Let's hunt for data

Now once we got our question set, we'll need to find the data to answer it: What data do we need to have? Our question was: how much would you owe if your countries debt was to be split equally among it's people?. To answer it we need two pieces of information: 1.) how much debt does your country have and 2.) how many people are there. So let's see where we can find the data.

How to find data?

Allthough many institutions release open data, sometimes finding it is the hardest task. Often data is either seperated by institution or by topic. A good overview of data repositories can be found in he Open Access Directory. Other sources contain institutions e.q. the Worldbank or governmenents (e.q. data.gov.uk). Last but definitely not least are repositories such as datahub.io or dbpedia. Of course you can use plain old web search engines to search for open data.

So let's start

Since we are mainly interested in general characteristics of a country and some economic data our best guess is to look what economical institutions have to offer. There are two major economic institutions that offer statistics on economic issues: the IMF and the Worldbank. Unfortunately the IMF does not license it's data as open data, so let's skip it. Remains the Worldbank. On data.worldbank.org you can find an overview of all the data they offer. The amount of data can be quite confusing at a first glimpse. What we are really interested in is a set of data we can find and download to use it further.

So let's look at what they have to offer: one of the tabs on the top of the page says "data catalog": why not take a peek.

Among the many datasets you can find there is one called "Global Development Finance". The description looks promising.

On the side of the description page there are several resources linked to. You can either download the entire dataset (a bit too much for now) or go to a "databank". Let's do that for now. (if you didn't find the link, here it is -> http://databank.worldbank.org/ddp/home.do?Step=12&id=4&CNO=2).

Wooha, that looks confusing. But don't worry, this challenge will walk you through.

Now it's your turn: What data sources did we forget to mention? Answer us in the comments!