| Graphing World Bank Data, Using Google’s Public Data Explorer Richard Torian November 2, 2011 The Google Public Data Explorer site offers the user the ability to generate graphs showing trends in economic, environmental, social, and other World Bank data of possible interest to specialists in these areas. Right click here to go to the Google site to see the areas where the World Bank has made available data which Google integrates with to create the graphs. The time series data was collected, for internal use, by the World Bank for most, if not all, of the world’s countries. Now the World Bank has made the data publicly available, and Google is accessing the publicly available data to generate the graphs. Using the publicly available data, Google developed the Public Data Explorer site so that the data can be visualized graphically. Now interested specialists in the areas represented by the data can, through graphical visualization, likely better see trends in the data, which otherwise might have been missed, or at best, not realized without much more effort. The time series data showing trends for each country can be easily added to the graph by selecting that country. Several countries can be selected to compare trends between countries. Also, where appropriate, a world average (or total in some cases) of the data is shown on the graph. Click on the links for each area listed at the Google Public Data Explorer home page (click here to go to the home page) to go to the page where the World Bank data, related to that area, for each country, can be graphed. As the World Bank updates its databases, from which Google obtains the data used in the graphs, it is believed that the updated data will show on the graphs when they are refreshed. Google’s Public Data Explorer site demonstrates the power of the Internet to be an important tool to present graphed data and to assist in analysis and decision making. With the Internet and access to databases of interest, continuously updated, and tools such as Google offers, graphical visualization can be generated quickly. Managing this process efficiently and effectively should enhance better decision making. A nice feature that the Google Public Data Explorer site provides the user is the ability to add the graph-generating script for each data set to one’s own website page. This allows one to generate the graph directly on one’s own webpage, rather than going to the Google site to generate the graph. Using this feature, the Management Accounting Information Center (the website posting this article) has added Google-World Bank graphs to 7 of its content pages. The content pages and links to the pages are (right click on the link to go to the page and use the Google-World Bank graph): Trade compliance http://www.informationforaccountants.com/Trade_Compliance.html Trade guidance http://www.informationforaccountants.com/Trade_Guidance.html Energy costs http://www.informationforaccountants.com/Energy_Costs.html Agriculture costs http://www.informationforaccountants.com/Agriculture_Costs.html Financial reports http://www.informationforaccountants.com/Financial_Reports.html Business planning http://www.informationforaccountants.com/Business_Planning.html Economic statistics http://www.informationforaccountants.com/Economic_Statistics.html An example of one on the graphs embedded on a webpage is shown below. Right click on “Explore data” to go to a Google site, where you can select over 150 countries to compare how the country’s value added from agriculture as a percentage of gross domestic product compares to the average world percentage and to other countries. Such data lead to insights related to total agriculture costs (expenditures) in a country. Right click on “World Bank, World Development Indicators” to go to the World Bank website and to their world development indicators databases. |
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