Ismael-KG
commented
2 years ago Hi @polly64 - just two comments from me!
Firstly, regarding The Turing Way. The main reason I brought them up is their community's expertise in (i) licensing (which we discussed a few weeks ago), (ii) and community management (mostly, their approach to developing a code of conduct.
On (i) licensing, @matkoniecz was very clear earlier this month and mitigated any concern I might have had! Regarding (ii) codes of conduct, I had was unaware (or had forgotten) the one you already have and which you mention under PROTOCOL 7. My only doubt with your code of conduct is the escalation to dataprotection@turing.ac.uk. I don't have a precise alternative but it is probably one we should work on.
Secondly, on PROTOCOL 1, you provide an inclusion criteria for potential partners (i.e.: they must be "set up to advance knowledge for the public good" and so on). However, other than "[must adhere to] accreditation protocols overseen by national higher education authorities, [and] are permanent bodies," I can't imagine many organisations saying they don't meet the criteria. This might very well be intentional, but I just wonder if exclusion criteria should also be included (e.g.: organisations that do x, y and z will not be considered for partnership).
Also, I really like the example of the approach in the UK under PROTOCOL 2. As the project grows and international teams figure out their own models, it would be great to see how they've all developed to provide more models for potential partners (and then have a huge, cross-cultural analysis of research groups in about thirty years time, haha).
polly64
COLOURING CITIES RESEARCH PROGRAMME (CCRP) PROTOCOLS & LIVE MANUAL DRAFT Please note the Colouring Cities manual is now being edited at https://github.com/colouring-cities/manual/wiki
SECTION 1: WHAT IS THE CCRP?
The Colouring Cities Research Programme (CCRP) is run at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK's National Institute of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. Its aim is to improve the quality and sustainability of national stocks, in line with United Nations' New Urban Agenda goals, and to increase the sharing data across countries to better understand the stock as a dynamic system. The CCRP builds on open code development carried out on the Colouring London prototype at The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London between 2016 and 2020. The Initiative moved to the Alan Turing in 2020 to expand internationally through the CCRP.
The CCRP supports an international network of public research institutions interested in developing and managing open source, integrated Colouring Cities databases/knowledge exchange platforms based on the Colouring London prototype. These platforms are designed to provide comprehensive open spatial data at building and sub-building level on national buildings stocks- and data on their built and natural context. Data are designed to be made accessible to the public/diverse stakeholders involved in managing, conserving, adapting, designing, building, using and researching into the building stock, and to be shared across the CCRP network to support joint research including the development of simulation and forecasting models and the use of AI and machine learning to identify and help unpick patterns and problem .
The programme also offers a friendly, informal, creative, non-competitive and experimental space in which multidisciplinary research teams interested in meeting UN New Urban Agenda goals, and in open data and data ethics. can co-work on content and code. The CCRP currently involves academic departments from eight countries, bringing together expertise in open data, data ethics, data science, computer science and software engineering, artificial intelligence, machine learning, urban science, procedural modelling, physics, architectural history, environmental science, material science, conservation and heritage, housing, planning and architecture, crowdsourcing, community engagement, graphic design and colour. The programme promotes Alan Turing's belief that“The isolated man does not develop any intellectual power. It is necessary for him to be immersed in an environment of other[s]…The search for new techniques must be regarded as carried out by the human community as a whole, rather than by individuals.” Alan Turing. https://www.turing.ac.uk/blog/what-alan-turing-means-us
SECTION 2: WHAT ARE CCRP PLATFORMS DESIGNED TO DO? Colouring Cities platforms are designed to integrate data on stock composition, performance (environmental & socioeconomic), and dynamic behaviour. They use Colouring Cities open code developed at UCL and Turing for the Colouring London prototype and tailor this code to suit national requirements, Open code developed during this tailoring process is also made available through the CCRP GitHub site. Over 50 types of spatial data are collected. FAQ's on the Colouring London prototype content and set-up can be found here https://www.pages.colouring.london/.
