Re: audience for the BP doc

Annette,

>>but none of our current BPs is written as a BP on which consumers (other
than those who are re-publishing, and are therefore publishers) can take
action.

I agree.

>>They do not address consumers as an audience.

I think this is because the emphasis has been primarily on publication and
this needs to be included.

Eric S.

On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 11:43 AM, Annette Greiner <amgreiner@lbl.gov> wrote:
>
> I think the introduction is not suitable because it says that we are
> writing BPs for use by consumers of data, but none of our current BPs is
> written as a BP on which consumers (other than those who are re-publishing,
> and are therefore publishers) can take action. They do not address
> consumers as an audience.
> -Annette
> --
> Annette Greiner
> NERSC Data and Analytics Services
> Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
> 510-495-2935
>
> On Dec 16, 2014, at 11:34 AM, Bernadette Farias Lóscio <bfl@cin.ufpe.br>
> wrote:
>
> Hi Annette,
>
> Thank you for answer! My comments are inline.
>
> I think we need to have non-normative material that matches our normative
>> material. This discussion started up because we have a disconnect there.
>>
>
> The first four sections of the document are non-normative and the idea is
> to use them to explain our context and to give definitions that are
> relevant for readers to understand the document. Maybe, instead of having a
> separate document we should try to improve these sections.
>
>
>> If we want to keep the introduction as is, we would need to change the
>> best practices we are developing, broadening the scope considerably. I
>> think it’s much less work to make the introduction work for the content
>> it’s meant to introduce.
>>
>
> Could you please explain why the introduction is not suitable for the BP
> that will be developed? I'm sorry, but this is not clear for me.
>
> It is important to note that BP will be developed according to the
> challenges/requirements identified in the Use Cases Document [1].
>
>
>> I’d be happy to take a stab at rewriting if you like. My feeling is that
>> it doesn’t really need to change all that much, because we do want to still
>> mention the importance of considering usage when you publish. (BTW, I think
>> we should be trying to get publishers to think of putting data on the web
>> as more than merely hosting files and administering the data. In fact, we
>> have a list of things they should be thinking about: the best practices
>> document.)
>>
>
> I agree with you! Data publishers have a really hard work to make data
> available on the Web and that's why the BP document is being proposed.
>
> kind regards,
> Bernadette
>
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/dwbp-ucr/
>
> -Annette
>>
>> --
>> Annette Greiner
>> NERSC Data and Analytics Services
>> Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
>> 510-495-2935
>>
>> On Dec 16, 2014, at 10:26 AM, Bernadette Farias Lóscio <bfl@cin.ufpe.br>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Thanks for your comments!
>>
>> I agree with Makx that it could be a good idea to concentrate on the
>> audience of data providers (data publishers). However, if we do this then
>> the whole discourse that was built until now has to be changed because we
>> are always talking about data publication and data usage. For example, the
>> first sentence of the abstract says: "This document provides best practices
>> related to the publication and usage of data on the Web designed to help
>> support a self-sustaining ecosystem".
>>
>> Moreover, the document is about "Data on the Web Best Practices" and not
>> only about "Publishing Data on the Web Best Practices".
>>
>> As proposed in the charter, the mission of our group includes: "to
>> develop the open data ecosystem, facilitating better communication between
>> developers and publishers;". In this sense, I think that it is also
>> important to tell developers (or data consumers in general) how they can
>> interact with data publishers, i.e., how they can provide feedback to data
>> publishers and also how they can provide information that helps to find out
>> how data has been used.
>>
>> However, before we decide if we're gonna abandon the BP for data
>> consumers, I think it is really important to have an agreement about the
>> role of data publishers and data consumers.
>>
>> In my point of view, data consumer concerns the one who wants to use data
>> available on the Web to produce "something" instead of just reading the
>> data. For example, when a developer uses raw data available on the Web to
>> develop an application, then the developer plays the role of a data
>> consumer and not the role of a data publisher.
>>
>> Concerning data publishers, I agree with Eric that "Publishers just
>> focus on hosting and administering their data on the web in an orderly way".
>>
>> kind regards,
>> Bernadette
>>
>>
>> 2014-12-16 8:36 GMT-03:00 Makx Dekkers <mail@makxdekkers.com>:
>>>
>>> Eric, Annette, all,
>>>
>>> To me, it would make sense if we concentrated on the audience of data
>>> providers, at least for now. I think this is already a big order.
>>>
>>> If we also want to cover best practices for the re-users of data
>>> (developers, aggregators, mix-and-matchers, brokers, whatever you want to
>>> call them), we’ll be spreading a scarce resource (ourselves) even thinner,
>>> and run the risk of producing two sets of insufficient quality.
>>>
>>> Let’s focus on the data providers first and then, when we have a good
>>> set of best practices and still have time left, turn our attention to the
>>> consumer side of the picture.
>>>
>>> Makx.
>>>
>>>
>>> 2014-12-16 6:29 GMT+01:00 Eric Stephan <ericphb@gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>> Thanks Annette for sharing your thoughts on this topic in the meeting
>>>> last week and in this email.  In your text the term consumers really jumped
>>>> out at me.  If consumers only has a read-only connotation then I'd rather
>>>> avoid this term altogether.  Actually consumers was never actually never
>>>> mentioned originally as part of the working group mission, instead the term
>>>> "developer" was used.
>>>>
>>>> Developers to me, are technologists building applications and devices
>>>> that reuse published data, including creating new data that can be
>>>> published, processing and modifying published data, or strictly reading
