This text shows a real case of how the Open Data Editor (ODE) impacted the workflow of an organisation working to serve the public good.
Organisation: Data Crítica
Location: Mexico 🇲🇽
Knowledge Area: Investigative Journalism
Type of Data: Public Health, Environmental Data
For investigative journalists, data is a source to be questioned, a witness to be interrogated. In Mexico, the agency Data Crítica uses data to uncover critical public health stories. Their challenge is not just analysing data, but first assessing its reliability. They have integrated the Open Data Editor into the core of their methodology, using it as a powerful pedagogical tool to train journalists and as a first line of defence against incomplete and unreliable datasets.
The Challenge
Data Crítica’s investigations often hinge on complex public datasets, such as a national database tracking arsenic and other metaloids in Mexico’s groundwater used for the ‘Poison in my water’ report. Before any analysis can begin, they must answer fundamental questions about data quality.
- Manually sifting through thousands of rows to find gaps and inconsistencies was a tedious and imperfect process.
- For the journalists they train, this initial hurdle could be intimidating, creating a barrier to approaching data sources confidently.
- Without a clear way to visualise a dataset’s flaws, it was difficult to know where to start an investigation or what specific questions to ask the official bodies that publish the information.
The Solution
Data Crítica employs the Open Data Editor as a central part of its “data interrogation” methodology in workshops and its own research. The process is straightforward: import a public dataset into ODE and let it profile the contents.
The key features that supported their work are:
- Automated Data Validation: ODE instantly flags missing values, providing a clear, visual overview of a dataset’s completeness by highlighting empty cells.
- A Pedagogical Bridge: This visualisation makes the concept of data quality tangible, helping journalists quickly understand a dataset’s limitations.
- A Foundation for Source Engagement: The tool’s output gives journalists a concrete basis to contact official sources and question the methodology behind the data, asking why specific fields are incomplete.
The Results
The adoption of ODE has had a positive impact on Data Crítica’s educational mission and investigative rigour.
- Enhanced Data Literacy: ODE serves as an effective pedagogical tool, making abstract concepts of data quality understandable for journalists with varying levels of technical skill.
- Informed Investigative Choices: The tool allows the team to quickly identify which variables are reliable enough to use in an analysis, preventing them from building stories on shaky foundations.
- Stronger Source Engagement: By using ODE’s error reports as evidence, journalists are equipped to ask more informed and specific questions to public bodies.
Quote
Gibran Mena, Co-founder and director
“The tool has served us most in this pedagogical sense. It allows us to evaluate which data are sufficient to continue with an investigation and, above all, which variables we can use with confidence.”
About the Open Data Editor
The Open Data Editor (ODE) is Open Knowledge’s open source desktop application for nonprofits, data journalists, activists, and public servants, aiming at helping them detect errors in their datasets. It’s a free, open-source tool designed for people working with tabular data (Excel, Google Sheets, CSV) who don’t know how to code or don’t have the programming skills to automatise the data exploration process.
Simple, lightweight, privacy-friendly, and built for real-world challenges like offline work and low-resource settings, ODE is part of Open Knowledge’s initiative The Tech We Want — our ambitious effort to reimagine how technology is built and used. In October 2025, ODE was recognised as a digital public good by the Digital Public Goods Alliance.
And there’s more! ODE comes with a free online course that can help you improve the quality of your datasets, therefore making your life/work easier.
↪ Take the course: Learn how to use ODE
All of Open Knowledge’s work with the Open Data Editor is made possible thanks to a charitable grant from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. Learn more about its funding programmes here.
