{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-blog-post-js","path":"/blog/hacking-harvard-open-data-to-fight-crime-save-energy-and-improve-student-life/","result":{"data":{"post":{"id":"-c4f54879-2290-5403-bf7b-d78cd9405daf","publishedAt":"2016-08-27T05:00:00.000Z","categories":[{"_id":"d36d2bcf-1ca3-45a0-8040-832bf6e8e346","title":"Blog"}],"subjects":[{"_id":"97aaf57b-a7c1-4e47-abf4-9b40735d8992","title":"People"}],"mainImage":{"crop":null,"hotspot":null,"asset":{"_id":"image-378beea953b208878da2bc5c1dfa1a4dbfd64f25-900x704-png"},"alt":null},"title":"Hacking Harvard open data to fight crime, save energy, and improve student life","slug":{"current":"hacking-harvard-open-data-to-fight-crime-save-energy-and-improve-student-life"},"_rawExcerpt":[{"_key":"615fb722367c","_type":"block","children":[{"_key":"615fb722367c0","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":"An introduction to people working on Harvard Open Data Project."}],"markDefs":[],"style":"normal"}],"_rawBody":[{"_key":"e7c235e9b068","_type":"block","children":[{"_key":"e7c235e9b0680","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":""},{"_key":"e7c235e9b0681","_type":"span","marks":["ef636d06b699"],"text":"Brian Sapozhnikov"},{"_key":"e7c235e9b0682","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":" and the "},{"_key":"e7c235e9b0683","_type":"span","marks":["10d4f94f43bc"],"text":"Harvard Computing Society"},{"_key":"e7c235e9b0684","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":" couldn’t figure out when the next shuttle around campus was coming or when their laundry was done, and Harvard didn’t offer any useful apps or services to help with that. But they discovered public Harvard APIs that no one knew about, and since then, they’ve been building "},{"_key":"e7c235e9b0685","_type":"span","marks":["6823d5f40b81"],"text":"a laundry and shuttle tracking app"},{"_key":"e7c235e9b0686","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":".\n\nHarvard offers over "},{"_key":"e7c235e9b0687","_type":"span","marks":["0f0526cff63f"],"text":"2,700 courses"},{"_key":"e7c235e9b0688","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":" per semester, but undergrads weren’t happy with Harvard’s official course catalog. Using public but obscure "},{"_key":"e7c235e9b0689","_type":"span","marks":["95bb1a5d835e"],"text":"raw course data,"},{"_key":"e7c235e9b06810","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":" students in Harvard’s introductory CS course (CS50) made their "},{"_key":"e7c235e9b06811","_type":"span","marks":["d571e2cae596"],"text":"own course catalog,"},{"_key":"e7c235e9b06812","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":" which is still the most popular way for Harvard students to find courses."}],"markDefs":[{"_key":"ef636d06b699","_type":"link","blank":true,"href":"https://medium.com/u/bf799bcf96ac?source=post_page-----22784a2c09c2----------------------"},{"_key":"10d4f94f43bc","_type":"link","blank":true,"href":"https://www.hcs.harvard.edu/"},{"_key":"6823d5f40b81","_type":"link","blank":true,"href":"https://github.com/johnshen7/harvardnow"},{"_key":"0f0526cff63f","_type":"link","blank":true,"href":"http://registrar.fas.harvard.edu/faculty-staff/courses/enrollment"},{"_key":"95bb1a5d835e","_type":"link","blank":true,"href":"https://courses.harvard.edu/index.html"},{"_key":"d571e2cae596","_type":"link","href":"http://courses.cs50.net/"}],"style":"blockquote"},{"_key":"320713fcb43f","_type":"block","children":[{"_key":"320713fcb43f0","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":"As we’ve seen from stories like the course catalog and the shuttle tracker, Harvard students can quickly solve problems facing the student body once they’re able to find and use open data."}],"markDefs":[],"style":"normal"},{"_key":"a58cf29de966","_type":"block","children":[{"_key":"a58cf29de9660","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":"And Harvard is a prolific creator of data: the university has published everything from "},{"_key":"a58cf29de9661","_type":"span","marks":["130ee2073bde"],"text":"historical tuition costs"},{"_key":"a58cf29de9662","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":" to "},{"_key":"a58cf29de9663","_type":"span","marks":["9faddb8fb09e"],"text":"data about every one of Harvard libraries’ 12 million books"},{"_key":"a58cf29de9664","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":"."}],"markDefs":[{"_key":"130ee2073bde","_type":"link","blank":true,"href":"http://oir.harvard.edu/fact-book/undergraduate_package"},{"_key":"9faddb8fb09e","_type":"link","blank":true,"href":"https://wiki.harvard.edu/confluence/display/LibraryStaffDoc/LibraryCloud"}],"style":"normal"},{"_key":"5477d45c0d62","_type":"block","children":[{"_key":"5477d45c0d620","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":"The problem? Students can’t find this data in the first place. Much of Harvard’s data is decentralized, lost in a tangle of subdomains. 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