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YDS-645886 Public 0449F01_Dissemination Report v2.0
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H2020-INSO-2014
INSO-1-2014 ICT-Enabled open government YDS [645886] “Your Data Stories”
Project Reference No 645886 — YDS — H2020-INSO-2014-2015/H2020-INSO-2014
Deliverable D7.5 Dissemination Report v2.0
Workpackage WP7: Dissemination and Exploitation
Nature Report
Dissemination Level Public
Date 22/02/2018
Status Final v1.0
Editor(s) Tilman Wagner (DW), Eva Lopez (DW), Kay Macquarrie (DW)
Contributor(s) All Partners
Reviewer(s) Garifalia Sebou, Anna Triantafillou (ATC)
Document description This deliverable is the final dissemination report, summarizing the dissemination throughout the 3rd year, and giving an overview of the success of all activities throughout the project.
D7.5 Dissemination Report v2.0
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Document Revision History
Version Date Modifications Introduced
Modification Reason Modified by
V0.1 06/11/2017 Table of Content DW
V0.2 04/12/2017 Input from Partners All/DW
V0.3 22/12/2017 First Draft DW
V0.4 21/01/2018 Finalising deliverable for Review DW
V0.5 28/01/2018 Review/Including Comments ATC/DW
V0.6 31/01/2018 Second Review All
V1.0 20/02/2018 Final Version DW
V1.0 22/02/2018 Final version for submission to EC ATC
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Executive Summary This deliverable contains an overview of the dissemination activities and a review of the achievements of Year 3 of the YourDataStories Project. The first part of the deliverable focuses mainly on the efforts undertaken in the final year and takes a closer look at what was reached on a dissemination level. The second part puts the achievements into perspective across the whole project, reflecting on the KPIs and achievements throughout the whole three years of YourDataStories. The document is based on the deliverables ‘D7.1 Communication Plan’ and ‘D7.3 Communication Plan Update’, as well as on ‘D7.4 Dissemination Report v1.0’. The project has managed to build a network of followers and readers, interested in the YDS work. Especially the stories produced with the platform showcase the power of the results. This is particularly true for the story written and published for DANAS, a Serbian newspaper of record, as a result of the dissemination efforts of the YDS team.
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Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................ 7
1.1 PURPOSE AND SCOPE ........................................................................................................................................................ 7 1.2 METHODOLOGY AND STRUCTURE OF THE DELIVERABLE ............................................................................................................ 7
2 DISSEMINATION AND COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES IN YEAR 3 ............................................................................... 8
2.1 PROJECT WEBSITE ............................................................................................................................................................ 8 2.1.1 Review of Published Content .............................................................................................................................. 9 2.1.2 Numbers and KPIs ............................................................................................................................................ 11
2.2 SOCIAL NETWORKS ......................................................................................................................................................... 13 2.2.1 Twitter .............................................................................................................................................................. 13 2.2.2 LinkedIn ............................................................................................................................................................ 15 2.2.3 GitHub .............................................................................................................................................................. 17 2.2.4 YouTube ........................................................................................................................................................... 18
2.3 PUBLICATIONS ............................................................................................................................................................... 20 2.3.1 Deliverables ...................................................................................................................................................... 20 2.3.2 Papers .............................................................................................................................................................. 22 2.3.3 Workshops, Conference Participations, Presentations .................................................................................... 23 2.3.4 Newsletter, Press Releases, Media Presence ................................................................................................... 27
2.4 NETWORKING ACTIVITIES ................................................................................................................................................. 38 2.4.1 Collaboration Events ........................................................................................................................................ 38 2.4.2 Hackathons ...................................................................................................................................................... 40
3 REVIEW AND SUCCESS OF ACTIVITIES ..................................................................................................................... 43
3.1 COMPARISON OF KPIS AND ACTUAL NUMBERS ..................................................................................................................... 43 3.2 AUDIENCES REACHED ...................................................................................................................................................... 46
4 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................................... 50
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List of Figures Figure 1: The YDS Website header section with the video promotion in the banner .............................. 8
Figure 2: An excerpt of articles posted on the website in Year 3 ............................................................. 9
Figure 3: Visits (red; unique visits blue) on the website for the third year ............................................ 11
Figure 4: Excerpt of list of most visited pages (by pageviews) in Year 3 alone ...................................... 12
Figure 5: The YDS_EU Twitter Profile page ............................................................................................. 13
Figure 6: Examples of most successful tweets in terms of “Impression” sent in Year 3 ........................ 14
Figure 7: Exemplary list of new followers on Twitter ............................................................................. 15
Figure 8: LinkedIn-Profile overview ........................................................................................................ 16
Figure 9: Analytics view on a cross-posted article on LinkedIn .............................................................. 17
Figure 10: Screenshot of the first YDS explainer video ........................................................................... 19
Figure 11: Screenshot of the second YDS explainer video ..................................................................... 20
Figure 12: “Best Paper Awards” announcement for YDS on the dg.o website ...................................... 23
Figure 13: G.Petasis, NCSR Demokritos presents YDS during the AI conference in Athens, Greece ..... 24
Figure 14: Promotional Header of the YDS sponsored Data Economy Workshop ................................. 26
Figure 15: Presentations at the Data Economy workshop, speakers M.Vafopoulos, G.Petasis and D.Rizzi ......................................................................................................................................................... 27
Figure 16: Screenshots of the Year 2 Newsletter ................................................................................... 28
Figure 17: Screenshot of Europe in my region YDS Blog-Contest entry ................................................. 30
Figure 18: Screenshot of the article about YDS on the datadrivenjournalism.net blog ......................... 31
Figure 19: Screenshot of the YDS listing in the GJIN’s weekly DDJ top ten ............................................ 32
Figure 20: Screenshot of the YDS Case Study for the Magna Carta for Data ......................................... 33
Figure 21: Screenshot of report on the Digital Transformation of Public Administrations Event ......... 34
Figure 22: Greek magazine “Prisma” did a full page article on YDS ....................................................... 35
Figure 23: Screenshot of the joint article on all three project blogs ...................................................... 35
Figure 24: Screenshot of the posting on the European Data Portal website ......................................... 36
Figure 25: Paper versions of the DANAS news articles (1st left, 2nd right), based on YDS Data ........... 37
Figure 26: Screenshot of the excerpt of the article on YDS in the Connacht Tribune ............................ 37
Figure 27: Representatives from the DigiWhist and OpenBudgets Projects participating in YDS event 38
Figure 28: Collaboration between the YDS, DigiWhist and OpenBudgets Projects ............................... 38
Figure 29: A screenshot of the dashboard created for the Dianeosis use case ..................................... 39
Figure 30: Joint Hackathon by DigiWhist and YDS in Athens .................................................................. 40
Figure 31: Impressions from the NUIG Storython in Galway.................................................................. 41
Figure 32: Participants at the second DW Storyhack in Berlin ............................................................... 42
Figure 33: Visits to the website from April 29th, 2015 - January 31st, 2018 ......................................... 43
Figure 34: Twitter impressions over all three years ............................................................................... 44
Figure 35: Twitter Retweets and Likes over all three years .................................................................... 44
Figure 36: Matching Target Groups and Communication/Dissemination Channels (from D7.1) .......... 46
Figure 37: Selection of Journalists, Scientists and general Audience members following YDS.............. 47
Figure 38: Selection of Companies and public institutions following YDS ............................................. 47
Figure 39: Visitor concentration worldwide and throughout Europe .................................................... 48
Figure 40: Examples of articles published through and with the help of the YDS platform .................. 49
Figure 41: Key claim of YDS from the D7.1 Communication Plan........................................................... 49
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List of Tables Table 1: Overview of articles published on the YDS blog in Year 3 ........................................................ 11
Table 2: Comparing KPIs and numbers from Year 3 for the YDS website .............................................. 12
Table 3: Overview of Twitter KPIs ........................................................................................................... 15
Table 4: Overview of GitHub repositories............................................................................................... 18
Table 5: Overview of public deliverables published in the website in Year 3 ........................................ 21
Table 6: Scientific papers published by YDS or with YDS mention in Year 3 .......................................... 23
Table 7: Workshops, Conferences and presentations attended/organised by YDS ............................... 26
Table 8: Overview of Press Releases and Postings on partners' blogs ................................................... 29
Table 9: Overview of planned KPIs and reached numbers for Year 3, and in total ................................ 45
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1 Introduction
1.1 Purpose and Scope This deliverable has the purpose to review the dissemination activities performed during the third year of the YourDataStories project and reflects on the overall success of the dissemination strategy throughout the whole project lifespan. It focuses on the activities in the different online channels the project has been using, as well as the presentations were given and collaborations undertaken with other projects. It also takes a closer look at the KPIs set for the dissemination, matching them with actual figures from the actions for both the third year and overall.