Examples of questions of particular interest to the CCRP include: What kinds of buildings exist in cities - typology, age, use, size etc? How many of each are there and where are these located? Who built these? Which are the most energy efficient? How long do different types of building last and why and how can we help buildings adapt in a sustainable and resilient way? How useful can Colouring Cities platforms be in analysing and modelling stocks and/or in tracking performance, reducing energy and waste flows, targeting retrofit, and improving housing quality? What is the relationship of building form with socio-economic and environmental performance? How can longitudinal data also be collected and what can this tell us about survival, risk and vulnerability in stocks? Can platforms also double up as disaster management tool and how can we share learning of resilient reconstruction? Can common patterns be found across countries in relation to building form and deprivation, poor health and mortality? How similar or different are stocks across countries? How can we apply AI and machine learning approaches to captured data, to reveal patterns and problems unable to be seen before? Might universal spatiotemporal 'rules' of dynamic behaviour exist for stocks, and if so could these be used in new types of simulation model, for more accurate forecasting?
SECTION 1: CCRP MEMBERSHIP
Colouring Cities Research Programme partners are publicly funded academic institutions testing. and co-working on. Colouring Cities' open code. These are identified by use the Colouring Cities logo, combined with their listing on the Alan Turing Institute website at https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/colouring-london-and-colouring-cities-research-programme. Though Colouring Cities open code is available subject to terms of the open licence, this is the only use of the open code specifically endorsed by the Alan Turing Institute. A dedicated CCRP website, providing a portal to CCRP partner projects is also planned. The branded programme is important
CCRP partners are academic research institutions regulated by a country's national body for higher education. (e.g for the Alan Turing Institute see: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukri-endorsement-employing-or-hosting-institutions-global-talent-visa/ukri-list-of-approved-research-organisations. CCRP research members must holds an institutional email to access CCRP bespoke resources, additional to Colouring Cities open code .
Academic institutions have been selected as CCRP hosts for the following reasons: They are:
SECTION 1: CCRP MEMBERSHIP
Current CCRP partners developing Colouring platforms are as follows: Links to websites as they are set up will be able to be accessed here on the the platform's Colouring Cities' Menu page
DRAFT CCRP PROTOCOLS
Justification: Academic institutions have been selected as CCRP hosts for the following reasons: They are: set up to advance knowledge; research focused; impartial; understand the need for testing over long temporal periods, and for an incremental, trial and error approach; tcontain expertise often across a number of relevant fields; are permanent bodies; are able to plan for the long-term; must adhere to ethical standards and accreditation protocols overseen by national higher education authorities; (for example in UK the UK Research Integrity Office publishes a Check list for researchers which we follow, http://ukrio.org/publications/checklist-for-researchers/).
Justification: Colouring Cities programmes are designed to test a specific governance model designed to maximise quality and longevity, and minimise development and management costs through maximising stakeholder engagement and through integrating and testing a variety of methods to support data capture and verification and dissemination. Though the size of CCRP partner teams in each country will vary, in the UK a specific type of low-cost sustainable management/funding model is being tested. This is made up of:
ii) National Institutions & 3rd sector - as above iii) Commercial sector - The commercial sector benefit from a free resource collating information relevance to the construction industry and to companies analysing and managing buildings in cities. CC platforms may be able to benefit from release of commercial data (held for example by mortgage, insurance and property data companies) as the sector realises that pooling at least some data on stocks, at the same time as other providers, will provide greater commercial opprtunities than not.
iv) Community support networks. Communities (including residents, community groups and schools) can benefit from improve local areas, to challenge poor quality design, to better understand the local area in the context of the city and feel more empowered to support its sustainable development. CC platforms benefit from contribution of data, in expert knowledge of how well buildings work/quality, and from support in managing, verifying and updating specific datasets. v) The press.
