bigdataeurope - big data & inclusive and reflective societies

Opportunities, Challenges and

Requirements 27/02/2015

BIG DATA &

INCLUSIVE AND

REFLEXIVE SOCIETIES

Statistics and social sciences

...that’s useful...that’s pretty… > ….that’s trustworthy

Current sources have strengths:

Authenticity, reliability, replicability, comparability over space and time, and

permanence in the public record.

Methodology, sources, definitions, thesaurus, question banks, sample sizes,

etc., specified in legislation, or established by international policy

coordination.

24-Feb-15www.big-data-europe.eu


...that’s useful...that’s pretty… > ….that’s trustworthy...

But can be weak in coverage, timliness, cost, relevance.

And vulnerable to Campbell’s law :



Campbell’s law :

"The more any quantitative social indicator (or even some qualitative

indicator) is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to

corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the

social processes it is intended to monitor."


Drivers for exploring new Big Data sources

Can Big Data tackle the weaknesses, yet maintain the strengths?

Deal with the cost of conventional data collection?

(€100 or more per household interview)

Give new insight into new concepts?

(eg. Wellbeing)

Improve timeliness?

(Google flu vs. doctors’ records vs death registrations)


A new tip for the triangle?

Awareness


Awareness

UNECE High Level Group Project on Big Data.

http://www1.unece.org/stat/platform/display/bigdata/Big+Data+Inventory

ESS Big Data event, Rome, March 2014

Eurostat Task Force - Big Data. "Scheveningen Memorandum", 09/ 2013

OECD Technology Foresight - Big Data as a new source of growth

Administrative Data Research Network - UK http://www.adrn.ac.uk


http://www1.unece.org/stat/platform/display/bigdata/Big+Data+Inventory

Awareness

International Statistics Institute satellite meeting at UN Statistics Commission

meeting, New York, 3 March 2015:

● a) How to ensure that use of non-traditional sources of data will not

compromise the professional standards in statistics and risk decreasing public

trust in statistical data and analyses either at the country, or international level?

● b) How to deal with privacy-efficiency trade-off in the context of greater access

to administrative and Big Data sources? How we should address them?


Interdependencies

Linked to Open Data and Visualisation tools

- to public numeracy initiatives

- Public participation in democracy

- Trust agenda (ref. CRU at UEA climate data debacle)


Sledgehammer to crack a nut?

Sometimes - but it may be the only way to open the nut…

ONS used 2 months of Twitter’s tweets to validate which

of the addresses in their database were residential.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/who-ons-are/programmes-and-

projects/the-ons-big-data-project/index.html


Sometimes the sledgehammer cracks a persistent nut...


What do we want?

As data archive services, we need new capacity and new

technology to provide our services to Big Data owners.

Today, we don’t know how to deliver our mandate with

respect to Big Data archiving and re-use.


What do we want?


What do we want?

A place to import data, learn how to manage it, and help

researchers experiment with it

Help and support, to compare and contrast

Examples and inspiration

Some of our questions answered...


What do we want?

- what does “archiving” mean in Big Data?

- what is captured for reuse?

- what services should social science archives offer?

- how can we help achieve equality of access to this new

evidence base for decision making?


bigdataeurope - big data & inclusive and reflective societies

Technology

open data

statistical data

big data inclusive

big data owners

data archive services

eurostat task force

uea climate data debacle

new technology