We Democratize Data
BARI works with public and non-profit partners to foster a culture of data use for pursuing community priorities. We accomplish this through multiple strategies, including compiling and maintaining public data sets and providing education in the use of public data.
Boston Data Portal
The Boston Data Portal makes data sets from the City of Boston, the US Census, and other sources more accessible to the public. It is a key part of BARI’s efforts to collect and disseminate information that fosters civic research collaborations.
Community-Based Workshops
To this end, we offer a series of FREE facilitated online and in-person workshops and training opportunities for local residents, leaders, and organizations to increase their capacity to utilize data to address the challenges facing their communities.
If you’d like to learn how to use the Boston Data Portal in your work or advocacy, please join us Monday, November 10th 5:30 to 7:00 PM at Northeastern Crossing, 1175 Tremont Street (at Ruggles Station). Register here and bring a friend or colleague!
If you or your organization would like to attend or host a training, please email us at [email protected].
Partnership Programming
These sessions teach attendees to use the Boston Data Portal to better understand the communities of greater Boston from various angles, including demographics, housing, crime, environment, public health, and access to amenities, and local social dynamics. They explore with attendees how these resources might help them in their goals and what additional information might be useful.
Audience: We offer such trainings periodically for general audiences that often include representatives from multiple organizations as well as college and university students. We also co-host them with partner organizations who are interested specifically in how the BDP might be used by their employees or constituency.
Length: 60-90 minutes (depending on content).https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdMyc74nc1tQXnDWAwR3L1KuTmXZYHeMYWwJQ3FTezLCcC-Cg/viewform
These sessions work with individual organizations to establish their relationship with data and research. This might include developing an internal research agenda, identifying types of data that would be most valuable to their work, or mechanisms for making data accessible to their constituency.
Audience: These sessions are co-designed with a single organization to be tailored their specific interests and needs.
Length: 2-3 hours, as desired by the partner
These sessions convene stakeholders from multiple organizations for a facilitated conversation that identifies shared priority areas. This is often followed by a short workshop on the Boston Data Portal that focuses on contents most relevant to the priority areas identified in the first part of the session. For example, a session on housing might look at building permits, tax assessments, Craigslist postings, and Airbnb listings.
Audience: Multiple organizations with a common topical interest, such as housing or early childhood care, with the invite list developed with one or more co-hosts.
Length: ~2 hours
These sessions are extensions of the Introduction to Civic Research Agendas. These sessions begin with a specific priority area established by the attendees before the session and specifies multiple research questions that, if answered, might help us to advance it. Depending on the ambition of the attendees, we may do the same for one or more additional priority areas. The conversation will then explore ways to answer the research questions that were proposed, potentially including content from the Boston Data Portal and other publicly available data sources.
Audience: Multiple organizations with a common topical interest, such as housing or early childhood care, with the invite list developed with one or more co-hosts. This will often build on a previous session.
Length: ~2 hours
The Data Consultant is a standing resource that is available to all non-profit organizations in greater Boston. The Data Consultant can confer about how an organization might pursue a specific priority or question using data or research, including through the content of the Boston Data Portal and other existing data resources. Note that Data Consultant is intended to provide guidance but is not typically able to pursue a project on behalf of an organization.
Audience: Anyone seeking guidance on how to better leverage data for a particular purpose.
Length: 30-60 minutes