Comments on: Guardian Datastore MPs’ Expenses Spreadsheet as a Database

By: More Thoughts on a Content Strategy for Data – Many Eyes and Google Fusion Tables « OUseful.Info, the blog…

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:53:21 +0000

[...] Services such as Google Spreadsheets provide online spreadsheets that support traditional spreadsheet operations that include chart generation (using standard chart types familiar to spreadsheet users) and support for interactive graphical widgets (including more exotic chart types, such as tree maps), powered by spreadsheet data, that can be embedded in third party webpages. Simple aggregate reshaping of data is provided in the from of support for Pivot Tables. (Note however that Google Spreadsheet functionality is sometimes a little bug ridden…) Google spreadsheets also provides a powerful query API (the Google Visulisation API), that allows the spreadsheet to be treated as a database. For an example in another government domain, see Government Spending Data Explorer; see also Guardian Datastore MPs’ Expenses Spreadsheet as a Database ). [...]

By: So Where Do the Numbers in Government Reports Come From? « OUseful.Info, the blog…

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:30:00 +0000

[...] Search « Guardian Datastore MPs’ Expenses Spreadsheet as a Database [...]

By: ‘Let’s stop being patronising and talk about distributed journalism’ – notes from #newsrw « How to microblog in high heels

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 11:14:36 +0000

[...] yourself will encourage others to do the same. He cited the Guardian’s datastore as an example (blog on it here). The main point from his talk (slideshare.net/onlinejournalist) was building a user-driven project [...]

By: Simon Rogers

Simon Rogers — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:20:27 +0000

Hi Tony – have mastered new settings now and the doc is fully public.

On the second point – eh? As I said, am a bit dense today…

By: Tony Hirst

Tony Hirst — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:08:01 +0000

Ah – hmmm… I thought you must have opted to share the link, rather than make the spreadsheet public?

But the questions remain valid, I think? Is there a way you can publish a view over a particular subset, collection or arrangement of data from public sources, that required effort on your part, and that allows you legitimately to expect some sort of period of exclusive or licensed exploitation of that view?

PS your response also helps me learn another lesson – if I was following a journalistic process, I’d have checked my facts and got in touch with you before I posted the above, wouldn’t I?!;-)

By: Simon Rogers

Simon Rogers — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:04:47 +0000

OK, interestingly, Google Docs appeared to have changed their settings so that you can’t access a google spreadsheet with the cut-down url anymore, without logging in to google docs. I can’t see a way around this – can anyone else?

In the meantime, you can still opt to just download the spreadsheet into any format – and do whatever you like with it. We’re not trying to retain ownership over anything.

Simon Rogers

editor, Guardian Datablog

By: Simon Rogers

Simon Rogers — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:56:08 +0000

Er, not entirely. As you know, Google Docs have changed their sharing options recently – it automatically creates the auth key when you opt to share the document, so it’s certainly not intentional on our part. I’ll change the address now on the post.