JeDEM - eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government
Not a member yet
288 research outputs found
Sort by
Comparison of Approaches to Publication of Open Government Data in Two Czech Public Sector Bodies
Get PDFThis case study compares approaches to publication of Open Government Data in two Czech public sector bodies: the Czech Telecommunication Office (CTO) and the Czech Trade Inspection Authority (CTIA). The top-down approach applied by the CTO is compared to the bottom-up approach applied by the CTIA. Results achieved by these two public sector bodies are described and the case study is concluded with the lessons learned
Towards a Methodology for Publishing Linked Open Statistical Data
Get PDFThe number of open government initiatives and directives around the globe with focused interest on publishing large amounts of data on the Web as “open” is increasing rapidly in the recent years. Opening up data aims for citizens, scientists and organizations to easily access, discover and exploit the data and consequently to benefit out of them. As a result, there has been an emerging need of integrating and representing those data in transparent and reusable ways, with high degree of interoperability which will further facilitate the discovery of new connections and insights by linking data coming from disperse sources. Statistical data published either by government bodies or by national statistical authorities are used for policy and decision making purposes, as they present important socioeconomic indicators. In this paper, we present a generic methodology describing the basic steps and overall model to publish statistical data coming from tabular data sources or relational databases in the form of Linked Open Data
Open Data: Growing Up and Getting Specific
Get PDFOpen data has been given a lot of attention in the public. In some situation ‘open by default’ has become established as a core principle, whereas others argue about the limited results and the lack of robust studies demonstrating the value, and point to the risk that open data might turn out to be a short lived policy fad. This special issue contains a variety of research papers addressing this topic from different views and providing recent research results on open data. The papers in this issue deepen the understanding of open data and show that the subject of open data is moving from the general to the study of specifics. The special issue also includes invited papers presented at the first public meeting of the SharePSI project. Share-PSI 2.0 is the European network for the exchange of experience and ideas around implementing open data policies in the public sector
Open Data Within governmental Organisations: Effects, Benefits and Challenges of the Implementation Process
Get PDFThis article describes the growth of open government, open data and the means for transparency and accountability but aims to reflect on the bottlenecks and actual practicallity of opening data to the public domain by two governmental bodies. The Municiaplity of The Hague and The Province of South-Holland of The Netherlands are part of 2 research programmes called ‘Government of the Future’, which main goals are to explore and establish knowledge on societal innovation by new applications and possibilities of long term effects of ICT’s in the public sector. Part of these programmes are themes as transparecny and open data, which are viewed form the somewhat pragmatic and operational side of its applicability. The paper shows the development within the governmental bodies and captivates the ‘readiness’ for open data
Open Data Strategies and Experiences to Improve Sharing and Publication of Public Sector Information
Get PDFThe Canary Islands receive 10 million tourists every year. Tourism represents a key sector for economic development in the Canaries. This work presents the benefits of open data usages in the tourism sector both in municipalities and in the island government. These public institutions have valuable information that should be shared with other institutions: 600 hotels and apartments, 10,000 bars and restaurants, and more than 15,000 retail businesses. This article describes an open data project to validate and to publish such data across multiple administrations. The main benefits for the public sector are the improvement of the data quality and the interoperability between different administrations
Open Government Data: Fostering Innovation
Get PDFThe provision of public information contributes to the enrichment and enhancement of the data produced by the government as part of its activities, and the transformation of heterogeneous data into information and knowledge. This process of opening changes the operational mode of public administrations, leveraging the data management, encouraging savings and especially in promoting the development of services in subsidiary and collaborative form between public and private entities. The demand for new services also promotes renewed entrepreneurship centred on responding to new social and territorial needs through new technologies. In this sense we speak of Open Data as an enabling infrastructure for the development of innovation and as an instrument to the development and diffusion of Innovation and Communications Technology (ICT) in the public system as well as creating space for innovation for businesses, particularly SMEs, based on the exploitation of information assets of the territory. The Open Data Trentino Project has initiated and fosters the process of opening of public information and develops as a natural consequence of this process of openness, the creation of innovative services for and with the citizens. In this paper we present how our project acts on long-chain, from raw data till reusable meaningful and scalable knowledge base that leads to the production of data reuse through the implementation of services that will enhance and transform the data into information capable of responding to specific questions efficiency and innovation
Investigating the Roots of Open Data’s Social Impact
Get PDFIt is a challenging and urgent task to innovate democracy. Open data policy and Information Communication Technologies offer promising tools to enhance participation in democratic procedures. To better understand this expected outcome, the Open Data Barometer conducted a cross-national study measuring readiness, implementation, and impact of open data. The barometer reveals puzzling inconsistencies. Countries scoring high in readiness and implementation do not consistently demonstrate high scores of impact. Furthermore, impact is elusive in most countries. Investigating what preconditions allow societies to realize impact can help inform policy makers, technologists, and civil society leaders on best practices to implement open data tools and policy. This paper looks specifically at the social impact of open data, described as marginalized groups having greater access and participation in government decision making. Using a most similar systems design and fuzzy logic, I evaluate the relationship between civil society and open data’s social impact in eight Latin American countries. Results indicate that societies rich in political capital experience greater social impact of open data
Isotype Visualizations. A Chance for Participation & Civic Education
Get PDFIn the 1920s, Otto Neurath proposed a method for pictorial statistics called “Isotype”. The Isotype pictorial statistics were intended to educate the broad public and enable them to participate in society. This method is reviewed with respect to its relevance and potential for information visualization nowadays. Though some aspects are outdated, the basic approach has still potential for information visualization and civic education. Possible new media applications are presented and their impact for civic education and participation is discussed
The Ideal Voting Interface: Classifying Usability
Get PDFThis work presents a feature-oriented taxonomy for commercial electronic voting machines, which focuses on usability aspects. Based on this analysis, we propose a ‘Just-Like-Paper’ (JLP) classification method which identifies five broad categories of eVoting interface. We extend the classification to investigate its application as an indicator of voting efficiency and identify a universal ten-step process encompassing all possible voting steps spanning the twenty-six machines studied. Our analysis concludes that multi-functional and progressive interfaces are likely to be more efficient versus multi-modal voter-activated machines
A Platform for Closing the Open Data Feedback Loop Based on Web2.0 Functionality
Get PDFOne essential element of open data ecosystems concerns their development through feedback loops, discussions and dynamic supplier and user interactions. These user-centric features communicate the users’ needs to the open data community as well to the public sector bodies responsible for data publication. Addressing these needs by the corresponding public sector bodies or even by utilising the power of the community as ENGAGE supports will actually accelerate innovation. However, these elements appear barely to be part of existing open data practices. We conducted a survey which showed that most professional open data users did not know at least one open data infrastructure that enabled five specific types of discussion and feedback mechanisms. The survey showed that much can still be done to improve feedback and discussion on open data infrastructures. In this paper we discuss an open data platform which has started to contribute to filling this gap and present a usage scenario explaining the sequence of the underlined functionality. The discussed ENGAGE open data infrastructure combines functionalities to close the feedback loop and to return information to public authorities for better open data use and publication as well as establishing communication channels between stakeholders. This may effectively lead to the stimulation and facilitation of value generation from open data, as such functionality position the user at the centre of the open data publication process