Creating a data catalogue

As part of the Green Minds project, we thought it would be useful to collate a data catalogue containing all the links and resources we know about that are relevant to the project's themes. Obviously this will always be incomplete because there's always something new to discover, but we are committed to updating it with new things we find.

Data catalogues are incredibly helpful things to have, enabling discovery of existing data, showing if the data is accessible and reusable, understanding the format that it is in, and sharing an initial view of its quality. In this way catalogues speed up data analysis projects considerably.

Some of our favourite examples are Nomisweb for demonstrating the breadth and depth of government open data, Plymouth City Council as an excellent showcase for local government transparency, and OpenAQ for their accessible resource on national air quality measurements.

Once you have the data, the next most difficult bit is figuring out how to make it useful. What problem does it solve? What question does it answer? How do you do the analysis and create the visualisation that will show that in the most appropriate way for the audience you have in mind?
This data catalogue won't help you with that part, although here are a few examples you might like to look at for inspiration.

• - Using the OpenAQ API: Air quality map
  
• - Using the Nomisweb data query tool: Demographic info by area
  
• - Using Plymouth City Council data: Footfall counts in parks
  

But we're not here to tell you what to do. What we really want is to make it possible for you to go out and get the data and make what you want with it. If you do build something interesting with any of these data sets, or if you come across more interesting data, please let us know and we will update the catalogue so others can benefit in turn.

Explore the data catalogue