WikiNZ and our new Internet data portal

WikiNZ and our new Internet data portal

This is a blog post that has appeared on InternetNZ's website at: https://internetnz.nz/blog/wikinz-and-our-new-internet-data-portal.

While we are talking about cool launches, big ups to Wiki New Zealand for their relaunch the other day. That is one gorgeous looking new website: http://wikinewzealand.org/

Even more gorgeous than the website is the data presented on it. To me, this is an example of Internet Use at its very best - creating something new, disseminating information further and easier than ever before, and encouraging use and reuse to foster the ideas of others. I'll leave the rest to WikiNZ's own words:

“To democratise data we need to put users at the centre of our models, we need to design our systems and processes for users of data, and we need to realise that everyone can be a user. We will all win when everyone can make evidence-based decisions.

Wiki New Zealand is a charity devoted to getting people to use data about New Zealand

We do this by pulling together New Zealand's public sector, private sector and academic data in one place and making it easy for people to use in simple graphical form for free through this website.”

Viva la THAT.

WikiNZ tells me that this is just the beginning in terms of feature-set and level of interactivity and collaboration - more will be rolled out soon. I should also mention as well that NZRS has been involved with WikiNZ for a while now as one of their patrons, as you can see here: http://wikinewzealand.org/patrons/ - thanks NZRS!

There is plenty of data about the Internet in New Zealand that is not as available, accessible and/or usable as it could be. And we want to change that.

With that in mind, we're working with WikiNZ on building a new Internet Data Portal here at InternetNZ. This will be a component of the InternetNZ website, and will be a new home for any and all of the publicly available, creative-commons allowed data about the Internet in New Zealand that we can get our hands on. WikiNZ will host that data, and pour it into their beautiful charts; we will build a site that can host those charts and provide a space for our commentary and analysis of what we see.

Our goal is to make this new Internet Data Portal the new home for data about the Internet in New Zealand. This data will be a vital source of information for the work we do at InternetNZ, to help us be informed and credible in what we work towards. But it will also be a resource for the New Zealand Internet Community, both through us hosting that data and analysis of it, and also through building it into the WikiNZ ecosystem. Its our goal that this data will be available, accessible and usable for as many purposes as possible, and that indeed many new uses will be found.

We're really excited about this, and we are already underway. You can expect to hear more about this new Data Portal over the next few months. In the mean time though, well done WikiNZ!

ENDS

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