, access, query and download data as well as providing tools to help you explore and understand the data. If you want to build something yourself using the data to provide your own interpretation or perform your own analysis it’s also available in machine readable formats including JSON, CSV and RDF via downloads and APIs.

To make sure Open Data Communities continues to evolve in the right direction we want to understand how it can help you.

Survey results will be shared with the Open Data Communities team, but no personal information will be published. We may want to contact you for follow-up information - if you don’t want to be contacted, please let us know in question 2 of the survey.

If you'd like to find out more about the review, we've written a blog explaining what we're doing here.

Thank you for taking the time to fill in the survey. 

* 1. Do you use Open Data Communities?

* 2. If not, why not?

* 3. Do you use DCLG data from other places, eg GOV.UK?

* 4. When you are on the ODC site, do you:

* 5. Which datasets do you use from ODC, and how often?

  Never Daily Weekly Monthly Less Often
Indices of Deprivation
Homelessness
Housing
Planning

* 6. Have you combined any ODC datasets with other data sources?

* 7. Please describe how you combined this data (eg by a linked data SPARQL query, downloading data and matching in excel, etc), and any difficulties you encountered.

* 8. If you do combine the data you query or download, do you publish the results on your own web site(s)? If so, and you are happy to share it with us, please provide a URL.

* 9. What have you been able to achieve by using ODC data?

* 10. Please give examples of some of the things you have been able to do with ODC data. Feel free to give us links to blog posts, academic papers, etc.

* 11. Are there any other datasets that you would like DCLG to make available through Open Data Communities?

* 12. Do you have any suggestions for how the ODC site could be improved?
We are especially interested in functionality - whether to focus on providing tools for visualising data, or being able to quickly compare and switch between different geographical areas, for example.

* 13. As part of this research, we are also looking at how ODC can improve the way it engages with actual and potential users of its data. Do you have any suggestions as to how this can be done most effectively?
We’re interested in whether people feel that ODC should be blogging more often, including guest posts from users, holding events, or increasing social media activity.

We'd be grateful if you could tell us a bit about yourself to help us when we analyse the responses:

* 14. What is your name?

* 15. Would you be happy for us to contact you for more information if necessary?

* 16. If so, please enter your contact details below

* 17. Job title / Description of what you do

* 18. Organisation name (if applicable)

* 19. Organisation Type

* 20. Please briefly describe your role / organisation in terms of general objectives, ethos, mission, etc

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