JeDEM - eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government
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E-Participation in the Philippines: A Capabilities Approach to Socially Inclusive Governance
Get PDFInformation and Communication Technologies have the potential to transform the political landscape by engaging citizens in the governance process. Whether citizens find value in utilizing these technologies is contentious. This article examines the capabilities affecting citizen’s opportunities to achieve value through e-Participation in order to establish a framework that can foster these conditions. Previous e-Participation models have failed to capture this quintessence ideal, instead opting to take an access based approach to socially inclusive governance. The Philippines was selected for investigation based on its aggressive push to improve information and communication infrastructure, e-Government services and most notably, e-Participation. The main findings of this article show that Web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook have proven to be strong civic technologies for fostering e-Democracy but the government’s effort to deepen democracy through e-Participation has yet to materialize into value to the common citizen. This is due to inadequately written policies and paper freedoms not translating into real ones. This article breaks way from the traditional access based model for e-Participation by presenting a normative framework which draws on the existential capabilities of citizens. Cultivating e-Participation in such a way can empower citizens and strengthen the state through a deepening of democracy
Perception of Key Barriers in Using and Publishing Open Data
Get PDFTThere is a growing body of literature recognizing the benefits of Open Data. However, many potential data providers are unwilling to publish their data and at the same time, data users are often faced with difficulties when attempting to use Open Data in practice. Despite various barriers in using and publishing Open Data still being present, studies which systematically collect and assess these barriers are rare. Based on this observation we present a review on prior literature on barriers and the results of an empirical study aimed at assessing both the users’ and publishers’ views on obstacles regarding Open Data adoption. We collected data with an online survey in Austria and internationally. Using a sample of 183 participants, we draw conclusions about the relative importance of the barriers reported in the literature. In comparison to a previous conference paper presented at the conference for E-Democracy and Open Government, this article includes new additional data from participants outside Austria, reports new analyses, and substantially extends the discussion of results and of possible strategies for the mitigation of Open Data barriers
Institutional Maximization and Path Dependency: The Delay of Implementation of the European Union Public Sector Information Directive in Sweden
Get PDFThe translation of the word ‘document’ in the 2003/98/EC directive on the re-use of public sector information into Swedish had several alternative words but used the word ‘handling’. The administrative law precedence for the word ‘handling’ has embedded several assumptions of the actual document, and based on a precedence that started in the 1760s the interpretation became path dependent. The Swedish case of how bureaucratic inertia and path dependence can stall the implementation of EU directives is. The Swedish government’s initial stance claimed that public sector information is not within the European Commission’s jurisdiction and driven by the definition of ‘handling’. This posture has been supported and defended by the Swedish bureaucracy, unwilling to share the information with private entities, and seeking to maximize the bureaucratic influence. The Swedish case visualizes the complexity to implement legislation pursuing information dissemination requiring the cooperation of an established path dependent bureaucracy
Linked Information Visualization for Linked Open Government Data. A Visual Synthetics Approach to Governmental Data and Knowledge Collections
Get PDFOpen government data initiatives provide citizens with access to the information that governments have about their countries (such as data about people, resources, infrastructure, or services) upon which they act. Information visualizations can help to make sense of these complex data and knowledge collections, but are mostly used to shed light on subselections of data only, without coordinated efforts to connect them to bigger pictures up to now. In analogy to linked data initiatives, this article discusses methods and strategies to link information visualizations in the government data realm and thereby to connect widely available local pictures and insights into more coherent global mental models. We expect related developments to provide benefits for communication professions like civic education and political journalism, and to open up enhanced methods for cross-domain exploration and reasoning for (linked) open government data. Thus linked information visualizations aim for supporting students, readers, and citizens to meet a widening range of macro-cognitive challenges, which complex societies are facing in increasing amounts
Designing a Semantic API for Open City Data
No full textMany countries currently maintain a national data catalog, which provides access to theavailable datasets – sometimes via an Application Programming Interface (API). These APIs play acrucial role in realizing the benefits of open data as they are the means by which data isdiscovered and accessed by applications that make use of it. This article proposes semantic APIsas a way of improving access to open data. A semantic API helps to retrieve datasets according totheir type (e.g., sensor, climate, finance), and facilitates reasoning about and learning fromdata. In order to inform the design of such an API, the article explores the different categoriesof datasets made available in 40 European open data catalogs. The results show that theprobability of inter-country agreement between open data catalogs is less than 30 percent, andthat few categories stand out as candidates for a transnational semantic API
Multidimensional Open Government Data
Get PDFA large number of open government data concerns official and unofficial statistics. These data can be represented as multidimensional data. In this paper, we commence by presenting data fragmentation, an important challenge when exploiting open data. We thereafter introduce multidimensional data as a possible solution to overcome data fragmentation. More specifically, we outline the data cube model and linked open data technologies. In addition, we present a process for multidimensional linked open data publication and reuse. We also present a number of software tools that have been developed to manage multidimensional linked open data. We finally summarize the benefits and some of the main barriers
Assessing the Use of Government Open Data and the Role of Data Infomediaries The Case of Nova Scotia’s Community Counts Program
Get PDFThis study examines the Nova Scotia Community Counts program, a common platform that aggregates data from many sources mirroring what is generally considered as government open data. The role of Community Counts as a data infomediary adds additional value for both data providers and users within information-intensive open data ecosystems. While data literacy is a recurring issue in the open data world, Community Counts has been a success case for engaging the wider community, serving as a catalyst to improve data literacy. This study also reveals the importance of harnessing the social benefits of open data, as it provides additional incentive for users to engage in data, thereby increasing open data usage and allowing further value to be realized by a more diverse base of users
Implementing Broadcast Channels with Memory for Electronic Voting Systems
Get PDFTo provide universal verifiability, cryptographic voting protocols often require a broadcast channel to spread the election data to the public. The basic requirements on such a broadcast channel are similar for most protocols, for example that the channel maintains a memory of all broadcast messages and that nothing can be deleted from the channel’s memory. In this paper, we provide a formal definition for such broadcast channels with memory and describe their properties. We also analyze the significance of a broadcast channel with memory in cryptographic voting protocols and propose that such a channel is provided in form of a service that we call bulletin board. Based on this service, we analyze some real-world problems that cryptographic voting protocols might have and provide possible solutions. For this we define a generic interface for the main board functionalities, which offers a flexible way of extending the basic properties of a bulletin board to comply with all sorts of additional requirements
Sustainable Business Models for Public Sector Open Data Providers
Get PDF Abstract: Since 2009, Open Government Data initiatives have been launched worldwide and the concept of open data is gaining momentum. Open data are often associated with realizing ambitions, such as a more transparent and efficient government, solving societal problems and increased economic value. However, between proposing an open data policy and successful implementation are some practicable obstacles, especially for government agencies required to generate sufficient revenue to cover their operating costs, so-called self-funding agencies. With lost revenue due to open data, there is a real risk that the update frequency and the quality of data may suffer or that the open data policy may even have to be reversed. This article has researched the financial effects of open data policies for self-funding agencies on their business model. The article provides some hands-on proposals for self-funding agencies having to implement an open data policy whilst ensuring their long-term sustainability