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You searched for pages by Stuart Lowe. We found 56 results:
Blog: University homepage carbon emissions
Published: Wednesday 16 June 2021, 4:56PM
We've been measuring the carbon emissions from UK university homepages to see where improvements could be made.
... University homepage carbon emissions. Recently we shared the work we'd been doing to measure the carbon emissions from UK local authority websites. We've now done the same for UK universities.. We ...
Blog: Simple SVG linecharts
Published: Thursday 10 June 2021, 11:36AM
Describing our small, customisable, standalone, Javascript library for making simple SVG graphs
... Simple SVG linecharts. We make a lot of barcharts at ODI Leeds. But sometimes a bar chart isn't enough. Sometimes you want a simple line chart.. A few of our recent projects have needed line charts e...
Blog: Council website emissions
Published: Friday 28 May 2021, 9:00AM
Measuring the CO2 emissions from local council homepages to see where improvements can be made
... Council website emissions. You may not think of websites as sources of carbon emissions but they are. Data centres, transmission networks, and the devices we use to access them all use electricity ...
Blog: Let's chat about open data publishing
Published: Wednesday 21 April 2021, 1:28PM
What goes wrong and could go better when it comes to open data publishing.
... Let's chat about open data publishing. As much as we love open data not all of it is created equal. There is a lot of useful and usable data out there, but we often find ourselves jumping through ...
Blog: Covid-19 Visualisations
Published: Tuesday 23 February 2021, 2:41PM
An update on our local-level dashboards and visualisations made to show local-level UK data around covid-19.
... Covid-19 Visualisations. We are 11 months into the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK and data has proven to be very important during that time. After a slowish start, the Public Health England dashboard ...
Blog: Improving privacy in our web analytics
Published: Tuesday 19 January 2021, 2:56PM
... Improving privacy in our web analytics. We wrote recently about our aim to improve our website analytics whilst maximising the privacy. Our current approach, using web access logs ( with additional ...
Blog: Privacy-first web analytics
Published: Tuesday 15 December 2020, 2:12PM
... Privacy-first web analytics. What are web analytics? Many website owners want to know which pages on their website are popular and which are not. That way they can improve their site, make it easier ...
Blog: Local Authority Covid-19 Dashboard
Published: Wednesday 25 November 2020, 6:38PM
We created a local authority breakdown of COVID-19 cases/deaths
... Local Authority Covid-19 Dashboard. It has been quite the year for data and dashboards. In the months following the start of the first lockdown in the UK we have created UK-wide graphs and timelines ...
Blog: Helping those on Free School Meals during half-term
Published: Tuesday 3 November 2020, 5:09PM
... Helping those on Free School Meals during half-term. Earlier in the year, footballer Marcus Rashboard started a successful campaign to make sure those who get free school meals had access to food ...
Blog: Every bin in the world
Published: Friday 31 July 2020, 5:30PM
Extracting all the waste and recycling bins from Open Street Map
... Every bin in the world. This blog post follows on from Tom Forth's " Six months of binnovation " Recently we've been exploring radically open ways for councils to store and publish their bin data. ...
Blog: Data Mill North 2.0
Published: Wednesday 20 May 2020, 11:36AM
We share our thoughts about what might be next for the popular data portal
... Data Mill North 2.0. The Open Data Collaboration Group came together in the early days of ODI Leeds, led by folk from the sponsor network. Initially made up of the local authority organisations, the ...
Blog: Website carbon emissions
Published: Wednesday 29 April 2020, 5:37PM
Websites and online services produce CO2 emissions that are often forgotten about. Here are some tips on working out the emissions of your website and reducing them.
... Website carbon emissions. This blog post was originally a lightning talk during #PlanetData2 We all know that the ways we travel, the food we eat, and the ways we power our lives produce different ...
Blog: Make it easy for people to get your data
Published: Thursday 16 April 2020, 3:01PM
What happens when you change something and it breaks everything else?
... Make it easy for people to get your data. Back in February, we published a blog post all about that phrase ' eating your own dog food ' - if you made dog food and had to feed it to your dogs, you'd ...
Blog: Open Data Day 2020 - Mapping challenges galore
Published: Friday 3 April 2020, 2:44PM
A small gathering but with some interesting challenges
... Open Data Day 2020 - Mapping challenges galore. Open Data Day takes place on the first Saturday of March every year and is a celebration of all things open data. Hundreds of events take place all ...