1.2 Methodology and Structure of the Deliverable The deliverable is structured as follows: Chapter 1 gives a general introduction to purpose, scope, and methodology of the deliverable. Chapter 2 then focuses on the different actions and channels used for the dissemination and communication in Year 3. It takes a detailed look at what was done by all partners and lists both numbers of publications, events visited and presentations given. Included in this review is also a comparison of KPIs and actual numbers reached. Chapter 3 takes a step back and reviews the overall efforts of the consortium in disseminating its results and communicating about its work throughout the whole lifetime of YourDataStories. This includes looking at the audiences reached and identifies possible leads for further use of the developed technologies. The deliverable closes with chapter 4 concluding the results from the previous chapters and gives a wrap up of the dissemination and communication efforts in YourDataStories.
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2 Dissemination and Communication Activities in Year 3
The YDS Consortium has disseminated its progress and results through different channels and reached out to its target audiences by both showcasing its expertise in the area of Linked Open Data and financial transparency. The main channels are split into online and offline efforts. Online the project website, the YDS Twitter channel and the LinkedIn profile were the main means to reach out to a large number of people. Offline the project reached out to journalists, researchers and a more general audience via different real-life events such as workshops, presentations, and hackathons. The following subchapters will give a more detailed view of both online and offline activities.
2.1 Project Website The project website (https://yourdatastories.eu/) was regarded as the main focus point for dissemination. The focus of the published content changed in the third year from building and growing an audience to highlighting the projects advances and outreach efforts and getting people to interact more with YourDataStories. In order to better serve audiences coming to the website, some of the articles and short links were moved to the banner at the top of the page (in addition to their regular placement on the page). Some of the additions were a direct link to the prototype of the project and the first explainer video of the YDS project. Both links lead to the postings on the blog, giving users more information on the platform and video, before letting them go further to test the system or watch the video.
Figure 1: The YDS Website header section with the video promotion in the banner
In order to better promote the hackathons the project organised, a subset of pages was set up with details on the respective event. Every hackathon event was given its own subsection in the menu, with the events name and location, so as to be clearly recognisable and accessible by visitors. This also made it easier to promote the events separately through their respective links, as they were organised for different audiences. More on the hackathon events themselves can be found in section 2.4.2.
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2.1.1 Review of Published Content Regarding the content on the page, the articles and reports that were published, there was a shift in focus in comparison to prior years. The final year was used to highlight work-related content to better promote the outcome of the project as described in the ‘D7.1 Communication Plan’. In short, the categories of the published content consisted of:
Posts about project related development, like an interview about the YDS mobile app Posts about attended and sponsored events, as well as successfully submitted papers Status updates about plenary meetings Announcements and coverage of the project’s hackathons A collaborative post with Horizon 2020 funded projects Digiwhist and OpenBudgets Stories about Open Data and Data-Driven Journalism (DDJ) Articles are written with the YDS platform
Figure 2: An excerpt of articles posted on the website in Year 3
While most of these were done by the project consortium members, some articles were written by guest authors or participants of the expert and focus groups as well as the YDS hackathons. The articles written on the YDS platform were first published on the corresponding website platform.yourdatastories.eu (http://platform.yourdatastories.eu/) as part of the internal publication system. But in order to demonstrate the possibilities of the platform and to reach a wider audience, they were also put on the main YDS website as stand-alone articles. Among others, the stories cover topics such as the impact of roundabouts on traffic in Ireland and development aid in Zimbabwe, both based upon the use cases and the data within YDS. Table 1 below shows an overview of a selection of articles published on the website and the corresponding views they received based on WordPress analytics.
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Date Article Category Views Target Audience 09.02.2017 Open data Policy in Greece: An
on-going reform general 714 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/
Private companies; General Public
15.03.2017 Publication – Linked Open Economic Data as a catalyst for the Digital Single Market
project news 324 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Scientific community
26.03.2017 Event: YDS @ 1st Artificial Intelligence Conference
events 331 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; Scientific community
03.04.2017 YDS – 6th Plenary Meeting events 619 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; Scientific community; General Public
18.04.2017 Publication – Extending Open Data Platforms with Storytelling Features
general 380 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; Scientific community; General Public
09.06.2017 Introduced: Galway City Council project news 320 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; General Public
03.07.2017 Data stories of the week #16 series 505 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; General Public
20.07.2017 DGO Recap events N/A Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Scientific community; General Public
21.08.2017 Event: How does online data change economy and business?
general 350 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies;
22.08.2017 Explained: The YourDataStories Platform
general 346 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; Scientific community; General Public
28.08.2017 Europe in my Region – Blog Contest: YDS Article
project news 388 Views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; General Public
25.09.2017 YDS – 7th Plenary Meeting events 190 Views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Scientific community; General Public
11.10.2017 Data Stories Of The Week #17 series 484 Views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; General Public
30.10.2017 YDS wins “Best Pitching Award” project news 142 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; General Public
24.11.2017 Enlarging the H2020 project toolbox
project news 635 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; Scientific community;
21.12.2017 YDS – 8th Plenary Meeting events 79 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; Scientific community; General Public
22.12.2017 Introduction: the YourDataStories mobile App!
project news 254 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; Scientific community; General Public
03.01.2018 Putting the YDS Platform to a practical test in Galway
project news 53 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Scientific community; General Public
16.01.2018 Galway Storython – Use of data for better infrastructure projects
project news 75 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; General Public
22.01.2018 Data Stories: Where the Netherlands spends its aid money - and which former colonies it focuses on
series N/A Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; Scientific community; General Public
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Date Article Category Views Target Audience 26.01.2018 A new approach to open up
data for Storytelling general 56 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts;
Public/ Private companies; Scientific community; General Public
30.01.2018 Storyhack – Data-Driven stories on global trade and development aid
project news 35 views Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; General Public
21.02.2018 Using YDS for Serbian Data-Stories: An interview with the author
project news N/A Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; General Public
22.02.2018 Recap Hackathon Athens project news N/A Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; General Public
23.02.2018 How different organizations harness data to strengthen the civil society
general N/A Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; Scientific community; General Public
24.02.2018 Data Stories: 1 billion € public EU money awarded to Chinese companies
series N/A Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; Public/ Private companies; General Public
27.02.2018 Evaluation Session at DW project news N/A Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; General Public
28.02.2018 Final Showcase Video project news N/A Journalists/ Media/ Data Experts; General Public
Table 1: Overview of articles published on the YDS blog in Year 3
Some stories were only uploaded towards the very end of the project (e.g. articles from the hackathons or the last YDS platform expert evaluation) and haven’t received many views yet.
