TACTIC 7: CASE STUDY
MAKE IT SIMPLE
how to use complex data
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Case Study
| TITLE: WHO: WHERE: WEBSITE: |
Fair Play Fair Play Alliance Bratislava, Slovakia Fair Play Alliance |
DESCRIPTION
Using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, Fair Play gathers invoices and other documents that show how the Slovakian government spends its money, adds this material to a database connected to its website, and invites people to use this information to influence political change. Zuzana Wienk from Fair Play says, "We started to experiment with this during a huge scandal we had in Slovakia recently concerning European Union (EU) funding. The media learnt that contracts were given to companies that are closely connected to the government’s leaders. Using FOI laws we started to request more and more data about contracts between these companies and Ministers, also requesting invoices and other accounting data. We produced graphs from this information and put them online, and we also scanned all the invoices and made them available." Soon after doing this, NGOs, journalists, concerned citizens and academics started to analyse the data themselves and write about it. "There were very active forums based on these articles", says Zuzana. "This made us feel it was important to include the public in these investigations – that people have the interest, skills and expertise". By making the information easy to access, a debate was created around public spending and pressure for change became so great that one Slovak construction minister had to resign.
| TOOLS USED: | Custom-built database, using open source tools (mySQL, Apache server, and PHP). Data imported from Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests, in Excel spreadsheets, but sometimes they needed to be scanned or retyped. Web-scrapers are used to bring in data from online sources. |
| REACH: | The project tracks public spending in the Slovakian government. It is now expanding to track assets of Slovak members of European Parliament. During the EU funding scandal, the Fair Play website was one of the top three most visited in Slovakia. |
| RESOURCES: | Student volunteers assist in updating the database. Volunteer developers and programmers attended a BarCamp organised by Fair Play to plan the project. |
| TIME: | Nine months to get the first database up in 2003. Updated continuously, every three to 12 months, with data from new FOIA requests. |
LEVEL Of DIFFICULTY: 4.5
COST:USD$4000 in 2003 for the first programming and technical phase. One coordinator was employed in 2004 to update the database, costing USD$12,000.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE:
Fair Play database (slovak language)