Category Archives: resources

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Some open data projects in Europe

A number of interesting European open data projects are being developed.

An Atlas of European Values

evalue web site imageBased on the work being undertaken by the EVALUE Erasmus Plus project, an Atlas of European Values has been created based on the work of the European Values Study. The Atlas, published by Springer, has been launched on Europe Day (May 9th 2022).

The interactive online atlas is available on the EVALUE Web site at https://www.atlasofeuropeanvalues.eu/maptool.html. Here it is possible to select indicators, adjust the time period of the data, select specific response groups and compare maps. Some datasets are available from countries around the world.

The EVALUE Project offers teachers and students in secondary education interactive web tools and teaching materials that match curriculum need on contemporary topics like migration, democracy, solidarity, and tolerance. In addition, it provides strategies to develop their own teaching ideas.

European Court Human Rights open data

The European Court of Human Rights Open Data (ECHR-OD) project aims at providing formatted and standardised open data about the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in order to draw the attention of Data Scientists, Machine Learning practitioners as well as researchers on legal analysis and related areas.ECHR logo

ECHR-OD is guided by three core values: reusability, quality and availability.. To reach those objectives, each version of the database and datasets are carefully versioned and made publicly available, including the intermediate files, the integrality of the process and files produced are carefully documented, the script to retrieve the raw documents and build the database and dataset from scratch are open-source and carefully versioned, no data are manipulated by hand at any stage of the creation process.

Explore the European Court of Human Rights Open Data project https://echr-opendata.eu/

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Open data on climate change from OECD

On 31 March 2022, Ministers and high-level representatives from the OECD’s 38 member countries and the European Union, as well as Bulgaria, Croatia, Peru and Romania, committed in a formal OECD Declaration to intensify their work on climate and the environment including doing more to curb biodiversity loss, address plastic pollution, align finance with environmental objectives and accelerate climate change action.

The formal OECD Declaration includes working to curb biodiversity loss, address plastic pollution, align finance with environmental objectives and accelerate climate change action with a view to keeping the 1.5°C temperature rise limit within reach. Download a copy of the complete Ministerial Declaration.

One of the main issues is in obtaining and using relevant and reliable indicators for monitoring progress on mitigating climate change impacts. To address this, the OECD has a new platform for tracking trends in c climate change.  It provides interactive information with data and trends across OECD countries. Play the short video to find out more.

 

Explore OECD data on climate change under the headings
– Drivers and emissions
– Impacts and risks
– Policy responses and opportunities

Interact with the OECD data at http://oe.cd/env-glance

D3 celebrates International Women’s Day

On the occasion of International Women’s Day we share a teacher’s story on using data in their work. The theme for International Women’s Day, 8 March 2022 is “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”. women in parliament graphic

Gender equality is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union and during the recent decades it is generally acknowledged that significant progress has been made in this area. However, the gap between women and men still exists and is particularly evident both in the labour market and in the political and decision-making arena.

Furthermore, although attitudes towards equality are evolving, even today’s younger generation is not free from stereotypes and gender inequalities. This StoryMap, created within the context of the D3: Developing Digital Literacy Erasmus+ Project, aims to focus on the issue of gender equality in the political scene of Greece and also the EU and be used as supplementary educational material by teachers in secondary schools.

More specifically, this story map addresses teachers of the 3rd grade (Junior High School – Hellenic Gymnasium) who teach History, Social and Civic Education or Modern Greek Literature, as it can be linked to individual, corresponding themes concerning the feminist movement, human rights and social racism.

Visit the StoryMap below to find out more

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A database of open data and visualisations

The D3 project has created and published a searchable information database of potentially useful open data, tools and resources readily available for teachers to access and use.  These information and data sources were considered useful for lesson activities by teachers working with the project team.

Visit the database of useful resources

Open Data is based on the idea that some data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control.

One of the most important forms of open data is collected and published by government institutions. The importance of open government data is based on it being a fundamental part of citizens’ everyday lives, down to the most routine/mundane tasks that are seemingly far removed from government. This government data is usually the basis on which decisions are made by policy makers.

fair data graphicThe resources gathered by the zD£ project partners have been classified by their country of origin, the type of data and their main target groups.

