{"id":939,"date":"2016-10-17T12:01:23","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T19:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/?p=939"},"modified":"2016-10-17T12:02:14","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T19:02:14","slug":"dataset-analysis-los-angeles-balance-of-all-city-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/2016\/10\/17\/dataset-analysis-los-angeles-balance-of-all-city-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Dataset Analysis: Los Angeles Balance of All City Funds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The dataset analyzed today is from the L.A. Controllers Office and is specifically focused on the <a href=\"https:\/\/controllerdata.lacity.org\/Audits-and-Reports\/Balance-of-All-City-Funds\/ej7u-di9z\">Balance of All City Funds<\/a> dataset.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Datatypes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>For this dataset, the data\u00a0is organized into 42 categories of which include the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fund<\/li>\n<li>Fund Name<\/li>\n<li>Cash<\/li>\n<li>Department Name<\/li>\n<li>Fund Purpose<\/li>\n<li>Sources of Funds<\/li>\n<li>Eligible Uses<\/li>\n<li>Fund Category<\/li>\n<li>Ending Fund Balance<\/li>\n<li>Revenue<\/li>\n<li>Disbursement<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A record in this dataset is constituted as an individual funds profile entry based on the 42 categories above.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Interpretation<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From Wallack and Srinivasan&#8217;s paper,\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.computer.org\/csdl\/proceedings\/hicss\/2009\/3450\/00\/03-02-01.pdf\">Local-Global: Reconciling Mismatched Ontologies in Development Information Systems<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>a definition for ontology is given as &#8220;systems of categories and their interrelations by which groups order and manage information about the people, places, things, and events around them.&#8221; This definition for an ontology can then be interpreted as\u00a0meaning that a dataset ontology is the underlying significance of how the datasets organization is used by its users to organize and facilitate the interpretations that the original creator intended for it. For the Balance of All City Funds dataset, its ontology points to an organization focused on delineating how each of the cities departments focus their budgetary spending.<\/p>\n<p>This kind of ontology makes most sense for someone either working in the LA budget office overseeing how government funds are allocated or even simply a concerned citizen who might be interested in seeing how effective their tax dollars are being spent. Being able to sort by aspects like specific funds or even departments lets these individuals narrow down their search related to whatever they are specifically looking for in those categories.<\/p>\n<p>Looking specifically at department spending, we see that Transportation, Water and Power, and Recreation and Parks are the three highest non-general category departments in terms of cash. \u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-960\" src=\"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/10\/Capture-300x110.png\" alt=\"capture\" width=\"777\" height=\"285\" srcset=\"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/10\/Capture-300x110.png 300w, https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/10\/Capture-768x281.png 768w, https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/10\/Capture-1024x375.png 1024w, https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/10\/Capture-1200x440.png 1200w, https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/10\/Capture.png 1299w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In terms of things that I found lacking, I do find myself wanting for more detail for some of the spending that the funds themselves are doing in terms of specific contractors and projects. The dataset is organized on a much more macro-scale which allows a viewer to see what kinds of departments might be successful and in trouble, but it doesn&#8217;t let you see the &#8220;why&#8221; for how those departments got into those positions.<\/p>\n<p>If I were to remake this dataset into a different ontology, I would have it organized in a fashion that breaks down the assets and liabilities a bit more in-depth so if an auditor for that department used the dataset, they could more easily identify the pros and cons of that departments budgetary spending.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The dataset analyzed today is from the L.A. Controllers Office and is specifically focused on the Balance of All City Funds dataset. Datatypes For this dataset, the data\u00a0is organized into &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/2016\/10\/17\/dataset-analysis-los-angeles-balance-of-all-city-funds\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Dataset Analysis: Los Angeles Balance of All City Funds&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}