Enabling the Data Revolution: An International Open Data Roadmap”.

This report draws upon the many discussions that took place in Ottawa at IODC, providing a summary of key topics and debates, and providing a shared vision of the road ahead for the IODC community. It is designed not as a single statement on open data, but rather as a curated record of discussions and debates, providing a snapshot of key issues and setting out a path forward based on the visions, ideas, and agreements explored at IODC.

http://opendatacon.org/report/

A new approach to measuring the impact of open data

by Júlia Keserű

• policy

MAY 5, 2015, 11:49 A.M.
TAKEN FROM: http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/05/05/a-new-approach-to-measuring-the-impact-of-open-data/

(Image credit: r2hox/Flickr)

Strong evidence on the long-term impact of open data initiatives is incredibly scarce. The lack of compelling proof is partly due to the relative novelty of the open government field, but also to the inherent difficulties in measuring good governance and social change. We know that much of the impact of policy advocacy, for instance, occurs even before a new law or policy is introduced, and is thus incredibly difficult to evaluate. At the same time, it is also very hard to detect the causality between a direct change in the legal environment and the specific activities of a policy advocacy group. Attribution is equally challenging when it comes to assessing behavioral changes – who gets to take credit for increased political engagement and greater participation in democratic processes?

Open government projects tend to operate in an environment where the contribution of other stakeholders and initiatives is essential to achieving sustainable change, making it even more difficult to show the causality between a project’s activities and the impact it strives to achieve. Therefore, these initiatives cannot be described through simple “cause and effect” relationships, as they mostly achieve changes through their contribution to outcomes produced by a complex ecosystem of stakeholders — including journalists, think tanks, civil society organizations, public officials and many more — making it even more challenging to measure their direct impact.

We at the Sunlight Foundation wanted to tackle some of the methodological challenges of the field through building an evidence base that can empower further generalizations and advocacy efforts, as well as developing a methodological framework to unpack theories of change and to evaluate the impact of open data and digital transparency initiatives. A few weeks ago, we presented our research at the Cartagena Data Festival, and today we are happy to launch the first edition of our paper, which you can read below or on Scribd.

The outputs of this research include:

• A searchable repository of more than 100 examples on the outputs, outcomes and impacts of open data and digital technology projects;
• Three distinctive theories of change for open data and digital transparency initiatives from the Global South;
• A methodological framework to help develop more robust indicators of social and political change for the ecosystem of open data initiatives, by applying and revising the Outcome Mapping approach of IDRC to the field.

The repository

The case stories we collected aim to illustrate the social impact of open data and digital transparency initiatives in different countries, cities and communities. We gathered examples on how users are empowered by open government initiatives as well as how open data and digital transparency projects are changing the behavior, relationships, activities and actions of users. Instead of basic project descriptions and mere output, we wanted to seek evidence on how open data and technology help to influence governance and improve lives, both directly and indirectly. After reviewing the examples, our research team compiled the data to form a database with basic facts, short descriptions and links, then categorizing the repository into a couple of significant fields/sectors. The database is a living document and available here.

For the sake of our research, we defined open data initiatives as projects using data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone. After filtering the 136 cases, we had a total of 110 open data initiatives in our repository, with 64 cases from the Global North, 37 from the Global South and nine with impact on both regions. The most common type of open data initiatives focused on legislatures, elections and elected officials; budget and spending information (including procurements); open data portals; business; environment; the judiciary; extractive industries; and health and lobbying.

Not surprisingly, the submitted case stories to our repository approached "impact" in various ways, ranging from mere output (such as publishing a certain amount of raw data), through mid-term outcomes (through, for instance, increasing participation in a democratic process), to long-lasting impact (such as increasing social equity). In some cases, the descriptions focused on short-term outputs only, even when the project does seem to achieve long-lasting change, while other cases claimed impact without credible proof on attribution.

While acknowledging that the open government and open data agenda is much broader than the scope of our repository, we identified four potential benefit categories for project outcomes in the open government space:

1. Educate or inform citizens so that they can make more informed choices;
2. Promote direct civic engagement and increase citizen participation in democratic processes;
3. Gather feedback for policy-makers and/or the private sector; and
4. Monitor and hold officials and/or the private sector accountable.

Breakdown of social impact goals for case stories from the repository.

In the second phase of our research, we selected three projects from the Global South: Vota Inteligente from Chile, Open Duka from Kenya and A Tu Servicio from Uruguay to work more closely with. We developed a methodological framework and built distinctive theories of change for all three projects as well as a set of social change indicators based on the identified progress markers and strategy maps, through testing and revising the approach of outcome mapping.

Next steps

Assessing impact means we should be able to prove if there has been some kind of change in the ecosystem. Whether that change is “good” or “bad” will always depend on a normative position, while attribution is incredibly challenging — even impossible — for most open government projects. The outcome mapping approach, as well as other robust evaluation methods, has a strong potential for the long-term evaluation of complex projects through detecting and documenting the desired change model in the behaviors, relationships and activities of people and organizations an open data initiative interacts with. It might also provide a good framework for identifying other research methods (such as randomized control trials or quantitative surveys) to prove causality.

