Chapter 2: Constructing a Vision

2.1 Community Impact

This section discusses some strategies to identify the community impact, both the benefits and risks, of an open data portal.

We have found that many universities’ data ecosystems are complicated to navigate — datasets are hard to find and there is a lack of knowledge as to which datasets even exist. In addition, most of these datasets only exist in a PDF format, which disincentivizes and, to some extent, prevents curious community members from analyzing or visualizing the data. For example, every year US universities publish a Common Dataset in line with federal law with data on enrollment, student characteristics, finances, and more. The yearly nature of this data makes it prime for historical analysis — but the fact that the data is in PDF format and isn’t connected to previous years makes it difficult for community members to embark on an analysis.

Here are several key stakeholders who would benefit from easier access to university data:

To do this successfully, it is important to include a broad and diverse set of communities in the need-finding and data governance processes to make better decisions about which datasets to prioritize acquiring, as well as how to work with the data. Additionally, proactive attention on empowering marginalized communities will help you identify datasets that should exist, and set you up to work with the relevant entities to locate, obtain, or create these datasets.

Finally, in building the product, identify a targeted set of potential users. Ideally, they will be invested in the final product and can contribute to the development with ideas, user feedback, and testing. When building a community-facing product, it is important to involve potential users in the development process.

Open data can be powerful, but it also comes with risks. Refer to the Data Governance section for a comprehensive breakdown of challenges and how to mitigate them.

2.2 Mission Statement

Having an organizational mission statement is useful to align high-level goals, promote an organizational culture, and portray external legitimacy. Here are some goals to consider:

• Transparency: University operations should be broadly accessible for the campus community it serves.
• Engagement: Members of the campus should be empowered with information to be involved in the broader campus community.
• Accountability: Open data can ensure accountability from universities to act in the best interests of their community members.
• Build: Open data organizations provide valuable experience to their members in building useful public-facing tools.
• Educate: Open data organizations can benefit their members and the broader community educationally by increasing data-related skill sets and awareness for builders and the broader community.

2.3 Team

• Product: Motivated by understanding the community’s open data needs, creating the vision, and shaping the team’s work to align with these high-level goals.
• Backend: Building out the infrastructure for hosting and managing data is essential for success.
• Frontend: The representation of data on your portal is the difference between “open data” and “available data.”
• Outreach: A technical platform is useless without the data to showcase. Work within members of your community to gain access to that data, and maintain those relationships.
• Data Governance: It is important to understand the data landscape and foster relationships with key members in the university’s data governance structure.
• User Experience: A major downfall for many existing data portals is the complexity in their interfaces. Working with users and catering the experience to real applications of your platform allows your data to become accessible.
• Journalism / Data Visualization: Beyond the data itself, analysis is a strong component of your platform. Keeping these users in mind will continue to advise your structural decisions.
• Operations: As you expand your team, keeping track of all of the moving parts will become increasingly difficult. It’s worth having someone to help manage these growing pains.

2.4 Motivating the Team

Building a passionate, sustainable team isn’t easy—think about how you’ll keep everyone excited and engaged for the long haul. You may be motivated by the mission of opening data at your university, a desire to build a widely used product, or learning skills. Of course, many teammates will be encouraged, at least in part, by external motivators. These may include grades, academic credit, recognition, and resume items—and they’re all valid reasons for undertaking a new endeavor in college.

If you have students motivated by grades and academic credit, consider seeking to complete the project as part of an “independent study.” For students motivated by recognition and resume items, consider applying for an incubator program. Additionally, titles like “Head of Product” cost nothing to dole out and are perfect for a resume!

Finally, these incentives often have the added benefit of imposing deadlines for the team. As a result, this provides another valuable motivation to help bring the project to fruition.

2.5 Lessons from Other Initiatives

The data ecosystem at your university can be complex. You should learn how faculty and student groups like your school newspaper currently access, store, and analyze data.

In addition to understanding the landscape at your own school, utilize what has already been done in order to showcase the capabilities of university open data portals (see case studies). Not only will this go a long way to show the feasibility of your project, but it will also aid in demonstrating the positive impact an open data portal has brought in other university settings.

2.6 Finding a Faculty Advisor

Any project with faculty endorsement gains instant credibility with the administration that you will inevitably be in contact with. The more time you put into choosing the right faculty member and facilitating your relationship with them, the better you can leverage that relationship into propelling your project forward.

2.7 Key Data Sources

An open data portal relies on aggregating large quantities of existing data that community members find useful. Obtaining such data requires partnerships with data stewards or owners on a university campus. It is important to identify and reach out to such stakeholders early in order to ensure wide usage of your portal. Typical stakeholders include the institutional research office, campus newspaper, police department, office of alcohol policy, registrar’s office, public health department, student government, campus housing, athletic department, admissions office, campus organizations, IT office, libraries, and data governance office.

To successfully collect datasets, you should be prepared to answer questions about your data portal such as use cases, risk mitigation, and data governance. Your level of data access can vary depending on the source; some may already have infrastructure in place to access their data while others may need you to aggregate the data on your own.

2.8 Slide Deck

Prepare a slide deck that explains the aspects of your vision discussed in this section. Remember your target audience, which can include administration, other data partners, funding sources, and new recruits. As such, it would help to have either modular slide decks or multiple versions.