2.1.2 Numbers and KPIs On the website an overall number of 28 publications were made in the final year. Due to an uneven distribution of the publications this did however mean less traffic to the website, which can clearly be seen in the overall numbers, and especially in the lower reading rates in the first half of the third year. Still in total, the website reached almost 5000 visits (status: Feb 12 - 4955) and got over 10.000 pageviews (8488 unique views) - according to PIWIK, the analytics tool used to track visitors.
Figure 3: Visits (red; unique visits blue) on the website for the third year
As is reflected in Figure 3 the 2nd half of Year 3 was more successful. The flatline is both due to a technical error and a low rate of postings on the website during these months. While the majority of visitors was coming to learn more about the project - the about-page is (again) at the top of the list - it was mainly the articles on Data-Driven Journalism-tools or insights that drove the traffic (see Figure 4).
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Figure 4: Excerpt of list of most visited pages (by pageviews) in Year 3 alone
On the other hand, one can also see that the bounce rate of visitors is higher on those general articles, demonstrating that people who did come to the page for more information on YDS really wanted to learn more about the project and did not just come for one article. Taking a look at the envisioned KPIs for Year 3 (see Table 2) shows that not all targets could be met as planned. While the consortium had envisioned an increase of visitors, assuming that people would be more interested in actual results of the project, the number of visits actually went down in comparison to the previous year, ranging a short bit below the 5321 visits from Year 2 (but still above the 1185 from Year 1). Of course, the numbers are still going to increase a little, especially with the latest articles showing and explaining more details of the results.
Website Project Year 3 KPI (for Y3) Succeeded
Visits 5000 7500 no
No. of publications 30 30 yes
Table 2: Comparing KPIs and numbers from Year 3 for the YDS website
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Looking at more insights from the analytics tool shows that the number of pageviews is above the 9100. This demonstrates that the people who did come to the site, were still quite interested in the project.
2.2 Social Networks The project used a combination of Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and GitHub to distribute news about its progress and results from the development.
2.2.1 Twitter As laid out in the ‘D7.1 Communication Plan’ and described in the ‘D7.4 Dissemination Report v1.0’, Twitter was used as the main digital distribution channel besides the project’s website. With its open structure and the cross-linking feature via hashtags, the network offers a very efficient way to reach out to different audiences and connect to people directly. During the final year, the project continued to use its Twitter channel both to promote articles and other content published on the website, to report live from events like conferences, workshops or the project’s hackathons as well as to share interesting articles and links around the main topics of YourDataStories.
Figure 5: The YDS_EU Twitter Profile page
Partners used their respective Twitter channels to directly promote events and news concerning YDS. The YDS-Channel then functioned as a central hub, retweeting mentions from partners, and ensured a centralised distribution of all news relating to the project.
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Partners most active in this area where ATC through its two accounts @iLabATC and @atc_gr, the Insight Center at the University of Galway mainly via their consortium members accounts (@NiallOB & @porwolluke) as well as NCSR Democritos (@iit_demokritos), TenForce (@TenForce) and Deutsche Welle Innovation (@DW_Innovation) through their respective official channels. Over 377 Tweets (status: Jan 31st, 2018) were sent in Year 3. The official numbers state a total 120.600 impressions throughout the year. This means that each tweet reached about 320 people on Twitter. Regarding the interaction, YDS-Tweets were retweeted 352 times (altogether) and liked 481 times. These numbers show, that Twitter was used as a very successful dissemination channel. Among the most successful tweets (in terms of impressions and interactions) were both articles on Data-Driven Journalism in general, written and published by news-outlets or well-known data-journalists, but also articles from the YDS website and announcements by the project, such as for the Hackathon in Athens or the Storyhack in Berlin.
Figure 6: Examples of most successful tweets in terms of “Impression” sent in Year 3
The YDS Twitter account was able to significantly increase its followership by another 169 people to 511 in Year 3 (status: February 9th, 2018). The new number of followers again included Data-Experts, Journalists, SMEs (like @Highcharts), Researchers as well as EU-accounts working in the field of open data and financial transparency, (like the @EUTenders).
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Figure 7: Exemplary list of new followers on Twitter
Both numbers show that there is a clear interest in the work of YourDataStories among the data-community members. Taking into account that some of the members of the hackathons came to participate through the invitations sent via Twitter, it also shows how the online-connections turn into real-life action. And with the exception of the listings, the project managed to successfully reach its selfset KPIs.
Twitter Project Year 3 KPI Succeeded
Followers 508 428 yes
Interactions 352 Retweets 481 Likes
134 Mentions
329 Retweets 413 Likes
132 Mentions
yes
Table 3: Overview of Twitter KPIs
2.2.2 LinkedIn In accordance with the dissemination strategy, YourDataStories’ LinkedIn profile was used as an online business card and was used to keep connected with people met at conferences and workshops. Hence, the LinkedIn profile was promoted on the flyers and presentations used by the consortium. The profile was also closely connected to the website by automatic redistribution of postings to also share some of the insights with the professional network there.
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Figure 8: LinkedIn-Profile overview
The profile was regularly checked for updates and new connections, mainly as a follow up to conferences and other events. This way the project was able to build a small group of loyal connections to the YDS project of 74 members (two-way connections) and a followership of 77 (one way connections; overlap is possible). Both connections and followers are see the updates posted to LinkedIn in their feeds. This resulted in people staying informed about the activities of the project and some referral traffic from LinkedIn to the project blog. While cross posting did not lead to a lot of engagement or interaction with the account, it still helped keeping another group of people up-to-date about the project’s work. Since LinkedIn is a more professional network, it was helping YDS to reach out to a more research-focused target group. Taking a closer look at the postings’ analytics also showed that YDS was able to reach beyond the own network through the posts as can be seen in Figure 9.
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Figure 9: Analytics view on a cross-posted article on LinkedIn
Comparing the numbers with the KPIs set in Year 2, the LinkedIn account has almost fulfilled the goal of 77 connections. More importantly however is that the cross-posting has led to awareness of the project and redirections to the website.
2.2.3 GitHub Introduced in Year 2 as the central hub for (open) code elements developed in YourDataStories, GitHub was also maintained throughout Year 3. The code in all repositories was updated and fully reflects the changes that took place in the final year of the project. The Components-Visualisation repository had the biggest number of updates since it covers all the necessary changes to the interface components that support the changes coming from the ontology and harvesters. Furthermore, two new repositories were added, the first being the code of the developed Android native application and the second the Linked Data Fragments Server implementation for the needs of the project. The following table gives an overview of all components and shows the level of interactions regarding each one of them.
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Repository Description Commits Stars Forks
Components- Visualisation
A collection of visualisation components based on AngularJS and other third-party JS libraries, such as chart types or maps
1719 4 0
YDS-mobile- application
The android application for exploring public construction projects in Greece
23 1 0
Ontology The Linked Open Economy (LOE) ontology that is used to describe YourDataStories datasets.
269 1 6
SPARQL cache A cache for SPARQL endpoints (Forked from https://github.com/bertvannuffelen/SimpleSparqlCache)
5 0 2
Linked Data Fragments Server
A server offering Triple Pattern Fragments which is a way to serve Linked Data Fragments (different ways of publishing Linked Data)
494 0 36
Harvesters The harvesters required to acquire data from open data sources and the social Web.
