The first UK Open Data Camp, Winchester

As the first ‘unconference’ I’ve attended, I was initially nervous that sanctioned chaos was about to break out. Thankfully, due to a deceptively laid-back but in fact highly efficient organising team, everything ran like clockwork. Subjects were not arranged in advance but any attendee was free to run a session over the two days, ranging from organised presentations to more open facilitations of discussion. What particularly struck me about the sessions was, while there were naturally a number based on potential uses of OD, at least 50% were concerned with sharing information about or improving current, implemented use of OD. It was clear amongst the attendees that OD has arrived and is offering more than a promise of future gains. There was even a session with a company who were utilising OD commercially and profitably.

Web Science CDT student Mark Frank led a very well-attended session on Data Literacy, asking what is it? Who needs it? How do we communicate it? The Open Knowledge Foundation blogged about this and other sessions here.

Chris Gutteridge of WAIS led a session on the uses of data.ac.uk, which was live drawn by artist Matt as well as being live-blogged.

See here for all the blogs (and pictures) of the day plus other attendees’ views.