Networking with our OD colleagues!

From 31 May to 1 June ODC launched a 2-days workshop to network with the Open Development Initiative (ODI) teams from Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos. The aim was to get to know each other better, increase knowledge and deepen skills related to WordPress and CKAN application to produce effective contents, inform about approaches and tools have been used by ODC to build partnership, collaboration, outreach activities with local and international partners as well as relevant stakeholders.

First the participants interviewed each other to learn more about everyone is doing, as well as about special favorite foods and activities. To meet the expectations of all the Open Development team, executive director Mr. Thy Try collected all their areas of interest. In addition to networking, the team was so interested in the structure of ODC, data visualization tools, WordPress and ODs data management platform CKAN.

The goal of ODC is to provide data about Cambodia oriented on the needs and wishes of the users. Ms. Siv Vatana, ODC research and content officer, showed the team the structure of the ODC website and explained the purpose of “profile pages” and “topic pages”. It was interesting to talk about the ODC page with the team and receive feedback from them.

And how to get from an idea to a topic page? Mr. Simon Ross, Content supporter from the regional team, shared his experiences to do the research and tool how to draft a good topic page. As the OD teams pointed out, a local context, understandable data visualization, an interesting content and unbiased data are most important for OD´s pages. The participants received insightful advice how to structure their research and how to produce objective information. Here is one of the tips: “Let data tells the story, and try to prepare the content like you are going to explain one thing to your mother!”

Now we have a relevant story for a topic page. But it is crucial for users of OD´s Data to know, where the information come from and where to find them. Mr. Prum Punwath, ODC data researcher and GIS officer, demonstrated how to manage the data and references on CKAN, which is one of the open source software for open data catalogs, where all information, the so called “metadata”, is fed into. Together we identified which formats are the best for open data, and which file extension is easily to access for the users without the advance program. The process seems to be complicated as first, but Punwath promise that with some practice everyone can use CKAN fruitfully. And don´t worry, the ODC team is always happy to help. Ms Heng Huy Eng, ODC IT and Website director, has also shared how to report bugs and errors with CKAN or WordPress.

The first day of the workshop was very exciting and intense and all were happy to celebrate the gathering of all OD teams with a great dinner on a boat trip on the Mekong river.

The second day started with the beautiful side of data: data visualization! Mr Daniel Aboagye, ODC data researcher, provided an overview of different useful data visualization tools, explained how to use them and highlighted the pros and cons of every programme. A functional visualization should include information, a coherent story, a goal and a visual form. But when to use which graph? Daniel helped to find the right visualization form for different topics. An insider tip: Maps are a great way to visualize data and simplify information! So the participants learned to create a simple map and deepened their own visualization skills.

At the afternoon was the crucial session for the OD network member. This session the whole team learned about the ODC success stories and monitoring as a open data platform in Cambodia, and also the sharing of how to strengthening cooperation and partnership, and how to disseminate platform products to other key stakeholders. Ms. Doch Sotheavin, ODC research and partnership officer, has shown all the promotional activities that ODC has been conducting and also shared the network team on how to promote the platform with the universities as a guest lecture and so on. Besides the success, Mr.Try also shared the challenges and also the lesson learnt with the open question for the network team. 

We were very excited to meet all the OD teams and looking forward to further cooperation in the future!