Big Data, Small Data, Open Data? What does it all mean?

There are billions of pieces of "data" all across the world but is all data created equal? How do we break down the classification of data and what can we do as citizens and public administrators to funnel this data for good and positive uses? Luckily within the past couple of years there has been a data revolution going on and many young tech savvy citizens are jumping on board. From data collected about how many taxi cars are in a certain city to the exact population of a city the data is out there it just needs to be presented in the right manner.

Big data is defined as a large volume of data which can be structured and unstructured and determines what a business/agency does on a day to day basis. Big data is to be analyzed to find trends and predictive behavior either among people or the environment as a whole. Doug Laney, an industry analyst describes big data with his three V's which are Velocity, Volume, and Variety. Volume relates to the amount of data that comes in and with the invention of the countless software out there it has become easier to filter it Hadoop is an example of that software. Velocity relates to how fast the data comes in and how it is filtered and transferred through the cyber space. And finally variety is related to the different types of data being transmitted whether it is numbers, emails, or audio/video it all relates to the variety of mass amounts of data. Data has been around forever even when it was not digital but capturing and analyzing it was never an easy task which has sparked the movement of data collection and analysis since the beginning of 2000 and now in full swing in 2017.

Now after covering the basics of big data what exactly is small data then? Small data is the everyday information that is narrowed down to answering a specific question such as who won the basketball game last night and you can look that up online and that is considered small data. Small data in the simplest sense is about people and is organized in a way which is far more accessible and easier to decipher than big data which can be very confusing and hard to find sometimes. Although not all small data is accessible to the public like most big data besides classified information is small data relates to humans and what they do in their own time which is not accessible to everyone which would be a nightmare.
Finally open data is open free data that can be re transmitted and reproduced freely. For example data available to everyone to download freely over the internet with no copyright protection is a kind of open data. The key to open data is to not focus on personal data which might be considered a security breach of individuals personal data without their consent which is never okay to do. When opening data sets it is important to note what data you are trying to extrapolate from for a reason. For example finding all of the crime statistics in a certain county and then breaking it down by household median outcome would be an example. There is so much data readily available on the internet it is up to the public agencies to begin to play ball and allow easily readily available access to the public who fund these agencies now for the sake of transparency and trust.  

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