Group items tagged

"About story maps Story maps combine intelligent Web maps with Web applications and templates that incorporate text, multimedia, and interactive functions. Story maps inform, educate, entertain, and inspire people about a wide variety of topics."

"Abstract Much of the data underlying global poverty and inequality estimates is not in the public domain, but can be accessed in small pieces using the World Bank's PovcalNet online tool. To overcome these limitations and reproduce this database in a format more useful to researchers, we ran approximately 23 million queries of the World Bank's web site, accessing only information that was already in the public domain. This web scraping exercise produced 10,000 points on the cumulative distribution of income or consumption from each of 942 surveys spanning 127 countries over the period 1977 to 2012. This short note describes our methodology, briefly discusses some of the relevant intellectual property issues, and illustrates the kind of calculations that are facilitated by this data set, including growth incidence curves and poverty rates using alternative PPP indices. The full data can be downloaded at www.cgdev.org/povcalnet. "

A blog-ish site related to collaboration tools

The new online Who Owns What Database launched by the Institute of Security Studies in Cape Town on Friday is making the assets and private interests of all elected officials available to the public for the first time. Originally launched in September 2009, the database of politicians' assets and onterests contained approximately 9000 financial disclosure records submitted between 2004 and 2010 by elected members in the National Assembly, National Cabinet, nine provincial legislatures and metropolitan councils. The database has recently been extended to include the latest financial disclosure records of elected local councillors from municipalities across the country. "What this means is that the public can access the financial disclosure forms of all elected politicians online," Collette Herzenberg, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, said at the launch of the database.

Another good model for other nations to emulate/build on. Congrats to the friends in SA.

the gist a wizard for creating and managing customized Google maps of address lists cool features addresses come from your own Google spreadsheets modify your address list and maps are automatically updated; done so daily, or on demand privately be the only viewer of your maps, or publish them and show them on any website access the address lists and maps from anywhere it's easy, no code required it's free download KML of your maps / export them to Google earth

The web site batchgeo.com provides an easy-to-use web interface for creating interactive Google maps. If you have names and addresses and other information, you can quickly create on online Google map with up to 2500 points. "Maps tell a story, see what you're missing BatchGeo is simply the fastest way to create google maps from your address lists. It accepts addresses, intersections, cities, states, and postal codes. We do the hard work of figuring out where all your data lives in the real world."

The Investigative Dashboard (ID) is a work in progress, that is designed to showcase the potential for collaboration and data-sharing between investigative reporters across the world. The initiative is spearheaded by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism, the Forum for African Investigative Reporters and the International Center for Journalists, and will expand to include other institutional members of the Global Investigative Journalism Network. The project is coordinated by Paul Cristian Radu (of OCCRP and CRJI) and Justin Arenstein (of FAIR) and was developed while both were in residence at Stanford University as Knight fellows. The John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists made possible the ID by providing access to the know-how of co-fellow journalists and of experts at Stanford University and in Silicon Valley. This first iteration of the ID website shares detailed methodologies, resources, and links for journalists to track money, shareholders, and company ownership across international borders. It also shares video tutorials, and other tools, to help journalists navigate often rapidly evolving data-sources. Future versions of ID will offer more advanced collaborative workspaces, data-archives, and discounted (or, where possible, free) access to expensive or proprietary research services. But, perhaps most importantly, the ID will campaign for investigative centres across the world to collaborate with each other to improve the depth and impact of their reportage.

LittleSis is a free database detailing the connections between powerful people and organizations. We bring transparency to influential social networks by tracking the key relationships of politicians, business leaders, lobbyists, financiers, and their affiliated institutions. We help answer questions such as: Who do the wealthiest Americans donate their money to? Where did White House officials work before they were appointed? Which lobbyists are married to politicians, and who do they lobby for? All of this information is public, but scattered. We bring it together in one place. Our data derives from government filings, news articles, and other reputable sources. Some data sets are updated automatically; the rest is filled in by our user community. More Features »

Some good pointers here, especially for data retrieval and analysis:

Some good pointers here, especially for data retrieval and analysis:

Ties in with Google Fusion.

A handy cut-and-paste HTML script that is easily customized

Data Without Borders seeks to match non-profits in need of data analysis with freelance and pro bono data scientists who can work to help them with data collection, analysis, visualization, or decision support.

A good resource to extend the intellectual power and reach of your newsroom.