A New National Access Point (NAP) End of Alpha Show, Tell & Ask - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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A New National Access Point (NAP) End of Alpha Show, Tell & Ask 22 May 2020 Moving Britain Ahead May 2020 Official A New UK National Access Point 1 Hello 2 Housekeeping and recommended etiquette This deck will be shared with you

SLIDE 1

Moving Britain Ahead

A New National Access Point (NAP)

End of Alpha Show, Tell & Ask – 22 May 2020

May 2020

Official A New UK National Access Point 1

SLIDE 2

Hello

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This deck will be shared with you after today
Please stay on mute throughout
You are welcome to pose questions in the chat box at any time
There will be a Q&A towards the end of the session,

when we will try to respond to questions as much as time allows

Housekeeping and recommended etiquette

SLIDE 4

What is this session about?

Refresher:

What did we talk about at the previous Show & Tells? 2 Users 3 Prototype demo and Research findings 4 Beta recommendation 5 Q&A

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Proposition

A National Access Point that improves transport data discoverability to improve data visibility and reuse across different sectors.

More useful metadata, use cases and data

visualization to improve users ability to find the data they need

Usage information from data users’ feedback

and engagement to give insight into how data is used and how it could be improved by publishers

Improved search to make experience of

finding data better, easier and quicker

A central place that signposts to both public

and commercial data across the UK to provide a complete view of data sources

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Refresher

We established that Alpha test assumptions recorded as hypotheses; it focuses on learning, not delivering a finished product We shared the four hypotheses on 1) metadata, 2) metadata submission, 3) discoverability, and 4) feedback and engagement We introduced personas We talked about our approach to prototyping: Mock-ups + CKAN platform

6 Private sector Public sector Ben Director at private data consultancy Rob Traffic Manager at Local Authority Claudia Logistics at delivery company Elena Data Analyst at DfT

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Coronavirus response It took nearly 2 weeks of time to identify relevant datasets for coronavirus response. The response team believed this time could have been massively reduced had the NAP existed.

Source:

Stakeholders involved in the building of the national dataset of LA live

UTC data as part of covid response

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Users

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Users

Across sectors

Central Government
Local Authorities
Commercial sector

○ Data consultancy ○ Data companies that create, use, provide data ○ Those that offer and create products and services that use transport data or create data via operations

Research

The core users of the NAP are those in roles and teams that use and publish transport data. Including:

Data Analysts
Data Architects
Traffic Managers
Logistics, parking, taxi, road freight teams
Smart city programme teams
Technologists
Data scientists
Data consultants
Waste service teams
Software developers

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Data publisher user mapping

Understands and advocates for data (I publish because I think it’s important to) Low technical expertise (I think in spreadsheets) High technical expertise (I think in data models) Doesn’t understand or advocate for data (I publish because I’m required to) Academic researcher - P2 Needs ease of managing data Needs standards and API’s Smart cities programme manager, Local Authority - P3 Data architect, Central Government - P7 Data management specialist, Public data company - P10 Potential users of NAP have different motivations and different levels of data

literacy. Mapped here are some of the data

publishers we spoke with during Alpha. Commercial data service company director - P5 Traffic Manager, Local Authorities Performance manager, Central Government agency - P1 10

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The general public is not in our target user group.

Although the general public will have access to a NAP, we do not expect them to be users of service. Unlike the ONS service, the NAP will not provide pre-analysed data and insights.

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Prototypes

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Prototypes created and used for testing

Mock-ups

We used a mix of clickable/static digital mock-ups for certain parts of the design.

CKAN platform

For things we decided we can’t prototype to test effectively with just mock-ups, we decided to use CKAN, an open source data portal, and modify it as much as we could for testing purposes.

SLIDE 14

Alpha prototypes overview and demo

For data users: Searching for data ￮ CKAN instance start from home page (prototype not in the open domain; see the next three slides for screen captures) ￮ Task: “Find which companies are currently officially registered to run bus services in the NE of England. Find it in a format you could use in excel.” ￮ Task: “Can you find road safety statistics for road accidents for 2018” Understanding and assessing suitability of data through metadata ￮ Metadata Public data mock-up ￮ Task: “Ok, suppose you found some data regarding road casualties, you click to view details and this is what you see.” ￮ Task: Find information on the page: licensing, formats, missing information, data coverage map Testing what commercial data/metadata could look like ￮ Metadata Commercial mock-up Giving feedback to data owners/publishers ￮ Feedback page mock-ups For data publishers: Understanding if and how publishers would submit metadata ￮ Metadata Public data mock-up How usage insights provide value ￮ Analytics page mock-ups for data publisher To test the prototypes we created test tasks for users to complete around road transport data. Same prototype 14

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CKAN prototype - discoverability (search)

The starting point for many users when landing on the front page of the NAP is the search box. This allows free-form basic queries, as well as structured logical queries. The road transport specific ‘topic’ labels are shown prominently here to prompt users by a different search facet. 15

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CKAN prototype - discoverability (browse)

The wider landing page provides alternative ways to search and navigate to the desired dataset, including by navigating by transportation mode.