Blog: The Hex Election
Published: Wednesday 18 March 2020, 9:51AM
We worked with New Statesman to create live hex maps for results of the 2019 General Election
... The Hex Election. In November 2019 ODI Leeds was approached by New Statesman and Britain Elects to create a live visualisation of the 2019 General Election results for use before and during election ...
Blog: Cycle traffic growth
Published: Friday 28 February 2020, 4:29PM
Visualising the growth of cycle traffic in West Yorkshire using data published on Data Mill North
... Cycle traffic growth. I commute to ODI Leeds by bicycle and that means I'm a regular user of cycle lanes around Leeds. In recent years projects such as City Connect have attempted to encourage more ...
Blog: Eating your own dog food
Published: Friday 28 February 2020, 3:37PM
Using the data you publish gives you more incentive to keep the data quality high.
... Eating your own dog food. With more and more of our sponsors starting their open data journey, they've been asking us for advice on how to publish open data. This can get quite technical (data ...
Blog: No more reports
Published: Friday 28 February 2020, 3:24PM
We created a data-driven web-page instead
... No more reports. Hundreds of pages long, full of graphs and charts, and peppered with jargon. You know what we're talking about. Reports. They do serve a purpose, and there are definitely some folk ...
Blog: Visualising Future Energy Scenarios
Published: Monday 9 December 2019, 10:18AM
... Visualising Future Energy Scenarios. We've been working on a project with Northern Powergrid about Future Energy Scenarios. You can read about the inception of the project elsewhere on our blog. This...
Blog: Building electricity network geography
Published: Wednesday 27 November 2019, 12:00 noon
Create geographies for Northern Powergrid's Primary Supply Points
... Building electricity network geography. We recently started a project with Northern Powergrid - one of ODI Leeds' sponsors - to visualise and share their Future Energy Scenarios (PDF) forecasts for ...
Blog: Re-opening the bins
Published: Wednesday 4 September 2019, 10:40AM
Protecting the privacy of people as they look up their bin times
... Re-opening the bins. The Leeds Bin App was made by Tom and Dan at imactivate. It was built on top of open data about bin collections published by Leeds City Council. It is very simple: you search for...
Project: OSMEditor
Friday 30th August 2019 12:01PM
Creating use-case-specific editors to help people add data to Open Street Map
... OSM Editor. This is an experiment to make simple Javascript-based editors that are focussed on making it easy to add one specific type of object to Open Street Map at a time. The aim isn't to rival ...
Blog: Business rates
Published: Monday 5 August 2019, 10:35AM
Improving how local authorities publish business rates
... Business rates. At ODI Leeds we have an Open Data Collaboration Group which meets every 6 weeks or so. We often have representatives from Calderdale Council, Leeds Council, Bradford Council, ...
Blog: Offices of Multiple Occupation
Published: Thursday 1 August 2019, 1:24PM
Addresses with 100s of registered companies may bias regional statistics.
... Offices of Multiple Occupation. A fantastic open data set is the list of companies registered on Companies House. We've used Companies House data in things like the IoT Nation Database. Companies ...
Blog: Adding geography to your CSV files
Published: Thursday 6 June 2019, 2:59PM
Simple tools to help those who don't necessarily have access to a GIS team.
... Adding geography to your CSV files. Over the past few years at ODI Leeds I've found it is often useful to show open data from Local Authorities on a map e.g. this map of Leeds City Council recycling ...
Blog: When visualisations go viral
Published: Tuesday 2 April 2019, 1:35PM
... When visualisations go viral. On the evening of Wednesday 20th March, one petition on the Parliament Petitions website suddenly started to gain momentum. When our hexmap - which shows the geographic ...
Blog: Scores on the doors
Published: Thursday 14 March 2019, 6:52PM
A location-based project to show you the food hygiene ratings of your nearest food establishments
... Scores on the doors. When you go out to eat you want to know that the people preparing your food have a good standard of food hygiene. Across England, Northern Ireland, and Wales the Food Standards ...
Blog: Anonymisation and re-identification
Published: Friday 1 February 2019, 4:12PM
... Anonymisation and re-identification. We work to encourage local authorities and government bodies to open up data. Data exists on a spectrum and most often when we talk about open data we mean non-...
Blog: How are you using northern data?
Published: Wednesday 28 November 2018, 5:24PM
Data Mill North, Calderdale Data Works, and Northern Data Hub are asking for feedback
... How are you using northern data?. Do you use open data in West Yorkshire or the wider region? Do you use Data Mill North , Calderdale Data Works , or Northern Data Hub ? If so, please let us have ...