28 2 1
Documentation The documentation of the components and APIs of the YDS Platform
154 1 0
EmberJS generator
Generator for a full browseable CRUD front-end for a mu-cl-resources back-end. https://github.com/tenforce/ember-mu-application-generator
192 0 2
DCAT-AP validator
A DCAT-AP catalog validator for DCAT-AP 1.1. profile or local variants https://github.com/tenforce/vodap-dcatap-validation
136 2 1
mu.semte.ch Mu.semte.ch is a flexible, extensible, user-facing microservice architecture supported by semantic models. http://mu.semte.ch https://github.com/mu-semtech
Ν/Α Ν/Α Ν/Α
DCAT-AP editor A DCAT-AP catalog editor based on the EmberJS generator and mu.semte.ch - https://github.com/tenforce/dcat-ap-editor
9 0 0
Table 4: Overview of GitHub repositories
In comparison to the previous year, the database has both grown - as can be seen by the numbers of commits as well as the number of entries - and received more attention from other projects and developers (based on the numbers of stars and forks). While the target of doubling the stars hasn’t fully worked (11 stars now, 3 short of the envisioned 14), the number of forks has gone beyond what was targeted (6 forks), even if the 36 forks from the Linked Data fragment server are excluded as this was forked by the project itself.
2.2.4 YouTube The project maintained a YouTube channel as a video based social media account. The overall idea of the channel was to use it as a means of publishing promotional videos like showcases or explainer videos. In the final year, the project produced two different videos, both aiming at giving better insights into the work of YourDataStories and explaining the YDS platform to users unfamiliar with the idea. Both
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videos were again published on YouTube and then promoted on the website through an article as well as through the other social media channels, Twitter and Linkedin. The first of the two videos was an animated explainer video called “YourDataStories - Increasing transparency through #opendata”, telling the general audience about the setup and the features of YourDataStories. It used a general language and visual elements to explain the idea behind YDS, including the Use Cases and the benefits for everyday citizens. The video was uploaded to the YouTube channel, embedded on the website and posted through both the Twitter and the LinkedIn channel. It has so far received 146 views and 5 explicit Likes (state: February 9th, 2018).
Figure 10: Screenshot of the first YDS explainer video
The second video was done with real-life actors and users of the platform to showcase how YDS can benefit data-experts and people interested in the analysis of open data for their work. The idea of this second video (“What is YourDataStories (YDS) and how can it help you?”) was to focus on a real life case (in this case journalists) to make it clearer for possible users what to expect from the final prototype. Beyond the publication through the projects’ own channels (YouTube, Website, Twitter, LinkedIn), the video was also submitted to the #InverstEUresearch competition, organised by the DG Research and Innovation Communications Team and has been added to the official playlist of the EU-funded R&I projects playlist. The video has so far reached 187 views and 18 likes (status: February 9th, 2018).
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Figure 11: Screenshot of the second YDS explainer video
During the first two years of the project had already uploaded two videos, one general video on the idea of Data-Driven Journalism and the connection to YourDataStories as well as a video presenting the idea and the setup of YDS and its consortium by interviewing key project members involved in the different areas of the project. The first video “What is Data-Driven-Journalism” has so far received a total of 1382 views and 17 likes (status: February 9th, 2018), which means an uptake by 936 views and 11 Likes. The second video “YourDataStories - Introducing Project Partners and Their Roles” has reached a total of 191 views and 3 Likes, meaning it increased by 51 views in Year 3 (status: February 9th, 2018).
2.3 Publications As a research and innovation action, YourDataStories has mainly focused on enhancing its prototype and delivering code-modules for data analysis and data linking. Still the project members have published a small number of papers, articles and other publications, which are listed in the following chapters.
2.3.1 Deliverables Continuing its efforts to document its progress openly, YourDataStories published all open deliverables through the project website. The documents were made available for visitors under the ‘Features’-tab and updates announced through the projects Twitter channel. In Year 3 the project has published a total of 14 deliverables, adding to the already available 16 from the first two years. Two more deliverables are to be expected once the project has ended (due to M36 deadlines). These deliverables include the ‘D7.5 Final Dissemination Report v2.0’ and ‘D6.4 Final Pilot monitoring and Evaluation Report’. The following table gives an overview of the deliverables already published on the website that have a public (PU) status.
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No. Name Description Downloads
D2.8 Data Management Plan v2.0
This document provides an update to the original data management approach in YDS (see D2.7), based on additional data, experiences and newfound requirements encountered in the second year of the project.
5
D3.7 Data Harvesters v2.0 This document describes the second version of the YDS Data Harvesters (The original version can be found in D3.6).
3
D3.10 Open Data Repository v2.0
This document constitutes the YDS open data repository prototype, offering harvested and possibly interlinked data to other YDS components.
4
D4.4 Platform Customisation Infrastructure and Components v2.0
The document provides an overview of the second prototype of the customization infrastructure and components.
2
D4.7 Applications and Components v2.0
The document describes the second versions of prototypes of public components and applications building upon the YDS software stack.
1
D5.3 Intermediate Integrated Prototype
The document describes the intermediate working prototype of the integrated view for the YDS tools.
2
D6.3 Intermediate Pilot Monitoring and Evaluation Report
This deliverable summarizes the efforts and results of the evaluation of the the First Integrated YDS Prototype (D5.2) and the Intermediate Integrated Prototype (D5.3) by the User Partners.
1
D7.4 Dissemination Report v1.0 This document describes the dissemination activities undertaken by the YDS consortium during year 1 and Year 2 of the project.
6
D3.5 Data model v 3.0 The document provides the third version of the YDS Data Model. 0
D3.8 Data Harvesters v3.0 The document provides the third version of the YDS Data Harvesters.
0
D4.8 Applications and Components v3.0
This deliverable contains the final prototypes of public components and applications building upon the YDS software stack.
0
D3.11 Open Data Repository v3.0
This deliverable will constitute the YDS open data repository prototype. This repository will offer harvested and possibly interlinked data to other YDS components efficiently and effectively.
0
D5.4 Final Integrated Prototype This deliverable describes the final working prototype of the integrated view for the YDS tools.
0
D4.5 Platform Customisation Infrastructure and Components v3.0
This deliverable provides an overview of the third prototype of the customisation infrastructure and components.
0
Table 5: Overview of public deliverables published in the website in Year 3
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All in all, the deliverables have received 102 (99 unique) pageviews and have been downloaded 81 times (including 23 downloads only of the deliverables from Year 3). Among the most popular documents overall in Year 3, according to the number of downloads, were:
the D3.4 Data Model v2.0 (11) and the D2.7 Data Management Plan v1.0 (8)
The most popular among the newly added deliverables were
the D7.4 Dissemination Report v1.0 (6) and the D2.8 Data Management Plan v2.0 (5).
Both sets show, that the handling of data, as the core technology behind the YDS project, was most interesting to visitors.
2.3.2 Papers Being an innovation action with a clear focus on developing hands-on software solutions, the number of scientific papers produced by YDS was limited throughout the project. In the final year the project published a total of 5 papers and was included as reference in one paper by the University degli Studi di Salerno, Fisciano, Italy. Table 6 gives an overview of all the six papers and, where available the number of downloads/views of those papers according to the publishers.
Authors Topic Date Publication Type
O’Brolchain N., Ojo A., Porwol L., Karstens E., Wagner T., Lopez E.
Extending Open Data Platforms with Storytelling Features
June 2017 Proceedings of the 18th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, Staten Island, NY, USA (61 downloads)
publication
Michalis Vafopoulos Linked Open Economic Data as a catalyst for the Digital Single Market
June 2017 9th International Conference & Summer School, Economic Challenges in Enlarged Europe, Tallinn, Estonia
publication
De Donato R., Malandrino D., Palmieri G., Petta A., Pirozzi D., Scarano V., Serra L., Spagnuolo C., Vicidomini L., Cordasco G.
