Helping data users visualise and understand how beneficial ownership networks change over time
Creating simple visualisations of beneficial ownership networks can help people to quickly uncover insights from data.
The Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS) visualisation library is an open-source tool allowing anyone to automatically visualise beneficial ownership structures as clearly as possible, especially when data is collected in line with BODS.
National beneficial ownership registers in a range of countries are already harnessing this free tool – today, we are unveiling a set of data- and user-driven enhancements to the BODS visualisation library to help anyone seeking to visualise and understand beneficial ownership data.
To demonstrate our commitment to open-source development, the latest version of the visualisation library features reusable components that people can use even if their data doesn’t align with BODS. It requires JSON data with a minimum set of data fields to produce a diagram, but it is not necessary for the data to be in line with BODS.
New feature: Showing how a beneficial ownership network has changed over time
A big focus of Open Ownership’s work when developing the latest version of BODS has been to improve how people can capture the ways in which ownership or other details change in beneficial ownership networks as time passes.
Visualising how ownership or other details have changed historically can help the data be more easily understood when reviewing it – for instance, in a beneficial ownership register.
In its latest version, the visualisation library now lets people select different timepoints in the history of a beneficial ownership network and to use a timeslider in order to see what has changed over time (see full details on GitHub).
New feature: Making statement properties viewable
Sometimes, those looking at the simple visualisations generated by our visualisation library want a bit more information about the people, entities, or relationships being represented. This was a key request made by users of the tool. In this new release, users can click on the nodes or edges in diagrams to reveal more details from the data in a pop-up window, as well as seeing the full data being examined below the diagram (see full details on GitHub).
New feature: Handling BODS version 0.4 data
Following the release of version 0.4 of BODS, Open Ownership has updated the visualisation library so that it now fully supports data produced in line with BODS (see full details on GitHub).
Technical details
The BODS visualisation library requires JSON data with a minimum set of data fields to produce a simple beneficial ownership diagram as SVG content on a webpage.
The code for this tool is published on GitHub and as an NPM package. The library builds on our reusable Beneficial Ownership Visualisation System guidance and icons. A list of all the improvements and enhancements made during sprint 1 and sprint 2 of this project can be found on GitHub.
BODS is an open standard for beneficial ownership information which helps anyone generate adequate, accurate, and up-to-date data about who owns, controls, or benefits from corporate vehicles. Open Ownership is continuing to develop BODS towards a version 1.0.
