Report of MPs’ inquiry into UK statistics and open data published - StatsLife

From: http://www.statslife.org.uk/news/1299-report-of-mps-inquiry-into-uk-statistics-and-open-data-published?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss-enews+%28StatsLife+-+all+the+latest+statistics+news%29

Written by Web News Editor on 20 March 2014. Posted in News

Access to public sector data must never be sold or given away, and should be made open by default, according to a report on Statistics and Open Data published on 17 March 2014 by the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC).

One of the report's key recommendations is that data should be made 'open' by default, ie accessible to all, free of restrictions on use or redistribution, and in a digital, machine-readable format. 'There should be a presumption that restrictions on government data releases should be abolished,' the report notes. ‘It may be necessary to exempt certain data sets from this presumption, but this should be on a case-by-case basis.' The report also said that charging for some data may occasionally be appropriate, 'but this should become the exception rather than the rule.'

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Why the wealthiest countries are also the most open with their data - Washington Post

From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/14/why-the-wealthiest-countries-are-also-the-most-open-with-their-data/?tid=hpModule_79c38dfc-8691-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394

• BY EMILY BADGER

• March 14 at 1:29 pm

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The Oxford Internet Institute this week posted a nice visualization of the state of open data in 70 countries around the world, reflecting the willingness of national governments to release everything from transportation timetables to election results to machine-readable national maps. The tool is based on the Open Knowledge Foundation's Open Data Index, an admittedly incomplete but telling assessment of who willingly publishes updated, accurate national information on, say, pollutants (Sweden) and who does not (ahem, South Africa).

Tally up the open data scores for these 70 countries, and the picture looks like this, per the Oxford Internet Institute (click on the picture to link through to the larger interactive version):

Oxford Internet Institute

That's Great Britain in the lead at left, followed by the U.S., Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Australia. Each segment in the above chart corresponds to a country's score on one of the component metrics (election results, government budget, etc.). The orange outlier in that left group is Israel. Meanwhile, Kenya, Yemen and Bahrain are among the countries at the far right. More.....

Big Data - The 5 Vs Everyone Must Know

Big Data - The 5 Vs Everyone Must Know from Bernard Marr

VB News - Statwing picks up funding from data science luminary Hammerbacher

From: http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/30/statwing-picks-up-funding-from-data-science-luminary-hammerbacher/


Above: A correlation as shown in Statwing's software.
Image Credit: Statwing
January 30, 2014 3:01 PM 
Jordan Novet

Big data projects are trendy, but they can be hard to pull off.

Venture capitalists understand the problem. They’ve been betting on startups like DataHero andChartio that aim to make analysis and visualization of data fast and simple. Now another startup,Statwing, has revealed new backing, and it comes from a leading figurehead in the big data world, Jeff Hammerbacher, a cofounder of fast-growing big data company Cloudera.

Statwing uses a clean point-and-click interface, as opposed to a clunky and overly complicated tool like Microsoft Excel. Users can drop in data from a spreadsheet and then get super-clear statements that tell users what they’re looking for, alongside visualizations and high-level statistics.   

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BusinessNewsDaily Reference: What is Statistical Analysis?

From: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6000-statistical-analysis.html
ByChad Brooks, BusinessNewsDaily Contributor   |   February 28, 2014 12:07am ET

In an effort to organize their data and predict future trends based on the information, many businesses rely on statistical analysis.

While organizations have lots of options on what to do with their big data, statistical analysis is a way for it to be examined as a whole, as well as broken down into individual samples.

The online technology firm TechTarget.com describes statistical analysis as an aspect of business intelligence that involves the collection and scrutiny of business data and the reporting of trends.

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