Datalet-Ecosystem Provider (DEEP): Scalable Architecture for Reusable, Portable and User-Friendly Visualizations of Open Data
September 2017
Proceedings of 2017 Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government (CeDEM) http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8046276/
mention
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Authors Topic Date Publication Type
Georgios Petasis, Anna Triantafillou, Eric Karstens
YourDataStories: Transparency and Corruption Fighting through Data Interlinking and Visual Exploration
November 2017
Accepted paper at the Data Economy Workshop at the 4th International Conference on Internet Science (INSCI) 2017, Thessaloniki.
publication
Papadakis G., Tsekouras L., Thanos E., Giannakopoulos G., Palpanas T., Koubarakis M.
JedAI: The Force Behind Entity Resolution
November 2017
Proceedings of ESWC 2017: The Semantic Web: ESWC 2017 Satellite Events https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-70407-4_30 (62 downloads)
publication
Vafopoulos M., Koukourikos A., Vafeiadis G., Negkas D., Skaros I., Tzani A.
A Data-Driven Model for Linking Open Economic Information
November 2017
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-70284-1_25 (145 downloads)
publication
Table 6: Scientific papers published by YDS or with YDS mention in Year 3
Overall, the project published 10 papers (with 5 papers having been published in the previous years) and four references in other papers.
Figure 12: “Best Paper Awards” announcement for YDS on the dg.o website
The paper “Extending Open Data Platforms with Storytelling Features”, published at 18th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, in the USA managed to become the runner up for the Best Paper award in its category.
2.3.3 Workshops, Conference Participations, Presentations The project consortium continued to present the work and progress of YourDataStories at various events, giving insights into the status of the work and discussing details and collaboration opportunities. This included appearances at academic fairs and conferences such as the AI Conference in Athens,
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Greece in March 2017, but also presentations to customers and colleagues from other companies or department or competitions led by the European Commission.
Figure 13: G.Petasis, NCSR Demokritos presents YDS during the AI conference in Athens, Greece
The consortium members also organised a series of events themselves, ranging from focus groups to hackathons, presenting YourDataStories to invited experts from the different target audiences. The following table is an overview of these events.
Date Description Partners
08/01/2017 Evaluation Session with Journalists and data experts organised and hosted in Bonn (6 participants)
DW
18/01/2017 YDS workshop on OpenData, DataStories and Data-Driven Journalism at NUI Galway NUIG
23/02/2017 Developers Focus Group at NUI Galway’s Insight Center (10 participants) NUIG
21/03/2017 G.Petasis, NCSR Demokritos presented YDS at AI conference in Athens, Greece https://yourdatastories.eu/event-yds-1st-artificial-intelligence-conference/
NCSR-D
31/03/2017 Presentation of the YDS project at Electronic Marketing and New Media workshop in Lemessos, Cyprus
NCSR-D
01-02/04/2017
Presentation of the YDS project at the Public Integrity Hackathon in Athens, Greece NCSR-D, GFOSS
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Date Description Partners
22/04/2017 Presentation of the YDS project at 3rd International Conference in Applied Theory, Macro and Empirical Finance in Thessaloniki, Greece
NCSR-D
12/06/2017
9th International Conference & Summer School Economic Challenges in Enlarged Europe in Tallinn, Estonia
NCSR-D
19/06/2017 Presenting YDS “Making sense of public data” at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum 2017
DW
20/06/2017 Presenting YDS “Making sense of public data” at the EBU meeting, taking place at Deutsche Welle
DW
30/08-01/09/2017
MyData 2017 Conference in Tallinn & Helsinki (M.Vafopoulos) https://mydata2017.org
NCSR-D
30/08-01/09/2017
MyData 2017 Conference in Tallinn & Helsinki (Alexandros Nousias) https://mydata2017.org
GFOSS
20/10/2017 Hackathon in Athens (20 participants) ATC, GFOSS, DigiWhist
24/10/2017 YourDataStories CONTEXTUALIZING & HUMANIZING DATA WHILE LOOKING FOR THE NEXT “SCOOP” at the Digital Transformation of Public Administrations Event - Sustainability and Exploitation of Horizon 2020 eGovernment Projects Results YDS won the Best Pitching award. More info and image here.
ATC
26/10/2017 Presentation of the YDS project at the TenForce key customer event (30+ participants) TenForce
27/10/2017 Storython in Galway (~20 participants) NUIG
10/11/2017 Expert User Group (4 participants), organised and hosted in Brussels EJC
22/11/2017 Organisation and sponsoring of the Data Economy Workshop during the 4th International Conference on Internet Science (INSCI) 2017, Thessaloniki.
NCSR-D
22/11/2017 YourDataStories: Transparency and Corruption Fighting through Data Interlinking and Visual Exploration at the Data Economy Workshop at the 4th International Conference on Internet Science (INSCI) 2017, Thessaloniki.
NCSR-D, ATC, EJC
21/11/17 - 23/11/17
Participation at the European Big Data Value Forum
TenForce
28/11/2017 Evaluation Session with Journalists organised and hosted in Maastricht (4 participants) EJC
30/11/2017 Participation at the Trefdag Informatie Vlaanderen, a conference organised by the Flemish region having +2500 participants.
TenForce
30/11/2017 Presentation at the Trefdag Informatie Vlaanderen of data.vlaanderen.be, built using YDS supported components (250+ participants in session): mu.semte.ch / EmberJS generator / SPARQL cache / UnifiedViews pipelines
TenForce
30/11/2017 Presentation at the Trefdag Informatie Vlaanderen of YDS supported DCAT-AP validator (40+ participants in session)
TenForce
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Date Description Partners
09/12/2017 Storyhack in Bonn (2 participants) DW
12/12/2017 Focus Group and user evaluation in Galway NUIG, GCC
13/12/2017 Evaluation Session with Journalists organised and hosted in Maastricht (4 participants) EJC
13/12/2017 Presentation of the YDS DCAT-AP validator in the context of the Flemish Government Open Data landscape
TenForce
13/01/2018 Storyhack in Berlin (6 participants) DW
09/01/2018 Focus Group & Evaluation Session in Bonn, with DigiWhist DW/EJC
Table 7: Workshops, Conferences and presentations attended/organised by YDS
One high-class event was the workshop Data Economy: how online data change economy and business. It was organised by NCSR Demokritos and supported by GFOSS in the frame of the Internet Science Conference 2017 on 22 November 2017 in Thessaloniki, Greece, and sponsored by YourDataStories.
Figure 14: Promotional Header of the YDS sponsored Data Economy Workshop
The workshop involved keynote speaker Daniele Rizzi, from DG Connect, European Commission and made an effort to engage scholars and professionals from multiple disciplines including economics, management, open governance, data and computer science as well as software engineering in a discussion regarding how digital data can change the economy.
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Figure 15: Presentations at the Data Economy workshop, speakers M.Vafopoulos, G.Petasis and D.Rizzi
2.3.4 Newsletter, Press Releases, Media Presence In terms of direct communication with its audiences, YourDataStories increased its efforts in Year 3, using its newsletter and press releases, sent out through its mailing lists and posted it on the respective websites. The consortium also reached out to media outlets with these messages, aiming to get coverage in European media. Regarding the newsletter, an update was created shortly after the end of Year 2 to provide an overview of everything that had happened. This update was created by Deutsche Welle with input from all partners. It was tweeted through the YDS-Twitter channel (1,516 impressions). ATC sent the newsletter out to about 70 recipients, published the link to the newsletter on its iLab blog (119 impressions) and also tweeted it over its iLab Twitter account, reaching out to another 249 people (115 impressions). Deutsche Welle also distributed the newsletter via its Twitter channel to its over 4.000 followers, just like TenForce, which used its own mailing lists and social media channels (Twitter and LinkedIn) in the same way. GFOSS distributed the newsletter through its website.
