Children in the primary educational level learn about fundamental reading, writing and mathematics skills as a basis for future learning. In some European Union countries, they are also taught basic informatics and computer usage. However, only a few efforts are made to start teaching them about (open) data literacy. When teaching about data, multiple stages of the data value chain can be tackled, adapted to children’s capabilities; from data production or collection to data usage or impact. Such teaching can be more theoretical, with already prepared examples, or a complete hands-on experience, where the data is collected from the environment, further analyzed, visualized and the conclusions about data are made. In this paper, we will present the currently available research on the approaches to teaching children about data. We will also discuss the potential benefits and the main issues impeding such an effort. Finally, we will propose the way forward for informal active learning about data for lower-level primary school children, based on the hands-on workshops using environmental data.@en

Various “open” concepts in Computing, such as open standards, open data, open licenses or system interoperability are becoming more important in the professional lives of software engineers. However, students usually do not receive a systematic education about these concepts; rather they sporadically learn about a subset of these topics. This paper presents the revised version of the Open Computing course in the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER),which teaches a clear set of current topics focused on open data and correlating concepts. The new e-learning course is carried out using the “flipped classroom ”educational method; students construct their knowledge in a set of real-world mini-activities throughout the course, instead of passively learning from the official course resources. In this paper, we discuss our flipped classroom activities, their relation to revised Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives, and present the evaluation of the first course instance using this model. Students’ feedback shows they welcome this change in approach, finding the course useful and interesting, and preferring this method to the traditional full lecture setting.@en

High quality data of botanical records, spatially and otherwise, can provide valuable information to researchers and government stakeholders in decision-making processes regarding species and habitat protection and sustainable use. Two plant databases were used as a source of records for assessment of spatial quality: Flora Croatica database (FCD) and Croatian Plant Genetic Resources Database (CPGRD). As the most extensive botanical database in Croatia, FCD comprises of herbarium collections, literature, and fieldwork observations aimed at nature protection, science, and educational use. CPGRD provides data on collection for conservation of national plant genetic resources in agricultural plant production and use. Dalmatian pyrethrum (Tanacetum cinerariifolium /Trevir./ Sch. Bip.) as an endemic and protected species with cultivation potential is an example of overlap in these two open databases. Records of Dalmatian pyrethrum were scored based on three categories of indicators: completeness, logical consistency, and positional accuracy. In total, 1042 records were identified (FCD: 901, CPGRD: 141) with 47 records found in both databases. Preliminary results indicate a high quality of Dalmatian pyrethrum spatial records scoring high on all three categories (completeness: 95.59%, logical consistency: 93.38% and positional accuracy: 95.78%). These findings open a possibility for linking the data from two different sectors while promoting constant quality improvements. @en

While open data concepts become more important in our society, education about its benefits and technical issues is still behind the practice. Students of STEM disciplines should be introduced to open data during their education. The Open Computing course, completely redesigned in the new Computing curriculum, introduces open data concepts, providing both the basics and advanced topics, from technical to social and legal viewpoints. Among the several educational activities, one was particularly useful for understanding the needs and implications of using open data: a synchronous group activity where students had to choose a societal issue, find and analyze two open datasets that would help gaining insight into this issue, assess interdisciplinarity approaches and stakeholders, and finally propose the added value emerging from the solution. In a short amount of time needed, this activity - which tackled multiple aspects of the problem - brought a clearer insight into the topic, building upon the conventional lectures. Students highly graded such an approach to their education, where they had to construct their knowledge by the group experience. A similar group activity appeared to be useful in the con of open data PhD training and might also be used in other disciplines and domains.

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The aim of this research is to evaluate open data portals, governance, and availability of open data from the perspective of legislative portals. The research will try to look into and determine the main features of governance of legislative portals in terms of key policy aspects, organization, and legal frameworks, and to what extent open data is available on the legislative portals. At this moment, no specific assessment instrument applicable to the open data legislative portals exists. In order to fulfill this goal, an assessment tool applicable to open data legislative portals based on the existing open data assessment theory and tools will be created. Then, the developed assessment tool will be applied to the legislative portals in specific countries chosen as a case study. The results of using the assessment tool will potentially show which similarities and differences between evaluated legislative portals exist. Also, this will be the opportunity to look into and identify issues that prevent the effective re-use of legal data. Consequently, this research will come up with and propose a set of related recommendations on how to overcome these issues related to the re-use of open data.@en