For instance, many of the sources originate from the partner countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) and have been used with teachers there. Useful world resources are also available classified as International. They are considered to follow the principles of FAIR data, namely Finable Accessible Interoperable and Reusable.

The FAIR data principles imply the data is machine-actionable, that the data can be found, accessed, interoperated, and reused using  computational systems, with no or minimal human intervention.  This is because we increasingly rely on computer support to help deal with the huge volumes, complexity, and creation speed of data.ODC logo

The D£ project coordinating organisation EUROGEO strongly supports the principles of open data. In 2019 the association became a signatory of the Open Data Charter. Find out more 

The coordinator of the D3 project, Karl Donert, subsequently presented the significance of open data education issues to the international gathering of Open Data Charter signatories.

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D3 Lesson Blueprints for Developing Digital Data Literacy now online

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The D3 project has created a set of Lesson Blueprints for teachers to examine and use as part of their work with students on data literacy..

The Lesson Blueprints provide ideas for teachers to identify, access and implement open data in the classes and to engage their students in the real world of data. The Blueprints are very practical, relevant and ‘hands on’ allowing teachers to consider the significant opportunities to explore the data we come across and use in everyday life.

The Lesson Blueprints are classified using binary code as this is how digital data is represented. They start from 0001 Who am I? and continue through to 1111: What does the future hold for us?

The topics relate to everyday actions and activities where digital date is important and how the data and its collection affects citizens, their rights and responsibilities.

Access the Lesson Blueprints 

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European developments in Open Data

Europe has developed a strategy for data which focuses on putting people first in developing technology, and defending and promoting European values and rights in the digital world.data types image

Data is described by the EC as an essential resource for economic growth, competitiveness, innovation, job creation and societal progress. According to the European Commission, “the European strategy for data aims at creating a single market for data that will ensure Europe’s global competitiveness and data sovereignty. Common European data spaces will ensure that more data becomes available for use in the economy and society, while keeping the companies and individuals who generate the data in control.

Data driven applications are fundamental to improve living conditions for citizens and help businesses thrive. They can:

  • improve health care
  • create safer and cleaner transport systems
  • generate new products and services
  • reduce the costs of public services
  • improve sustainability and energy efficiency

Hence education efforts that increase digital data literacy like that  undertaken by the D3 project need to be promoted as part of the EC data strategy as citizens need to be empowered to stay in control of their data, and establish common, open European data spaces.

A European strategy for data has been proposed that intends to deal with issues such as data governance, access and reuse. It will seek to make data more widely available by opening up high-value publicly held datasets across the EU and allowing their reuse for free. Of major importance but lacking however are education initiatives to support these developments.

The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) has been developed as an index that summarises relevant indicators on Europe’s digital performance and tracks the evolution of EU Member States.

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It compares indicators for European countries across five main dimensions: Connectivity, Human Capital, Use of Internet, Integration of Digital Technology and Digital Public Services.

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DESI data is free and available to download. Visit the DESI download area

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Training course on digital data literacy

digital data literacy imagePartners in the D3 project have created a professional teacher development course focusing on competences related to digital technologies and data literacy.

Based on the framework of the research undertaken (a a review of open data, school curricula opportunities, qualifications and digital skills) at the start of the project and on DigComp (key competences for citizens) and DigCompedu (key digital competences for educators) as defined in Europe by the European Commission, a training course focusing on digital data literacy and its connection to critical thinking and democratic engagement has been created for use in initial and continuing teacher education and training.

The course deals with digital skills, open data as well as digital citizenship in empowering young people to engage in critical discussions and debates about issues that concern them.

literacy skills diagramIn earlier work the YouthMetre open data tool based on EU open data on youth ;policies generated by the YouthMetre project has been used as the basis for the D3 development, applying it in school contexts in European curricula.

Five modules have been created:

  • Introduction – Digital Citizen
  • Information and data literacy
  • Digital content creation
  • Communication and collaboration
  • Problem solving – the 15 minute city

The training course has been produced as an open, online resource.

Explore the online training course.