Justification: Building attribute data will always be necessary in the analysis of cities and in housing, planning, energy and heritage policy, practice and research. It is inefficient to reinvent the wheel rather than to use
Justification: A common agreement is required between CCRP partners relating to the purpose of the programme, that being the facilitation of knowledge and data sharing on stocks across cities and countries. The ethical framework within which the programme operations also needs to be clearly defined in relation to a) urban sustainability goals, b) open data, c) built environment data, d) relevant human rights (as defined by the Declaration of Human Rights). This allows CCRP platform hosts, and platform users, to clearly understand, and explain, the purpose of platforms, and terms under which data are collected and released. A broader discussion of data of the classification and structuring of built environment data, whether open or not, is also required to maximise knowledge sharing and transparency whilst ensuring security and privacy of platform users and citizens.
Justification: CCRP is an open data research project which has been set up specifically to test tools that increase access to, and encourage sharing of free data and knowledge on building stocks. Open access with third party use is essential to ensure fairness of access, and to broaden audiences, applications and drive innovation.
Justification: Expert knowledge of the stock, and its physical form, is essential within the research programme. Computer science/engineering departments, for example, are extremely important collaborators, but not suitable as departmental hosts. Interest must be not be just in collecting data but also using/testing it as well within current and future research programmes. (Colouring London was previously based at the Centre for Advance Spatial Analysis within the Bartlett at UCL, and is now part of Turing's Urban Analytics Programme). Colouring Cities differs from other collaborative maintenance platforms such as Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap in this way.
PROTOCOL 6. Multidisciplinary Teams Protocol: Colouring Cities' academic teams commit to being multidisciplinary, led by those with experience or a deep interest in knowledge exchange across sectors and disciplines, across the science, the humanities and the arts. Recognition of expert knowledge held by citizens and the independent voluntary sector (including in historic environment and community planning organisations where building reuse, repair, resource conservation and lifespan extension have long been advocated), as well as by experts in the construction industry, government and academia is also critical.
Justification: The research programme is designed to test the value of multidisciplinary tools in sustainable stocks research, and of knowledge exchange across subjects, sectors and fields. Multidisciplinary team leaders are also needed to prevent focus being placed on the interests of a single sector/group, and to advance a whole-of-society approach to data capture, enrichment, release and analysis.
Justification: Central to all CCRP work is a recognition of the importance of thoughtful and considerate treatment of others, of their ideas and comments, of their data contributions, and their homes/buildings (about which data are collected), and an understanding that many types of expert knowledge are needed to understand and describe the composition stocks and their dynamic behaviour, and to measure their socio-economic and environmental performance.
Essential (to be discussed)
Justification: Colouring Cities has been set up on GitHub to allow any individual, or organisation, including any academic institutions, to fork Colouring London's open code and reproduce the platform under the terms of the GNP licence. This simply requires them to allow others to use the code and to credit originators properly. The CCRP has been set up to, through a dedicated, branded branded academic research programme, to test the prototype for research purposes, and to promote public engagement in the urban sustainability agenda. The Colouring London prototype has been developed over a six year period and has involved thousands of hours of research, consultation and testing and in put for many organisations and individuals.
Justification: Colouring Cities branding is tightly controlled to maintain programme quality and to maximise trust in the CCRP. This is essential for its long-term success and is required to ensure that data are handled by platforms, and known to be handled, to the highest standards. It also helps those using Colouring Cities platforms to understand exactly what their purpose is, and how they are being managed in an ethical and sustainable way.
Justification: This is a collaborative research programme and we need to ensure accreditation of Turing as the lead organisation as well as the contributions of partners involved in the CCRP.
PROTOCOL 11. Intellectual independence CCRP platforms commit to intellectual independence, including from government, irrespective to the scale of funding provided. CCRP partners commit to ensuring that commercial interests are not promoted. However, any organisation can increase their profile on the platform in the following ways: their name can be included as the source of a data entry; number of edits are recorded on the Leaderboard; and all those contributing voluntary time/free resources are credited on the Who's Involved page.