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Figure 16: Screenshots of the Year 2 Newsletter
The newsletter was also directly mailed to the subscribers gathered through the website and the previous mailings. This list of direct subscribers has grown to 66 in Year 3 (from 40 people by the end of Year 2). A final edition of the newsletter will be send shortly after the end of the project, highlighting the results and achievements of the project as well as giving people an overview of where to go for more information and using the application. Beyond the newsletter, project partners have continuously published articles about the work in YDS on their respective websites. NUIG also made a series of three Live-Video-Discussions around the NUIG Storython through their Facebook page, attracting between 200 and 2.600 views per video. The following table gives an exemplary overview of such postings from partner’s blogs.
Title Date Type Partner
Δελτίο Τύπου: 4η Συνάντηση Εργασίας (focus group) για το Ευρωπαϊκό έργο «Your Data Stories»
25/01/2017 Press release (Focus group in Athens, Greece)
NCSR-D
YourDataStories: Making #OpenData more accessible and more transparent!
28/07/2017 Blog post about YDS GFOSS
SKEL Lab participated in the MyData 2017 Conference
05/09/2017 Blog post (MyData 2017 Conference participation)
NCSR-D
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Title Date Type Partner
Απολογισμός του 3ου Συνεδρίου MyDATA 2017: Θεμελιώδη ζητήματα προσωπικών δεδομένων
08/09/2017 Blog Post (MyData 2017 Conference participation)
GFOSS
SKEL Lab participates at RE:PUBLICA 2017 11/09/2017 Blog post about RE:PUBLICA 2017 Conference participation
NCSR-D
The Your Data Stories platform is put to the test by Dianeosis think-tank
21/09/2017 Blog post about YDS platform demonstration to Dianeosis think-tank
NCSR-D
YourDataStories Hackathon / Digiwhist Workshop 04/10/2017 Blog post about YDS Hackathon in Athens
GFOSS
YDS Hackathon / Digiwhist Workshop – Δηλώσεις Συμμετοχής
06/10/2017 Blog post about YDS Hackathon in Athens
GFOSS
Check out the YourDataStories Platform explainer video!
17/10/2017 Blog post announcing the YDS video ATC
Two H2020 projects of SKEL Lab receive international awards: Your Data Stories & Big Data Europe
27/10/2017 Blog post about YDS award NCSR-D
YourDataStories project awarded in the Digital Transformation of Public Administrations Event
27/10/2017 Blog post on the YDS award ATC
Your Data Stories Storython 2017 27/10/2017 Blog post about YDS Hackathon in Galway
NUIG
Your Data Story - Galway Storython - Data Stories 27/10/2017 Live-Video on E-Gov Facebook page NUIG
Egov News - Your Data Stories - Storython Report 02/11/2017 Live-Video on E-Gov Facebook page NUIG
Το SKEL Lab συνδιοργανώνει το Data Economy Workshop
16/11/2017 Promotion of Data Economy Workshop on II&T website
NCSR-D
YourDataStories Project Update 22/12/2017 Blog post on the status of YDS DW
Table 8: Overview of Press Releases and Postings on partners' blogs
Furthermore, YourDataStories was also featured beyond its partners’ own websites. In June 2017, YourDataStories became part of the “Europe in my Region - Blog Contest”, organised by European Commission’s Regional Policy section. Una Sinnott, an irish journalist interested in data journalism, used the Pilot 2 Use Case, headed by NUIG and the Galway City Council, to demonstrate how open data can show the value of road improvements around Galway and describe the YourDataStories project. The article was published on both the website of the European Commission and also on her own website.
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Figure 17: Screenshot of Europe in my region YDS Blog-Contest entry
In August 2017, EJC managed to get the datadrivenjournalism.net portal (with roughly 15.000 pageviews per month) to feature YourDataStories on their blog, highlighting the YDS prototype and promoting the YDS explainer video.
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Figure 18: Screenshot of the article about YDS on the datadrivenjournalism.net blog
The datadrivenjournalism.net blog is a great connection to the DDJ-community. While the article got roughly 160 pageviews, it did lead to the article being featured in the weekly DDJ- tools top 10 list of the Global Journalism Investigative Network (GJIN), a network with about 145 member organizations in 62 countries. The tweet with their article went out to their followership of about 24.500 Followers (see Figure 19).
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Figure 19: Screenshot of the YDS listing in the GJIN’s weekly DDJ top ten
As part of the Irish national project “Magna Carta for Data”, a statement of its commitment to ethical data research within its national research labs, YourDataStories was included as a case study. Being a European research project dealing with lots of data and the Insight Center being a member of the
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YourDataStories Consortium, this seemed like a good fit. The project was described and the handling of data within the research activities analyse. The article about the results can be found on the Magna Carta for Data website.
Figure 20: Screenshot of the YDS Case Study for the Magna Carta for Data
The YourDataStories Project was also mentioned in an article on the Digital Transformation of Public Administrations Event, published on the European Commission Website. The event was held on October 24th, 2017, in Brussels and was organized by the Research Executive Agency (REA) and DG CNECT. YDS, invited as one of 27 Horizon 2020 open government projects and represented by ATC and NCSR-D, won the pitching competition between the five coordinators of the 2014 ICT-enabled Open Government call.
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Figure 21: Screenshot of report on the Digital Transformation of Public Administrations Event
NCSR-D arranged for a story to be published in Greek media, the technological magazine “Prisma” which is a monthly insert in the national newspaper “Avgi”. Researchers M. Vafopoulos and G.Petasis spoke about YDS at an interview, which was published on November 5th, 2017.
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Figure 22: Greek magazine “Prisma” did a full page article on YDS
In cooperation with the DigiWhist and the OpenBudgets Projects, YDS wrote a joint-article on the different tools and features the three projects have developed. The article was published not only on the YDS-website, but also on the respective blogs of DigiWhist and OpenBudgets in November 2017.
Figure 23: Screenshot of the joint article on all three project blogs
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The article was also picked up and republished by the European Data Portal, helping in distributing it even further.
Figure 24: Screenshot of the posting on the European Data Portal website
Two articles were published on the Serbian news portal danas.rs as well as in the printed version of the newspaper, written on the basis of data linked and analysed within the YDS platform. These two articles were the result of an investigative analysis of open data, made available through cooperation effort by YDS and a data-journalist from DANAS. The data journalist had contacted the YDS consortium. The first article, published on December 17th, 2017, shed light on international development aid for Serbia countering the myth that foreign money is used to bolster the opposition. The article showed that most money from the EU is going directly to the Serbian government. The second article, published on January 21st, 2018, focused on the exports of the Serbian defense industry. It showed that the dominant trading partners are NATO countries, challenging the myth that Serbia has the strongest political and military ties with countries from the East, primary Russia and China. Both articles were very well received by the readers and the editorial staff at the newspaper.
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Figure 25: Paper versions of the DANAS news articles (1st left, 2nd right), based on YDS Data
Finally, the Connacht Tribune and the Galway City Tribune, two newspapers from the Galway region with a combined readership of 125.000 people, picked up on one of the YDS events that NUIG Insight center organised together with the Galway City Council and published a report on it. The article is available online in a short version and in a long form in the paper version of the paper.