Blog: Open Data Camp 6
Published: Wednesday 7 November 2018, 5:09PM
Thoughts and observations from Open Data Camp 6 held in Aberdeen
... Open Data Camp 6. At the weekend I visited my first Open Data Camp in Aberdeen. Below are a few thoughts of the experience.. With Aberdeen being so far north, my journey began on the Friday afternoon...
Blog: Visit from the Secretary of State
Published: Friday 19 October 2018, 1:36PM
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care visited ODI Leeds to hear about innovation in the NHS
... Visit from the Secretary of State. This morning ODI Leeds hosted Matt Hancock MP - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care - as he visited Leeds to hear about innovative tech ideas in the NHS. ...
Blog: Crime maps
Published: Wednesday 26 September 2018, 4:44PM
We've added data.police.uk data on reported crimes in 2018 to the ODI Leeds Data Mapper
... Crime maps. Our Data Mapper continues to gain geographic datasets. At the end of last week we added several layers based on data from data.police.uk. Each layer shows crimes grouped by constituency. ...
Blog: CSV to GeoJSON
Published: Thursday 26 July 2018, 2:37PM
A tool to convert CSV files into GeoJSON format for displaying on online maps
... CSV to GeoJSON. In recent months I've been doing a lot of online mapping. From Common Ground to Data Mapper , the maps I've been making have made heavy use of the GeoJSON file format because it is ...
Blog: Data Mapper
Published: Friday 8 June 2018, 1:57PM
Building a tool to view multiple, open, geographic, data sets.
... Data Mapper. Over the past few months we've been working on the Urban Commons/Common Ground co-creation project with the University of Leeds , Leeds Love It Share It and Leeds City Lab. You can read ...
Blog: Insignificant figures
Published: Monday 4 June 2018, 3:54PM
Many open geographic datasets quote coordinates to atomic precision. Let's be more realistic with our geography.
... Insignificant figures. This is a very niche data gremlin but is something that turns up time and time again when I'm working with open datasets. It can seem unimportant but it has a surprising impact...
Blog: Leeds local elections 2018
Published: Saturday, 14 April 2018 17:45
... Leeds local elections 2018. With the 2018 Leeds local elections only a few weeks away (Thursday 3rd May) you might be wondering who your Council candidates are? Let us help you with that with an ...
Blog: Visualising petition data
Published: Wednesday, 21 March 2018 13:15
... Visualising petition data. Maps are great. They can quickly communicate a lot of information. But sometimes, depending on the dataset you are visualising, a standard geographic representation can ...
Blog: The tea totaller
Published: Wednesday, 7 March 2018 13:00
We use a LoRaWAN-connected button and sensor to record all the hot drinks made in our co-working space. Then we visualise the data.
... The tea totaller. We have many interests at ODI Leeds. One of our interests is the use of the Internet-of-things to connect sensors to the internet. We co-founded the Things Leeds & Bradford ...
Blog: Council spending data
Published: Thursday, 15 February 2018 09:30
A project to visualise public body spending data.
... Council spending data. In June 2010 the UK Government told local authorities that they should publish items of spending over £500. That came into affect in January 2011 although only 293 of the...
Blog: West Yorkshire GeoJSON
Published: Friday, 26 January 2018 16:18
... West Yorkshire GeoJSON. Since I started at ODI Leeds, I've been involved in quite a few projects that use geographic data. I'm not a geographer. My background is in astronomy so I have a little bit ...
Blog: Brownfield land registers
Published: Friday, 5 January 2018 15:30
A new year project to visualise West Yorkshire's brownfield land registers.
... Brownfield land registers. On 16th April 2017, the The Town and Country Planning (Brownfield Land Register) Regulations 2017 came into force. These stated that local planning authorities had to ...
Project: Leeds EPC: Capacity for Improvement
Friday, 15 December 2017
EPCs detail data for each property’s current and potential performance for a number of indicators; the difference between the two can therefore be seen as the potential capacity for improvement (CfI). Here we publish CfI for EPCs within Leeds.
... Leeds EPC: Capacity for Improvement. The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) publishes EPC data providing information on the energy performance of buildings to help contribute ...
Blog: Bus usage in West Yorkshire
Wednesday, 29 November 2017 13:10
Visualising WYCA's ENCTS dataset.
... Bus usage in West Yorkshire. Over the past year we've been working with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) to help them explore how open data publishing could help them improve travel ...
