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Fundamentals of NYC Open Data

Overview

We believe that government information should be accessible and easily understandable. Since the passage of NYC’s open data law, we have worked with a number of partners to make tutorials, tools, and classes. In partnership with Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer, the author of NYC’s open data law, our Civic Innovation Lab and Fellows Program has developed a number of interlocking workshops and tools to demystify data and turn it into action.

THIS IS OUR DATA. THIS IS HOW YOU USE IT.

Below, you will find links to our teaching materials, presentation slides, speaker notes, and tools.

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Supporters

Many thanks to the generous support of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer, Queens Public Library, NYC 311, Microsoft, Socrata, and Carto in helping create these classes.

Copyright

All content is copyright BetaNYC, a project partner of the Fund for the City of New York, and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).

New Commissions or Partnerships

If you are interested in partnering with us to develop new curriculum, contact us at oda@beta.nyc for more information.

Classes

101 – Introduction to NYC’s open data

102 – Unlocking Open Data with BoardStat and Data Journeys (in person or virtual)

103 – Diving into NYC’s open data portal, spreadsheets, and the Pivot Table

104 – Mapping & analyzing NYC’s census and open data

201 – Data Counts — an NYC Open Data Ambassadors train-the-trainer open data curriculum

Class 101: Introduction to NYC’s open data

Class time: 90 mins
NO COMPUTER NEEDED!

Note – this class requires a card deck we have printed out and we’re in process of reworking this deck. In the meantime, you might want to move on to 102.

Our introduction to open data workshop will introduce you to the fundamental terms and processes needed to understand NYC’s open data. Then, we will move to an interactive game that helps orient you to NYC’s 311 data and how to ask questions from NYC’s open data portal. This workshop will focus on the NYC 311 dataset and a few key municipal tools.

Link to teaching materials:

Class 102: Unlocking Open Data with BoardStat and Data Journeys

Class time: 90 mins
Equipment: a laptop and power adapter

This class was developed in conjunction with the Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and NYC Civic Innovation Fellows.

BetaNYC has designed tools and customized trainings specifically intended to help Community Boards and civic organizations access, analyze, map and use data to inform decision-making.  This workshop will introduce you to BoardStat < https://beta.nyc/beta/boardstat >, an easy-to-use tool to query 311-requests and explore trends in health, safety and quality of life concerns. Additional municipal tools will be introduced. Come ready to learn and get right into datasets and graphs.

In-person teaching materials:

Virtual teaching materials:

Class 103: Diving into NYC’s open data portal, spreadsheets, and the Pivot Table

Class time: 90 mins
Equipment: a laptop and power adapter

STATUS: beta! 

This workshop will teach you how to navigate the NYC open data portal to find your desired datasets, and implement fundamental data analytics in Socrata and spreadsheets. Believe it or not, you will leave this workshop completely confident in your ability to create useful data summaries using the Roll-up in Socrata and Pivot table in Google Sheets.  Be prepared to work on and off the computer, as mid-way through we join together for a tactile, hands-on data exercise.

Class 104: Mapping & analyzing NYC’s census and open data

Class time: 90 -120 mins
Equipment: a laptop and power adapter

STATUS: beta! 

This workshop will extend your understanding of data into the spatial dimension, teaching you to make maps using Carto, a web-based mapping platform. Specifically you will learn how to map NYC open data, import a boundary shape-file into a map, and join a boundary file with Census information in order to map socio-demographics of NYC communities. Come ready to take your understanding of data into the spatial realm!

Class 201: Data Counts — an NYC Open Data Ambassadors train-the-trainer open data curriculum

Class time: 90 -120 mins
Equipment: a laptop and power adapter, projector, and printer to print handouts

STATUS: Active!!!

This course teaches you the core elements on how to teach NYC’s open data history and tools. This course is a overview of our existing 10X material and introduces new tools and tactics to pass along insights.

  • Intro to NYC government and open data
  • Human Pivot Table Activity
  • Tools: BoardStat, NYC Open Data Platform (a.k.a. Socrata), Google Sheets, Department of City Planning’s Census FactFinder
  • Data Journeys
  • Teaching materials 

This course was commissioned by NYC Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics and Queens Public Library and copyright is shared across The City of New York, Queens Public Library, and BetaNYC, a project partner of the Fund for the City of New York, Original content within this course is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).