Figure 26: Screenshot of the excerpt of the article on YDS in the Connacht Tribune
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2.4 Networking Activities The YDS consortium organised and participated in a series of events (also see chapter 2.3.3 Workshops, Conference Participations, Presentations) that allowed the project to connect to other researchers, academics and data experts.
2.4.1 Collaboration Events Exchange with DigiWhist & OpenBudgets, Bonn, March 2017 One collaboration effort was the exchange with the DigiWhist and the OpenBudgets projects. Deutsche Welle and ATC coordinated the communication from YDS side for joint dissemination and was able to invite representatives from both projects to the consortium meeting in Bonn in March 2017.
Figure 27: Representatives from the DigiWhist and OpenBudgets Projects participating in YDS event
The three projects also managed to publish an article together, aligning the achievements of all three projects and the benefits these results meant for the respective target audiences. The article was already mentioned in chapter 2.3.4 Newsletter, Press Releases, Media Presence and, as mentioned as well, was also picked up by other outlets, such as the EU Data Portal and republished.
Figure 28: Collaboration between the YDS, DigiWhist and OpenBudgets Projects
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Another result of this collaboration was the participation of a representative from the DigiWhist project during one of the final evaluation sessions of the YDS prototype, again linking the knowledge gained in both projects for a more successful outcome. NCSR-D & Dianeosis event, Athens, September 2017 NCSR-D initiated a collaboration event with a non-profit think-tank based in Athens, Greece named Dianeosis. The organisation publishes academic research, policy recommendations and investigative journalism reports on current issues affecting the Greek society. Dr. George Petasis presented the benefits of the YDS platform on 20 September 2017 to a group of experts who put the platform to the test in the weeks that followed providing valuable feedback on its usage. In addition, Dianeosis provided a new dataset, regarding the performance of pupils on the exams organised by the Greek government for selecting higher education students, concerning the year 2015. This new dataset was modeled in the YDS platform, and a custom dashboard and services was provided to Dianeosis for facilitating their research.
Figure 29: A screenshot of the dashboard created for the Dianeosis use case
Collaboration with CLARITY project, January 2018 Another collaboration effort was the exchange with the CLARITY CSA project. ATC coordinated the communication from YDS side in order to disseminate the project. To this end, an interview was
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arranged as well as a blog post has been prepared in order to be published to the Clarity Blog in March 2018.
2.4.2 Hackathons The most prominent events were the four Hackathon-like events, organized by different project partners. Hackathon Athens, October 20th, 2017
The first Hackathon was organized in Athens, by ATC and GFOSS, and was a joined event in collaboration with DigiWhist project. The event consisted of a workshop regarding DigiWhist project and a hackathon regarding YourDataStories project and was addressed to public officials, journalists, developers and civil society representatives. The goal of the event was to present the tools and platforms developed under both projects and also through the:
YourDataStories Hackathon to develop new apps and services using YDS API that could be featured in the YourDataStories platform marketplace
Digiwhist workshop to introduce the large amounts of public procurement data unlocked by Opentender.eu and to explore ways through which it could be use in improving transparency in public administrations.
Figure 30: Joint Hackathon by DigiWhist and YDS in Athens
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There were 20 people that participated in the event. At the beginning a small introduction by representatives of both projects were given and also the Director-General for Reform and Policy Governance of the Greek Ministry of Administration Reconstruction gave a short introduction about the Open Data policies in Greece. Following these presentations the hackathon and the workshop took place in parallel. After the completion of the event the participants were asked to complete and evaluation questionnaire for the DigiWhist workshop. As far as the Hackathon is concerned, there was one idea that was selected to be further developed into a functional application that could be implemented and embedded into the YourDataStories platform. The application will allow for a user to select a Greek public project from the platform and deliver all the information related to it in a pdf file. The application is in its final stage of implementation and is ready to be embedded into the YourDataStories platform. Storython Galway, October 27th, 2017
The second Hackathon was organized by NUIG in Galway as a Storython, focusing on the data available in the platform for Use Case 3 (Cross-Europe Financial Comparability). The event ran with three teams of five participants each. All three teams used the YDS platform and the inherit data to explore and tell different stories on the traffic situation in and around Galway. The Storython included a feedback session for the participants not only to share their stories, but also their experience with the platform.
Figure 31: Impressions from the NUIG Storython in Galway
Storyhack Berlin & Bonn, December 2017 & January 2018 The third and fourth Hackathons were organized by Deutsche Welle, one in Bonn and one in Berlin. Both were set up as Storyhacks, encouraging participants to explore the YDS platform following the Use Case 2 Scenario on Aid and Trade Activities between the Netherlands and Zimbabwe. In both cases participants had a full day to get themselves familiar with the tool, explore and analyze the data and develop a story based on their findings. The eight participants from both events (combined) wrote three stories and gave valuable feedback on the prototype.
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Figure 32: Participants at the second DW Storyhack in Berlin
All four events were great opportunities to both test the YDS prototype in detail and in a near to live situation, to get valuable feedback and to introduce the project to an expert audience for possible use in the field. In all cases the results of the hackathons were promising in terms of the possibilities of the platform (a feedback shared by many participants) and the high interest in such a tool. However, the participants also made it clear, that the YDS platform would clearly have to be developed further and beyond the state of a prototype with its limitations in data scope and usability.
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3 Review and Success of Activities
This chapter takes a critical look back at the whole three years and all dissemination efforts undertaken. It evaluates the outcome of the activities and takes a closer look at the overall numbers for the website and other channels.
3.1 Comparison of KPIs and actual numbers When setting up the communication and dissemination strategy in the beginning of the project, the consortium had a close look at the target audiences it wanted to reach and the available set of communication channels. The setup that was used throughout the project was considered the best combination of effort and outreach in order to inform the public and the special audience groups like journalists, data experts or researchers about the work and the progress of the YDS project. The main aim was to both inform and create interest in YourDataStories. The KPIs set as goals for the different activities were based on experience, available capacities and existing community structures as far as they were known. The website has received a total of 10.983 visits, leading to more than 25.800 pageviews (status: Jan 31st, 2018). With a little over 90 postings on the page that means that every item on the website was viewed about 277 times at average. This clearly shows an interest in the project. From the Figure 33 it is also clearly visible, that the interest was increasing throughout the three years, aside from a few downtimes.
Figure 33: Visits to the website from April 29th, 2015 - January 31st, 2018
A similar picture can be seen by taking a closer look at the YDS Twitter channel. The overall number of impressions grew continuously over the three years as can be seen in Figure 34. The ups and downs are similar to the ones seen in the website visits.
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Figure 34: Twitter impressions over all three years
Twitter is a volatile network, where a single tweet using just the right combination of content and timing can create a huge amount of interest, while the next one is hardly being noticed. This also shows in Figure 35 depicting the Retweets and Likes over all tweets sent.
Figure 35: Twitter Retweets and Likes over all three years
The amount of followers reached, a total of 508 (status: Jan 31st, 2018), is a very good number for a network on Twitter. While these numbers are impressive to look at, their real value doesn’t show until you put them into perspective. The following table compares these figures with the KPIs set in year 1 and Year 2 for both the website and Twitter, but also other dissemination and communication efforts undertaken by the project.
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Table 9: Overview of planned KPIs and reached numbers for Year 3, and in total
The comparison shows that the YDS project was, to a vast extend, very successful in its dissemination and communication efforts. Many of the KPIs were met and the YDS project managed to reach out to its core audiences and made itself well known.