Justification: Integrity and independence are critical to the CCRP programme. It is essential that funding contributions cannot be used to influence the platform's independence. The Colouring London/Colouring Cities programme has received 7 grants since 2016 all of which come from public sources. Colouring London does not accept grants from the commercial sector, though those from charitable arms of companies for specific areas of work may be considered in future. No platform features are included unless these are seen to support the project's public remit, and have been assessed by the academic team against principles set out below.
SETS OF ETHICAL PRINCIPLES/DEFINITIONS COLOURING LONDON/COLOURING CITIES PLATFORM ARE CHECKED AGAINST:
GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION (GDPR) Subject area: Personal data Oversight: (UK) The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) Link: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/principles/ Colouring London is required to meet GDPR requirements with regard to personal data on individuals. GDPR principles are also applied to building attribute data collected, particularly in relation to people's homes. Great care is needed when handing domestic data, with domestic properties also making up over 92% of all properties in the UK. GDPR data principles relate to:
ODI's DATA PRINCIPLES Subject area: Open data and personal data Oversight: The Open Data Institute Link: https://theodi.org/article/openness-principles-for-organisations-handling-personal-data/. The ODI's questions relating to personal data, needing to be answered by Colouring Cities platforms using the ODI's data ethics canvas https://theodi.org/article/the-data-ethics-canvas-2021/are as follows:
ODI's DATA INFRASTRUCTURE PRINCIPLES) Subject area: Open data and data infrastructure Oversight: The Open Data Institute Link: https://theodi.org/article/principles-for-strengthening-our-data-infrastructure/ The ODI's data infrastructure principles are:
THE OPEN DATA CHARTER Subject area: Open data/Open Knowledge Oversight: The Open Data Charter Link: https://opendatacharter.net/principles/ Principles of openness promoted by the CCRP:
OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION'S (OKF) OPEN DEFINITION 2.1 Subject area: Open Knowledge Oversight: The Open Knowledge Foundation Link: https://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/ The CCRP promotes open knowledge: The OKF defines knowledge as 'open if anyone is free to access, use, modify, and share it — subject, at most, to measures that preserve provenance and openness'.
GEMINI PRINCIPLES Subject area: Building environment information systems/data & data ethics Oversight: **The Centre for Digital Britain (University of Cambridge): Link: https://www.cdbb.cam.ac.uk/DFTG/GeminiPrinciples. The CCRP looks to advance the Gemini Principles, developed by the Centre for Digital Britain at the University of Cambridge (2019) to provide a 'conscience' for the framework for information management systems on the built environment/infrastructure, and for national digital twins, and to ensure these remain focused on the public good. These relate to:
THE LOCUS CHARTER Subject area: Geospatial data Oversight: Formed through collaboration between the Benchmark initiative (Ordnance Survey and Omidyar Network) and the American geographical Society's EthicalGeo program' ** https://ethicalgeo.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Locus_Charter_March21.pdf
FAIR GUIDING PRINCIPLES for scientific data management and stewardship’ https://www.go-fair.org/how-to-go-fair/ Findability, accessibility, Interoperability, Reuseability Focuses on metadata . (section currently being edited).
THE NEW URBAN AGENDA Subject area: Sustainable development of Cities and Communities Link: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/10/newurbanagenda/ and https://habitat3.org/the-new-urban-agenda/ The NUA addresses issues relating to the 11th United Nations Sustainable Development Goal - 'Cities and Communities'. It was produced to drive global commitment to the goal of sustainable, inclusive, healthy and resilient cities and stocks. The CCRP looks to support the United Nation's New Urban Agenda's main principles:
THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS Subject area: Human rights Oversight: The United Nations Link: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights The CCRP look to support the following articles in particular (of 30 Articles):
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