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The Fundamentals of Data-driven Storytelling
An IntroduIf it worked for Ection to Data LiteracyThe Fundamentals of Data-driven StorytellingProcurement Data Crash Course
The Fundamentals of Data-driven Storytelling
An IntroduIf it worked for Ection to Data LiteracyThe Fundamentals of Data-driven StorytellingProcurement Data Crash Course
  • About this course
    • Course Introduction
  • Module 1 - Find
    • 1.1 How to Find Data for Storytelling and journalism
      • Starting with a question
      • Open data portals and platforms
      • Other sources of data
    • 1.2 How to get better data from a Goolge Search
      • Searching for filetypes and formats
      • More on Advanced Search operators
      • Other common Google Search operators
    • 1.3 Sourcing your own data
      • Creating a Google Form for Research
      • Creating a questionnaire with TypeForm
      • Using quizzes and comments as a sources of data
  • Module 2 - Get
    • 2.1 Turning websites and PDFs into machine readable data
      • Scraping data with Tabula
    • 2.2 An introduction to spreadsheet software
      • Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel and Libre Office Calc.
      • Finding your way around a spreadsheet
      • Simple web scraping with Google Sheets
  • Module 3 - Verify
    • 3.1 Can I use this data in my work?
      • Initial steps for verification
      • What do these column headings mean?
  • Module 4 - Clean
    • 4.1 What to do with disorganised data?
      • Why is clean data important?
      • Keep your data organised
      • Cleaning data cheatsheet
  • Module 5 - Analyse
    • 5.1 What is the story within the data?
      • Spreadsheet rows, columns, cells and tabs
        • Spreadsheet formats, forumlas and essential shortcuts
          • Using the VLOOKUP Function
            • Combine Data From Multiple Spreadsheets
    • 5.2 How to turn numbers into stories
  • Module 6 - Visualise
    • 6.1 Ways we visualise data
    • 6.2 Why we visualize Data
    • 6.3 How to visualise data
  • Course Testing & Feedback
    • ⏱️Quick course exam
    • 🎓Extended course exam
    • 📝Survey and feedback
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  1. Module 1 - Find
  2. 1.1 How to Find Data for Storytelling and journalism

Open data portals and platforms

If you are lucky, the data to answer your question may have been gathered and published in an open data portal platform. These are places where data is made freely available to the public for the purposes of research. The data may be subject to a particular usage licence, but should be downloadable for analysis and visualisation.

Open data portals may be maintained by a government agency, such as StatsSA, or they might be published by a multinational non-govermental organisation, such as The World Bank. You will also find academic institutions hosting data portals, such as the Berkley Earth climate data repository. Some civil society organisations, such as OpenUp, also work to "liberate" data from closed, offline formats and turn it into machine readable formats.

What is "Open" and "Closed" data?

Data might be "closed" if it is:

  • Not published publically at all (eg. email data)

  • Only published in an offline format (ie. printed)

  • Published with a restrictive copyright licence

  • Published in a format that is not easy to import into a spreadsheet, such as a PDF

Open data is usually:

  • Published in a machine readable format that you can download (eg. a CSV file)

  • Published under a licence that says you can use it for your purposes without asking for permission

In addition, it should be well maintained and up-to-date.

Examples of Open Data Repositories

As we previous explained open data platforms and portals are created for a variety of different reasons such as contextualizing, procurement and budgeting, entrepreneurship and a wide range of other reasons. Here are some examples.

  • National stats offices (and central banks)

  • World Bank

  • IMF

  • Africa Data Hub

  • UN Data, UN Food and Agricultural Org, World Health Organization

  • Open Knowledge Foundation Global Open Data Index

  • University of Cape Town’s DataFirst microlibrary

  • African Development Bank’s Data Portal

  • National Research Foundation (NRF) South African Data Archive

  • Open Data Africa

  • OpenAfrica Data Portal

  • National Research Foundation (NRF)’s Committee on Data for Science and Technology’s Database of Data Resources in Africa

  • Africa: Tracking Internet Progress in Data & Numbers

Contextualising South Africa

Statistics South Africa

Wazimap

Youth Explorer GCRO Quality of Life Survey

South African Budget Data Portals

Vulekamali

Municipal Money

Entrepreneurship

World Bank Doing Business Data and New Business Density Survey

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Data

Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute (GEDI) Data

Other examples of useful data sources or resources

Nemisa k4i Digital Skills Survey

OpenGazettes

CIPC Business and IP Search

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Last updated 1 year ago