One of the concerns among crime analysts that arose out of our meeting in September was that there is often little information provided about data that they might like to use. For example it might not be clear how it was produced (what assumptions were made), when it was produced, whether or not it is still relevant, how accurate it is etc. This makes the data difficult for professionals to use because unless they are confident in it they can't make any certain conclusions - this is particularly important because it might feed into crime reduction policy.
One of the ways round this problem is to use good metadata (data that describe data). So, to coincide with our beta data releases we have published associated metadata that describe how the roads and buildings were generated, when they were created, where they can be downloaded from, who can be contacted for more information etc. We made use of the GeoDoc tool (part of the GoGeo project) which made the whole process incredibly easy and we will continue to release metadata once the final products are ready. This also has the advantage that it's easy for people to find the data by using the GoGeo search tool:
One of the ways round this problem is to use good metadata (data that describe data). So, to coincide with our beta data releases we have published associated metadata that describe how the roads and buildings were generated, when they were created, where they can be downloaded from, who can be contacted for more information etc. We made use of the GeoDoc tool (part of the GoGeo project) which made the whole process incredibly easy and we will continue to release metadata once the final products are ready. This also has the advantage that it's easy for people to find the data by using the GoGeo search tool:
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