Blog: Data and travel
Tuesday, 13 June 2017 12:00
We bring together some travel-related data sources to set the scene for Travelhack on June 20th
... Data and travel. No matter how you travel, you're probably creating data.. If you walk, footfall sensors are counting you. Leeds releases its city centre footfall as open data.. If you hire a bicycle...
Blog: 2017 General Election hex map
Friday, 9 June 2017 13:33
A write-up of our live 2017 General Election hex map
... 2017 General Election hex map. What a night! Like many election geeks I've been up all night following the results of the UK General Election. But in this election I wasn't just watching, I was also ...
Blog: Data sudoku
Monday, 5 June 2017 16:35
Some thoughts on anonymising open data sets.
... Data sudoku. At ODI Leeds we like open data. However, that doesn't mean we think all data should be open. Data exists on a spectrum. Personal data - from banking, to medical records, to location data...
Blog: Visualising light
Wednesday, 31 May 2017 17:30
Visualising IoT light sensor data.
... Visualising light. Back in January we purchased a LoRaWAN mote from Leeds-based Farnell. The mote is a simple device that consists of a temperature sensor, light sensor, and a radio chip that can ...
Blog: Election hex mapping
Monday, 8 May 2017 19:15
The 2017 UK parliamentary constituencies as a point-topped hex map.
... Election hex mapping. At ODI Leeds we're big fans of hexagon-based maps for visualising certain types of data. I first started thinking about them a few years ago when I saw Chris McDowall's ...
Blog: Garth mapping
Wednesday, 12 April 2017 18:00
Garth comes from Middle English/Norse for a yard, garden, paddock, or an open quadrangle surrounded by a cloister. We plotted the distribution of garths on a map.
... Garth mapping. Road names in English often end with "Road", "Street", "Way", "Lane", "Drive", "Rise", "Close" etc. In Leeds we have lots of streets ending with Garth. The word originates from Middle ...
Blog: Visualising the IoTUK Nation Database
Monday, 27 March 2017 12:00
A few months ago we started a project with Bloom Agency and IoTUK/Digital Catapult to map the Internet of Things (IoT) sector across the UK. This is our write-up of the visualisations we created to go with the dataset.
... Visualising the IoTUK Nation Database. A few months ago we started a project with Bloom Agency and IoTUK/Digital Catapult to map the Internet of Things (IoT) sector across the UK.. The Internet of ...
Blog: Things coverage map
Tuesday, 28 February 15:55
Our attempts to build a map of Things Network coverage in Bradford, Leeds, and Manchester.
... Things coverage map. When we started to build our flood network in Bradford , we needed to know where to place our sensors. The sensors needed to be on points in the river where we wanted to study, ...
Blog: Bradford flood network
Friday, 17 February 16:32
Over the past couple of months we've been working with Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council and Bradford University to build a flood sensor network in Bradford.
... Bradford flood network. After the 2015 Boxing Day floods, we hosted a flood hack event to pool knowledge, share ideas, and build solutions to flooding. Out of that event came the idea of building an ...
Blog: Creating a helpful robot
Friday, 20 January 2017 16:00
We made a robot to autmotate parts of the website, then we gave it a name.
... Odi-1 - creating a helpful robot. Robots. The very essence of sci-fi and the centre of much debate as certain jobs become more automated. Whatever your stance on robots, they can be really helpful ...
Blog: Fun with open data
Wednesday, 4 January 2017 11:25
In late November, with Christmas decorations going up, we had the idea for a data Advent calendar showcasing open data.
... Fun with open data. In late November, with Christmas decorations going up, we had the idea for a data Advent calendar showcasing open data. We would do 24 different visualisations of data for ...
Blog: HighwaysHack - Data sets
Friday, 7 October 2016 17:00
HighwaysHack is nearly here. We've compiled a list of data sets that will be available.
... #HighwaysHack - Data sets. #HighwaysHack © Amy Evans We are only two weeks away from #HighwaysHack. We've already described the three challenges in a previous blog post so now is a good time to ...
Blog: Open allotments
Thursday, 11 August 2016 13:30
Here at ODI Leeds we're working on an Urban Commons project along with Leeds City Lab and others. As part of that we've been looking into open data sets about land use. As it is National Allotment Week, and to get the ball rolling, I started by looking at two small data sets on Data Mill North: Leeds City Council managed allotments and association managed allotments in Leeds.
... Open allotments. Here at ODI Leeds we're working on an Urban Commons project along with Leeds City Lab and others. As part of that we've been looking into open data sets about land use.. As it is ...