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CKAN prototype - discoverability (results page)

If a user searches or browses by transportation mode, publisher, other category, or by using the featured dataset boxes, they view a result set. This summaries here help give a user a quick insight into the nature of the dataset and the format labels make it easy to know in what form the dataset is available.

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High-level findings

Good quality, well maintained metadata does make it easier for users to judge the

suitability of a dataset for their task.

However, a system with good data visualisation, previewing, searching and browsing

functionality is needed to take advantage of this metadata and improve the user experience.

Data publishers are able to provide the required metadata but some will need additional

support and guidance in the submission process and preparing data.

Commercial data publishers have different needs compared to public sector data
publishers. They perceive the NAP as a potential marketplace for selling services rather than

sharing data.

Data analytics would be used by data publishers to understand what data was useful for

the community; it would also help them justify the resources they need to publish and maintain data.

Data user feedback was seen as valuable to most participants. Some had concerns about

the feedback being public and preferred a private solution; some acknowledge existing open forums for discussion and advocate a community of interest. 18

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Discoverability versus quality metadata

The initial focus of the NAP was to provide high quality metadata in order to improve discoverability. Our research has shown that metadata is not the only consideration in discoverability. In addition, there is often a trade-off between improving overall discoverability and improving metadata.

High quality metadata

Increased workload for data publishers
Improved clarity for data users
Lower chance of submission to the NAP
Reduced numbers of datasets represented,

reduced overall discoverability for data users

Lower quality metadata

Reduced workload for data publishers
Increased chance of submission to the NAP
Improved discoverability for data users

through increased number of datasets 19

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Beta recommendation

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Overall focus

The Beta should focus on discoverability and curation.

The NAP should take a minimum-viable approach to metadata, ensuring the basics are

captured. This approach recognises that as the effort to add data to the NAP increases, the

likelihood that a wide range of data sources will be entered reduces. Improving and deepening metadata should be a long-term goal of the platform. Multiple data producers have told us they would take a lead from the NAP on metadata standards. However, the immediate opportunity (as shown by Covid-19) is to make available data sources more visible and accessible. In the absence of metadata, data previews have been shown to be valuable in users decision making. The Beta should be run for a minimum of 6 months to understand how data is maintained and changes over time.

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Focus areas: user needs

Resolve data.gov.uk user journey

The Beta team should continue to try to engage with the gov.uk team to establish how the user journey between data.gov.uk and the NAP should work. Alternatively, whether data.gov.uk can be extended to meet transport data needs. A small portion of transport data users start their journey from data.gov.uk. We risk confusion by having two “official” sources. Data.gov.uk uses the CKAN platform which implies that all required features should already be available or easy to develop. 22

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Focus areas: user needs

Automate the addition of new data sources

There has been a high level of interest from data providers (commercial companies, Ordnance Survey, Highways England) in automatic inclusion of their data sets. The opportunity to automate can increase the diversity of data sources with low

r no effort from data publishers.

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Focus areas: user needs

Curate navigation and content

Our research shows that curation will improve visibility and discoverability of

data. Curating features such as tags, collections and related data sets tested

well during Alpha. Research also showed that the relationship between datasets is often in relation to how they might be used, or who they might be used by. As this does not exist in metadata, this implies that curation cannot be automated. There is an opportunity to discover if data users and the transport data community can play a role in this curation. 24

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Focus areas: user needs

Data previews, visualisations and use cases

Alpha testing showed that providing data previews, visualisations (such as maps) and use cases are valuable to transport data users. Metadata alone is not sufficient for them to decide if a dataset might be useful to them. The Beta should explore further what other methods of data presentation and real life examples might help users to identify which datasets would be useful to them. 25

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Focus areas: user needs

Data quality and user feedback

Alpha testing has indicated that displaying data quality (e.g. “this dataset has not been updated”) is a valuable feature. Positive feedback from users has also been indicated as useful. For some data publishers, feedback has a negative connotation; e.g. receiving negative feedback. The feature(s) should be mindful of that, but prioritise users ability to find the data set that meets their needs. There is some potential that by displaying data quality we may ‘nudge’ data publishers to improve their data that should be explored further. 26

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Focus areas: user needs

Supporting data publishers with lower technical skills

Research has shown a broad range of users with variable technical skills. Many datasets are published by lower skilled data publishers. The Beta should focus

n addressing the skill gap between the two groups in order to improve data

and metadata quality. Show and tell feedback and alpha research has indicated that information on data standards, explanations of technical terms and guidance on metadata would be valuable. 27

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Focus areas: user needs

Metadata standards

Data publishers and providers who have a high technical ability have repeatedly requested that the NAP lead on metadata standards. The Beta should consider establishing a lightweight approach to metadata

standards. This would enable more extensive automation between systems. It

would also begin to improve metadata quality across the transport data community. 28

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Q & A

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Thank you

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Moving Britain Ahead

Get in touch John Cooper (Senior Engineer, Intelligent Transport Systems) Smarter Traffic Management Traffic and Technology Department for Transport john.cooper@dft.gov.uk

February 20

A New UK National Access Point