The advances in information technologies are bringing about a continuous increase in their usage by state authorities, government and executive bodies as well as the general public. This is resulting in an increasing amount of data that is being generated on a daily basis by these entities.
Apart from presenting new challenges when it comes to harvesting and processing such data, its availability as Open Data presents new exciting opportunities where this data can be used for the public good.
EU Governments are required by law to make their data (or parts of it depending on factors such as privacy) accessible for general consumption. These governments provide support for different initiatives such as electronic governance, electronic parliament and electronic council, which are related to Open Government and Open Parliament, intended to increase openness and become more citizen-centric.
Open data is one of the most important openness components of state institutions. Openness today does not only mean open publications and updated data, produced by state institutions and authorities in the process of their work.
Open data means that this data is machine readable, that is it may be processed by machines, computer programs etc. In the local sphere, a typical example of data that is accessible but not as yet open is the Parliamentary Questions (PQs) that are collected during each parliamentary sitting.
These PQs are made available on the Parliament’s portal through a form-based search facility. The number of PQs across all the recent legislatures is more than 150K, with over 25K being asked in the current legislature alone. Through the apps4Parliament project, the Department of Intelligent Computer Systems within the Faculty of ICT at the University of Malta is working with the Office of the Speaker to create a number of apps that make the Parliament data more open, searchable and accessible.
Dr. Charlie Abela and Dr. Joel Azzopardi from the department are involved in this project and together with students James Farrugia and Ayrton Azzopardi have recently presented a prototype of an app during the first episode of an informational television programme, produced by the Office of the Speaker, and aired on Parliament TV.
The app leverages on the interaction between the Members of Parliament (MP) from the different parties and presents an interesting, interactive visualisation through which users can more intuitively understand questions like: who asked whom about what, who asked the most and who answered the most PQs.
Furthermore, the app uses linked data techniques to link the PQ data with data coming from the MPs’ profiles and other sources, to contextualise better individual PQs. Apps4Parliament aims at opening up parliamentary data and giving the general public the means to analyse parliamentary processes, monitor activities of MPs and committees, and seek accountability.
It is intended to help the citizens understand how the parliament works, involve them in the parliamentary processes, explain to them the law-making logic, and increase their political culture. In addition to this collaboration, the Department of ICS, through its Artificial Intelligence degrees at the Faculty of ICT within the University of Malta, aims to be at the forefront when it comes to processing data from all aspects of society be it medical, historical or political.
The BSC ICT in AI and MSc A.I. courses are aimed to inspire a new generation of professionals that deal with emerging technologies such as Big Data, Cloud Computing, Web Intelligence, Internet of Things, Robotics, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Artificial Vision. For further information about this and other projects that are in the pipeline, please send us an email on [email protected]