Unpacking open data:Power, Politics and the influences of infrastructures

A new paper compares 12 open data policies from around the world to assess their impact and the conditions that lead to effective open data initiatives.

Tim Davies (@timdavies) is a social researcher with interests in civic participation and civic technologies. He has spent the last five years focussing on the development of the open government data landscape around the world, from his MSc work at the Oxford Internet Institute on Data and Democracy, the first major study of data.gov.uk, through to leading a 12-country study on the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries for the World Wide Web Foundation.

A broad coalition of companies, governments, and other entities have come together to open data. This work is based on the belief that opening data creates myriad benefits to society, for transparency, for economic value, and other benefits.

Does open data reconfigure power relationships in the political space? The past, promise, and reality of open data reminds wide.

For the last 5 years, Tim's been following the spread of open data policy and practice, initially in the UK and then increasingly around the world. He's starting from the desire that those people affected by decisions have a role in shaping those decisions, and asks whether there are certain open data structures and practices that achieve this normative goal.

Today, the impact of open data is often anecdotal. Tim seeks not only to prove whether open data is impactful, but also what conditions improve the chances that it is.

He puts forward three null hypotheses:
H1: Open data is not delivering widespread inclusive civic engagement;
H2: Open data is not delivering scalable innovation;
H3: Open data is not substantially shifting the balance of power between citizen and state.

The Open Data Barometer

A comparison of international open data policies

Open Data Research following the usage of open data in 12 developing countries and developing standards:http://standard.open-contracting.org/.

FROM
https://civic.mit.edu/blog/mstem/unpacking-open-data-power-politics-and-the-influence-of-infrastructures