Open Data + Open Source:
Mapping electoral districts &
MP voting records
MP voting records
International Open Data Day 2016
Rebecca Bartlett
GIS & Digital Resources Librarian / @bec_bart
Jen Whitney
Systems Librarian, Integration & Emerging Technologies / @toastncheez
Open Data Book Club
Monthly meetup hosted by Open Data Ottawa / @OpenDataOttawa
Open data enthusiasts get together to explore datasets and tools for mining, analyzing, visualizing data
Theme for October 2015 was electoral data
Our goals? Learn about open data, explore Leaflet, expand library's GIS service offerings
Parliamentary Data
OpenParliament.ca
Not an official government site ("not even sort of")
Aggregates data from Parliament of Canada pages
For developers: a JSON API, bulk data download
GIS Data
GeoGratis.ca
"Find free maps, data, and publications to use without restriction" from Natural Resources Canada
Dataset used: Federal Electoral Districts 2011
Electoral district shapefile also available from Statistics Canada but GeoGratis specifically cites Open Government License - Canada
Putting it together
PostgreSQL
Load bulk data download into Postgres.app
Query MP details (name, photo, riding, party) & associate with federal electoral district identifier
Aggregate vote activity in second session of 41st Parliament
In order to join to GIS data, deduped after aggregation so 1 entry per FED
QGIS
Simplified geometry of electoral district shapefile to speed up data loading in final map
Joined queried MP data to shapefile using electoral district identifier
Exported as GeoJSON file for mapping with Leaflet
...except that didn't work so ran QGIS KML through CartoDB to generate functioning GeoJSON
Leaflet
Leaflet is an open-source JavaScript library
for mobile-friendly interactive maps
Jen: all code, no cartography
Leaflet
Leaflet is an open-source JavaScript library
for mobile-friendly interactive maps
Rebecca: all cartography, very little code
Leaflet
Initialized with CartoDB Positron basemap
Loaded GeoJSON data file
Electoral districts styled according to party, with pop-ups showing MP details
Slider control filters MPs by vote participation
Issues
UTF-8 encoding problems (ô, é, etc.)
Mapping MP Vote Activity
Software, etc.
Postgres.app, a Mac app for PostgreSQL databases
QGIS geographic information system
Leaflet JavaScript library for custom online mapmaking
CartoDB online mapping tool & basemap provider
Atom source code editor
git version control system
Github, a platform for code sharing & and collaboratve development
Open Data Websites
Municipal, regional, provincial, and territorial open data websites in Canada
Thanks!
rebecca.bartlett@carleton.ca / jennifer.whitney@carleton.ca