[CivicAccess-discuss] Toronto Star: You be the detective

[Gabe Sawhney]

The Toronto Star has published a interactive feature based on 400,000 rows
of data about work orders at the Toronto District School Board.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/06/19/you_be_the_detective_and_check_out_the_tdsb.html

You be the detective.
> Today, the Toronto Star launches School Work
> <http://www.thestar.com/news/toronto_district_school_board_repair_spending.html>,
> a project that allows readers — parents, teachers, students and others — to
> look at how money is being spent in Toronto’s aging public schools. Find
> your school at School Work
> <http://www.thestar.com/news/toronto_district_school_board_repair_spending.html>.
> Tell us if you think too much is being spent on some jobs. Tell us what
> jobs need doing to make your school a better, safer learning environment.
> Remember the $143 pencil sharpener <http://on.thestar.com/1lTzAMk> installation?
> That’s where the idea came from.

 Unlike some other data-driven Star features, this one seems to *not* offer
the raw data for download.

Still, there's an explanation of their process and rationale...


Making the data accessible to our readers
> We decided very soon after getting the data that we were going to open it
> up to our readership for shared scrutiny. The lab developers put the data
> into a database with a flexible data schema. The design and interaction
> team sketched out what different groups within our readership (parents with
> kids in school, teachers, principals, facilities contractors, data experts)
> would want from the data. We wrote up ‘story-boards’ that played out how
> different readers might navigate and flag data. The key to making a 400,000
> item data set accessible, we decided, was the creation of school pages, and
> grouping the cost items by category (gym, cafeteria, fire alarm
> inspections, mulch) and by job trade (carpenter, electrician).

http://www.thestar.com/news/toronto_district_school_board_repair_spending.html
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