>>>> data in the life span of a running application. Users rely on the tools
>>>> created by publishers and developers to edit published data and provide
>>>> feedback.  Publishers to me just focus on hosting and administering their
>>>> data on the web in an orderly way.  Since the original intent of BP was to
>>>> "facilitate better communication between developers and publishers.'  Maybe
>>>> there should be best practices that target publishers and developers
>>>> divided into two documents.
>>>>
>>>> The closest analogy is that off the shelf data storage systems two
>>>> types of documentation are written:
>>>> 1) Data administrators who manage the data system
>>>> 2) End users (developers) who write applications that interact with the
>>>> data system
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Eric S
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Annette Greiner <amgreiner@lbl.gov>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi folks,
>>>>> To pick up the discussion about our audience, I want to set down what
>>>>> I see as our audience for the current BP document. By audience I mean the
>>>>> people we expect to actually sit down and read it, not the people whose
>>>>> interests we need to consider in creating it (those are what I call
>>>>> stakeholders). It’s possible that we all agree but are just thinking of the
>>>>> terms differently.
>>>>>
>>>>> To my mind, our audience includes anyone involved in making data
>>>>> available to consumers on the web. That is publishing data. It includes
>>>>> anyone who collects or collates the data, organizes the data, creates web
>>>>> pages or apps to share the data, re-publishes it in such a way that others
>>>>> can re-use it, or makes decisions relevant to how people do those tasks.
>>>>> They could be developers, lawyers, CIOs, researchers, archivists,
>>>>> designers, almost any job title. What matters, though, is not their job
>>>>> title but what actions they take with respect to the data. The action of
>>>>> consuming it is not what we have been discussing, it isn’t represented in
>>>>> any of the current best practices or in our scoping criteria, and it isn’t
>>>>> called for in the charter’s requirement to create a BP document. Thus far,
>>>>> we are not targeting our BPs to people who are *only* consuming the data
>>>>> and not republishing it.
>>>>>
>>>>> I’ve already talked about the charter and the existing BPs in a
>>>>> previous email, so I’ll just address the scoping criteria here. The first
>>>>> one, being unique to publishing on the web, is obviously about publishing
>>>>> rather than consuming. The second one, encouraging reuse, is also about
>>>>> publishing, just in such a way that someone else can make use of the data.
>>>>> The charter mentions re-use in its mission in list item 2, which calls on
>>>>> us to "provide _guidance_to_publishers_ that will improve consistency in
>>>>> the way data is managed, thus promoting the re-use of data". If a consumer
>>>>> wants to publish something that makes the data truly re-usable, they must
>>>>> include the data itself, which means that they are publishing the data. The
>>>>> third criterion, testability, simply deals with the mechanics of making
>>>>> sure that one is successful in achieving the best practices.
>>>>>
>>>>> It might help to consider an example: your organization publishes data
>>>>> about traffic in Rio. It's made available through an API. A data scientist
>>>>> in Lisbon is interested in the data and makes a visualization based on it
>>>>> that she posts on her blog. The data scientist does not make the data
>>>>> available in any form other than the visualization itself. She has not
>>>>> really enriched your data, because the original data still has no
>>>>> connection to the visualization. She cannot take action on any of the best
>>>>> practices we have identified thus far unless she re-publishes it herself,
>>>>> as data.
>>>>>
>>>>> Your organization could link to the visualization, thereby enriching
>>>>> the data, but the data scientist in Lisbon cannot force it to do that. Our
>>>>> best practice around data enrichment calls on publishers to consider making
>>>>> that link or creating the visualization themselves. If we were writing that
>>>>> same best practice for a consumer audience, it would have to say something
>>>>> like "you should enrich other people's data". So, we would end up telling
>>>>> data enrichers that they should enrich data, which strikes me as
>>>>> tautological. One could go into detail about how to make good
>>>>> visualizations (use good labels, don’t rely on color alone, provide a zero
>>>>> point in your scales, etc.), but that seems to me out of scope. (I teach an
>>>>> entire semester course on visualization, so I could come up with lots of
>>>>> best practices about it, but I don't think we want to go there in the BP
>>>>> document we’ve been working on.)
>>>>>
>>>>> Now suppose the consumer in Lisbon would like to provide feedback. If
>>>>> we, as the publisher, have not provided a mechanism for them to do so, they
>>>>> cannot provide it. Our best practice is about making it possible to provide
>>>>> feedback and then acting on the feedback to improve the published data. A
>>>>> consumer has a role here, but again, there is little point to telling a
>>>>> consumer who wants to give feedback that they should give feedback. I
>>>>> certainly wouldn’t expect a data consumer to wade through a long list of
>>>>> publisher-oriented best practices to be told that they should give feedback
>>>>> whenever they are so inclined.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would support the idea of putting together a separate list of best
>>>>> practices for data consumers if we can think of a way to scope it that
>>>>> works.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Annette
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Annette Greiner
>>>>> NERSC Data and Analytics Services
>>>>> Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
>>>>> 510-495-2935
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Makx Dekkers
>>> mail@makxdekkers.com
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Bernadette Farias Lóscio
>> Centro de Informática
>> Universidade Federal de Pernambuco - UFPE, Brazil
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Bernadette Farias Lóscio
> Centro de Informática
> Universidade Federal de Pernambuco - UFPE, Brazil
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>