Data Equity for Main Street
Are you interested in learning about open data or teaching about open data to your community? The Data Equity for Main Street project has developed curriculum to promote open data literacy by training librarians and community members how to find, use and give feedback about open data. This is a joint project of the California State Library and the Washington State Office of Privacy, and was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
To develop this curriculum, we brought together public and academic librarians in California and Washington State with civic technologists and state government leaders in education and technology. After developing the initial curriculum, we trained librarians across our two states and pilot-tested the curriculum over two years at more than 20 public and academic libraries in the two states.
The newest version of the curriculum is online and interactive. It is built for both learners and instructors. Learners can use it in a self-paced environment. Instructors can use it in front of a class, and personalize the content using editable worksheets. The original version of the curriculum (mainly in powerpoint) is still available (see below).
The curriculum comprises four classes covering open data basics, metadata, visualization, feedback and engagement with open data publishers. The curriculum is designed for the general public and assumes no previous experience with open data; it can also be used for other audiences, such as library staff or government agencies. Many libraries that have already used the curriculum have shared their flyers and outreach strategies. These are included below. If you would like to add your materials, just let us know!
This curriculum is free for anyone to use and modify, as best suits your audience.
Questions or feedback? Contact the Data Equity Team
Online Curriculum
Course 1 Learn the definition of open data, determine whether or not datasets meet open standards, brainstorm questions that could be answered with open data, and learn how to find data offered at the local, state, and federal levels.
Course 2 Learn how to determine the quality of the data you are studying and learn about search strategies that will help you use open data to answer questions.
Course 3 Review different types of data visualizations and create your own chart and map.
Course 4 Learn more about analyzing data and also how to help shape the future of open data through advocacy and by providing feedback to data providers.
Video: What is Open Data?
As part of this project, our team created a short video that describes what open data is and how people use it in their lives. It's included in the curriculum, but you can also watch it here.
Using GitHub
You can retrieve the curriculum and other materials in this repository one of two ways -- by using the links below, or by making a copy of ("forking") this GitHub repository to your own GitHub account. If you're new to GitHub, visit the GitHub guides to learn more about getting started with GitHub and "forking" projects.
Marketing Materials
Flyers (Examples)
- Blanchard Community Library
- Butte County Library
- City of Mount Vernon Library
- San Diego Public Library
- San Jose Public Library
- University of Puget Sound, Collins Memorial Library
Images
Sample Open Data Used in Course
- California Wildfires dataset. This is a very small dataset and is used in Course 2 and 3.
Evaluation Forms
Data Equity recommends using an electronic survey form for your evaluations, such as Google Forms, to organize and track responses. We also strongly recommend incorporating time for evaluation into each class, just before wrapping up.
Thank you!
We are incredibly grateful to our partners who helped create and provided feedback over the course of this project! (We're very fortunate that in many cases more than one person from an organization helped with this project. We'll be updating this soon with a list of everyone's names and affiliations.)
Older Materials (Used by Alpha and Beta Testing Groups)
Please note that much of this material has been updated in the online course. However, you may use or modify any of the original materials if it is helpful.
- Curriculum Guide: Slides with side-by-side instructions While the online course has updates, instructors planning to teach this course in a classroom will still find the Curriculum Guide helpful.
Slides
These are slides our team originally created for teaching this course. There are some differences in content between these slides and the online course, mainly in response to feedback from alpha and beta testers. Some instructors may wish to pull certain slides, particularly the ones designed to support localized content, and use them in their classes.
Handouts
These are handouts our team created for the alpha and beta testers. Handout 2 and 5 are included in the online course as well as several other handouts that are new to the online version.
- Handout 1: Open Data Basics
- Handout 2: Where to Find Open Data
- Handout 4: Open Licenses
- Handout 5: Making Maps & Charts
- Handout 6: Data Quality
- Handout 7: Paid vs. Open Data
Treasure Hunts (Handout 3)
(Please note that these have been updated in the new curriculum (Course 2) and renamed "search strategies." In the online version, instructors and participants have the option to work within the curriculum, or view/download/print a copy of the scenario and the suggested search strategy.
- Handout 3a: General Treasure Hunt
- Handout 3b: Business Treasure Hunt
- Handout 3c: Environmental & Agricultural Treasure Hunt
- Handout 3d: Grab Bag Treasure Hunt
Backgrounders for Instructors
These handouts were originally created to provide instructors additional grounding in open data issues and provide help finding local examples of open data success stories.