Today we are releasing the first part of the Miso project, a set of Open Source tools designed to make it faster and easier to create high quality interactive and data visualization content. This project has been made possible by support from our Global Development desk, who are funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation & in collaboration with Bocoup.
The first part of Miso to be made public is a JavaScript library called Dataset, the website is here and the code is on Github, you can follow along development via Twitter @TheMisoProject
One of the most common patterns we’ve found while building JavaScript-based interactive content is the need to handle a variety of data sources such as JSON files, CSVs, remote APIs and Google Spreadsheets. Dataset simplifies this part of the process by providing a set of powerful tools to import those sources and work with the data. Once data is in a Dataset, it becomes simple to select, group, and calculate properties of, the data. Additionally, Dataset makes it easy to work with real-time and changing data, which pose one of the more complex challenges to data visualization work.
Dataset comes with a growing list of examples that showcase not only its ease of use, but also how easy it is to integrate it into existing libraries.
The Guardian is committed to Open Journalism and the Miso libraries are part of a process of building a truly open interactive journalism, where we not only make raw data available to the public but also open up the ‘full stack’ - from data processing tools & scripts to the visualisation tools used to create the final output.
Like all Miso libraries Dataset has been released under a dual MIT & GPLv2 licence, making it possible to integrate Dataset with any and all other libraries, as well as use it for commercial work without restrictions - including work by other media organisations. We’re hoping to build a community around these libraries that will tap into the existing spirit of cooperation within data journalism and help enhance the capabilities not just of the Guardian but of many sites.