eightinsight
- Created by
- Creative Possums (Robert Tooker, Prashant Raju)
- data.australia.gov.au datasets used
- Other datasets used
- Flickr API; OpenAustralia.org API; ABS
Eightinsight is a collection of data from the ABS, OpenAustralia.org, and data.australia.gov.au.
The data is organised into four sections which give the user the ability to relate the progress of Australia to the federal government for key topics. This gives a simple introduction into how parliament relates to Australia’s progress and performance.
The data is viewable by state as well as national, and in most cases over time. The OpenAustralia.org API is also used to retrieve relevant debates in the senate, linking back to OpenAustralia.org for the full hansard (transcript of parliament).
In principle, this is a good idea.
It’s main problem is that it suffers from information lag, and lacks the depth to compensate for that. This is not necessarily their fault, but it impinges on the site nonetheless.
Also, for people in business or government locations with internet filters, the images on the front page are unviewable. And because you can’t click on them and do anything useful I was very confused at first.
However, the layout and general look and feel is really good, and if the government starts releasing some more timely information this should become a really great resource.
Really good points. It’s difficult when the ABS data source for “2009″ goes only to 2006 in categories such as greenhouse gasses. Despite that, I hope the concept still comes across.
As for depth, the idea was to simplify the data without information overload. That said, a bit of drill through could work well.
I hadn’t even considered that internet filters would exclude flickr – I guess we’re lucky to have a fairly open policy on internet use. As these are licensed under creative commons there is the option to fall back to a cached image, I will look into that.
Thanks for the feedback.
Rob