King's launches new open data toolkit to empower entrepreneurs and accelerate citizen science

Based on over fourteen peer-reviewed papers and the ODI’s practical guidance, the framework offers businesses, public bodies and individual citizens a step-by-step process for how to publish their data to inform how others might take their research further or improve public services.

Open data is data that is freely available for anyone to access, use and share and high-quality data is vital to create opportunities for businesses and accurately train AI. Since Transport for London began publishing open data on its journeys in 2017, services built using this data, including Citymapper, have generated up to £130 million a year for the UK economy.

High-quality open data will also be vital for establishing a National Data Library, a key element of the UK’s AI Opportunities Action Plan to ‘mainline AI into the veins’ of the UK economy, boosting productivity in the workplace and accelerating the rate of scientific discovery. 

However, open data is often published in a form based on the preferences of the organisation that holds the information. At all levels of industry and across sectors, open data publishing requires extensive support backed by research expertise. Failure to align to the needs of potential users is widespread, leading to the under-utilisation of much of this data.

This is particularly concerning for citizen scientists, who rely on this data to hold institutions to account through projects like IMPETUS which provides resources, support, and recognition for citizen science initiatives across Europe. Without the ability to effectively use this data and share their own findings in an accessible and findable format, citizen scientists can struggle to gather and disseminate their research.

The User-centric Open Data Publishing Toolkit helps provide citizen scientists with high quality data created by the community to carry on their work, and the ability to disseminate their research in an accessible and relevant way.

Dr Gefion Thuermer, Research Fellow in the Department of Informatics and technical coordinator of IMPETUS, said “Like all scientists, citizen scientists need access to and the ability to disseminate high-quality and accessible data. This toolkit provides crucial support for them to publish in a format most beneficial to their stakeholders.”

Now launched, the toolkit will be continuously updated to use generative AI to support more complete metadata and expand search terms to better surface relevant for a variety of users.

Professor Elena Simperl, co-Director of the King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Director of Research at the Open Data Institute said of the project, “Open and accessible data that users can quickly get to grips with is vital to improving services and transparency in an increasingly connected digital world. This work is about empowering an ecosystem of co-creators to continuously innovate, developing services and research plans which serve the public good.”