Channel Metric Reached Targets for Y3 Reached
in Y1 and Y2 in Y3 in total
Twitter number of followers
342 followers increase of at least 25% (=428 followers)
+166 followers 508 followers
interaction with audience
Y1/Y2: 74/105 mentions 196/263 retweets 241/330 likes
increase of 25% (=132 mentions) (=329 retweets) (=413 mikes)
+29 mentions +66 retweets +139 likes
134 mentions 349 retweets 469 likes
LinkedIn number of connections
52 connections increase of 50% (=76 connections)
+24 connections
80 connections
Github number of stars & forks (altogether)
Y1+Y2: 7 stars; 3 forks
increase both by 100% (=14 stars; =6 forks)
+4 stars +9 forks
11 stars 12 forks
Website visits Y1: 1.185 Y2: 5.321
increase of at least 50% (=7982 visits)
> 4.000 visits > 10.500
number of publications
Y1: 23 Y2: 39
30 publications 28 publications
90 publications
Activities project presentations
Y1+Y2: 40 10 presentations more than 20 events
> 60
networking events Y1+Y2: 7 6 networking events more than 10 events
> 20
cooperations Y1+Y2: 2 3 events 3 events 2 cooperations 3 joint events
papers submitted/ mentioned
Y1+Y2: 8 8 submissions/ mentions
5 papers 1 mention
14 papers/ mentions
Workshops &
Hackathons
hackathons 3 hackathons 4 hackathons 4 hackathons
workshops Y1: 3 Y2: 5
5 workshops 7 workshops 15 workshops
participants per workshop/ hackathons
12 participants 15 participants in average
15 participants in average
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However, looking at the numbers alone just shows one side of the story. The other side is the people actually reached through these efforts.
3.2 Audiences Reached The consortium had defined specific target audiences at the beginning of the project in order to “connect, provide benefits and thus foster adoption and cooperation” (Quote from “D7.1 Communication Plan”). The following four groups were and still are considered the most important:
Public and Private Companies Media, Journalists and Data-Experts Scientific Community General Public
In D7.1 the consortium also defined the best approach to these different target groups. The relevant actions can be seen in the table taken from the deliverable (see Figure 36).
Figure 36: Matching Target Groups and Communication/Dissemination Channels (from D7.1)
In retrospective, the project did approach all of these audiences, by the means set up in this overview. The consortium members visited a total of over 80 fairs and events, addressing both public and private companies. The project was presented at a number of 20 workshops and hackathons, reaching out to the scientific as well as “Horizon 2020” community. And the numbers for the website and the social media channels, especially Twitter, show, that a large number of people were interested in YDS’s work. A closer look at the followership on Twitter reflects that very well. The list contains both members of the data expert community, as well as journalists and members of the general public. But it also shows a certain number of companies as well as public bodies, all following the YDS-Channel (see Figure 37 and Figure 38).
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Figure 37: Selection of Journalists, Scientists and general Audience members following YDS
Figure 38: Selection of Companies and public institutions following YDS
The website also reflects the diversity of the audiences interested in YDS. The visits across all three years came from a total of 134 different countries, with a majority of visits coming from Europe (7300) followed by North America (1900), where the majority of the YDS contacts and communication efforts went to (through personal and online connections).
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Figure 39: Visitor concentration worldwide and throughout Europe
Further examples of the successful communication and outreach of YDS are the cooperation with EU institutions and other Horizon2020 projects, including the following:
Flemish Government data.vlaanderen.be, the portal for Persistent URI’s for base registries, is powered by YDS supported tools such as mu.semte.ch, UnifiedViews, SPARQL cache and the DCAT-AP validator;
The maintenance software for ESCO, the European Skills/Competences, qualifications and Occupations taxonomy (DG for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion) exploits the mu.semte.ch/EmberJS stack;
The prototype for document access control at the Council of the European Union utilizes mu.semte.ch and UnifiedViews;
The recently developed prototype for Eurostat for automatic classification of scanner data is built on top of mu.semte.ch and UnifiedViews;
BigDataEurope( http://www.european-big-data-value-forum.eu/) for the BDI integrator SPECIAL (https://www.specialprivacy.eu/) for the first editorial prototype.
Still the most successful outreach of the project to its audiences was through the workshops, evaluation sessions and hackathons, were people could experience the YDS platform first hand. The feedback received through these events was very good. Many of the journalists and policy makers responded in a positive way about the possibilities YourDataStories offered them in terms of finding and analyzing data. The data stories that came out of the evaluation and hackathon sessions showcase those capabilities. Several stories were published on the YDS platform, covering the different use cases. Participants during the sessions repetitiously stated how helpful it was for them to have one single platform for all steps from the data analysis to creating the data visualisations to actually writing the stories. Not all stories used the platform in the same way. Some added additional content from outside the system (graphs, overviews, images), others exported the data from YDS to another tool for better visibility. Still the overall results are satisfying and convincing results.
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Figure 40: Examples of articles published through and with the help of the YDS platform
This is in accordance with the main goal YDS wanted to reach and transport: Enhancing access to open data and hence make government processes more transparent (see Figure 41). The second goal, enhancing usability, is not perfect yet, and has been discussed by participants of the hackathons/by the users. Dealing with data is still a complex manner. And even though smart user interfaces and algorithms like in YourDataStories can help in tackling large amounts of data, it still takes courage and time to dive into the data and to find the necessary clues. This is something that will always be at the start of every data story.
Figure 41: Key claim of YDS from the D7.1 Communication Plan
This means, that while YDS was successful in transmitting this message and reaching and convincing its audiences with it, there are still some adjustments to make, before the platform and technology could be just implemented for a wider market. However, the power of the platform is still convincing: As the example of Gordan Brkic, the Serbian Journalist from DANAS, shows, YDS is already capable of supporting real life qualitative and investigative news coverage. For both his stories, he used the YDS platform as is, with additional data added just for his work.
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4 Conclusion
The efforts of the YDS project, towards a more transparent handling of government transactions through better use of open data, have been well received within the targeted communities. The feedback the project has collected through its variety of communication channels is positive and promising. Some of the efforts have led to direct interactions and tangible outcomes, like co-operations with other projects, public bodies or data experts as well as publications about and with the help of the YDS prototype. Not all KPIs set throughout the project could be met in the last year, other KPIs were exceeded. However, the overall success of the dissemination and communication can be seen as very positive. The focus on quality and direct interaction with potential users and interested parties instead of quantity worked to the benefit of the project. YDS created its own community that knows what the project stands for and does not hesitate to contact the consortium. Especially the stories created by the user group, the interaction ratio on Twitter and the Hackathons were a great success in demonstrating the possibilities of the YDS-platform and the efforts of the consortium. Some of the tools used for communication were not applied to their full potential. The newsletters for example proved to be a good way of reaching an interested community outside of the social media sphere - as can be seen in the growth of the subscriptions that came in without much extra effort. But the frequency of the newsletters was too low to really build up a momentum. However, the project has managed to transport more of the technical details about its work, reaching another group of specialists that have helped in improving the platform even further. Some of these experts were successfully reached through the hackathons. Looking back on dissemination activities throughout the whole project we can see that:
1. The strategic communication plan, as worked out in the beginning of the project, has worked very well. The mix of channels and messages to distribute was a good choice for YDS.
2. Stories are the best way for people to connect to a topic, even if its otherwise too technical or complex. This was clearly visible in the numbers of the website visits for the most popular posts.
3. There is a strong interest in what YDS is doing, both from a technical and from a user’s point of view. Especially the Linked Data approach and the all-in-one platform for open data created a lot of positive feedback.
The overall conclusion is that YDS has managed to attract a lot of interest within the data community. There is a lot of interest in the topics related to the project: Open Data, Linked Data, Data-Driven Journalism. Overall, the Consortium has done a very good job in connecting to this community of like-minded people and has been able to convince with its outstanding results.