‘Acceptability of Open Data’..
Governments and Business are currently exploring Open Data as the opportunity to make both spheres more efficient and effective. It is felt that openness will engender more use by citizens of such and more competition between businesses. Citizen science allow individuals to make contribution to society which may make advances in our understanding more rapidly. There are ethical concerns about the use of data with recent scandals and the use organizations or citizens make of such data. These are partially addressed by the new regulatory framework GDPR. In this climate university research wants to establish the views and opinions about the acceptability of Open Data. It is thought that there may be more acceptance amongst young people, but other groups in the population need to be considered as well. Your task is to design a survey approach to tackle the issue of ‘Acceptability of Open Data’. This includes exploring the best approach to administering a questionnaire and the development of the questionnaire. The role of the survey will be to explore citizens’ views and concerns over Open Data and to find out whether groups of citizens are willing to accept the release of such data. This would be: 1) a general overview of both positive and negative attitudes about release of Open Data; 2) an estimate of the proportion of groups who may have positive or negative attitudes to acceptability; The groups suggested by the research such as, but there might be others: • Gender; • Age; • Ethnicity. Task: To write a research proposal REPORT for the research which should outline the following: 1. The target population and relevant segments within it (10 points). 2. The sampling method you plan to use with the sampling frame (where appropriate) and details of how this sample will be selected (15 points). 3. Method(s) of data collection (i.e. questionnaire/focus groups/in-depth interviews) (10 points). 4. Method(s) of administration (i.e. postal, face-to-face, telephone, e-mail, etc) (10 points). Each of the above should include the justification of your choices. 1 QUESTIONNAIRE (40 points). If an adopted research design involves several data collection methods/instruments, only one questionnaire should be included, but the remaining data collection instruments should be described in the report, with comments made regarding the relationship between all data collection instruments used. The REPORT should be no longer than 1000 words (excluding the questionnaire). The QUESTIONNAIRE devised should be no longer than 20 questions in length and should be contained within an appendix. Presentation of the questionnaire should be such that it could be used immediately, i.e. professional presentation, question routing and response categories made clear etc., and care should be taken to ensure that the content addresses all areas outlined in the research objectives. Additional 15 points will be given for presentation, credibility (the extent the project is realistic) and logical cohesion (e.g., the suggested sampling method can be implemented with the proposed method of administration). The ELECTRONIC file of the project should be submitted via Turnitin on Learn by 2.00pm on Wednesday 30th October 2019. Please see the Procedures for Coursework Submission in the Coursework folder on Learn. The project is to be completed as an individual piece of work. Please note the policy on plagiarism and the penalties for late submission, which are posted on Learn. You DO NOT have to collect any information with your questionnaire. Only a report and copy of the questionnaire are required for the assignment. However, you may want to pilot your questionnaire on a friend. PLEASE DO NOT approach any organisations in connection with this piece of work. The exercise is fictitious. If you wish to discuss please contact those teaching on the course. Some of the sources you might wish to explore aspects of Open Data are the following websites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data https://data.gov.uk/ https://theodi.org/ https://www.opendata.nhs.scot/ https://www.nesta.org.uk/project/open-data-scotland/ https://www.gov.scot/publications/open-data-strategy/ Important: The REPORT should be no longer than 1000 words (excluding the questionnaire). The QUESTIONNAIRE devised should be no longer than 20 questions in length and should be contained within an appendix!!!