In the next few months, we will need to refine the assessment frameworks designed for the three projects we examined. After the launch of our paper, Sunlight’s international policy team intends to conduct another round of group interviews with the three implementing teams. We plan to make some adjustments to the social change indicators and identify the data collection methods for documenting. The project implementing groups will need to decide what they will monitor on an ongoing basis and what they will evaluate in depth in the next few years. In each case, they will have to revisit the indicators on a regular basis for the best impact.

Sunlight’s aim with this research has been to boost the conversation around impact assessment in the open government field, as well as to provide a base for advocacy purposes and perhaps further research. We believe that focusing on mid-term outcomes, as opposed to long-term impact or short-term output, might be the next step for the open data community in order to create a solid base for evaluation. We also think that further work is needed to develop clear change models for most open data and open government projects.

---

You can read the study below:

The Social Impact of Open Data by juliakeseru

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/05/05/a-new-approach-to-measuring-the-impact-of-open-data/

Tag

New surveys reveal dynamism, challenges of open data-driven businesses in developing countries - World Bank

http://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/new-surveys-reveal-dynamism-challenges-open-data-driven-businesses-developing-countries

SUBMITTED BY ALLA MORRISON ON MON, 12/15/2014

CO-AUTHORS: PRASANNA LAL DAS

• 
• INSHARE87
• 
• 
• ADD COMMENT

Open data for economic growth continues to create buzz in all circles.  We wrote about it ourselves on this blog site earlier in the year.  You can barely utter the phrase without somebody mentioning the McKinsey report and the $3 trillion open data market.  The Economist gave the subject credibility with its talk about a 'new goldmine.' Omidyar published a report a few months ago that made $13 trillion the new $3 trillion.  The wonderful folks at New York University's GovLab launched the OpenData500 to much fanfare.  The World Bank Group got into the act with this study.  The Shakespeare report was among the first to bring attention to open data's many possibilities. Furthermore, governments worldwide now routinely seem to insert economic growth in their policy recommendations about open data – and the list is long and growing.

Geographic distribution of companies we surveyed. Here is the complete list.

We hope to publish a detailed report shortly but here meanwhile are a few of the regional findings in greater detail.

We count ourselves among the believers (even as we roll our eyes over some of the numbers!), but what strikes us most about these reports is their northern focus  ̶  the McKinsey report, for instance, is 'global' but concentrates almost exclusively on North America and Europe.  The Shakespeare report was written for the U.K. government, and the Economist report fails to include any examples from the developing world.  And the Omidyar report is broader and covers the G-20.

Read the rest at the World Bank Blog It has a lot of nice graphics depicting key findings from the data.

11 ways to rethink open data and make it relevant to the public

TOPIC: 

• DATA JOURNALISM

Miguel Paz | February 13, 2014

http://ijnet.org/en/blog/11-ways-rethink-open-data-and-make-it-relevant-public

It’s time to transform open data from a trendy concept among policy wonks and news nerds into something tangible to everyday life for citizens, businesses and grassroots organizations. Here are some ideas to help us get there:

1. Improve access to data

Craig Hammer from the World Bank has tackled this issue, stating that “Open Data could be the game changer when it comes to eradicating global poverty”, but only if governments make available online data that become actionable intelligence: a launch pad for investigation, analysis, triangulation, and improved decision making at all levels.

2. Create open data for the end user

As Hammer wrote in a blog post for the Harvard Business Review, while the "opening" has generated excitement from development experts, donors, several government champions, and the increasingly mighty geek community, the hard reality is that much of the public has been left behind, or tacked on as an afterthought. Let`s get out of the building and start working for the end user.

3. Show, don't tell

Regular folks don't know what “open data” means. Actually, they probably don't care what we call it and don't know if they need it. Apple’s Steve Jobs said that a lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them. We need to stop telling them they need it and start showing them why they need it, through actionable user experience.

4. Make it relevant to people’s daily lives, not just to NGOs and policymakers’ priorities

A study of the use of open data and transparency in Chile showed the top 10 uses were for things that affect their lives directly for better or for worse: data on government subsidies and support, legal certificates, information services, paperwork. If the data doesn't speak to priorities at the household or individual level, we've lost the value of both the “opening” of data, and the data itself.

5. Invite the public into the sandbox

We need to give people “better tools to not only consume, but to create and manipulate data,” says my colleague Alvaro Graves, Poderopedia’s semantic web developer and researcher. This is what Code for America does, and it’s also what happened with the advent of Web 2.0, when the availability of better tools, such as blogging platforms, helped people create and share content.

6. Realize that open data are like QR codes

Everyone talks about open data the way they used to talk about QR codes--as something ground breaking. But as with QR Codes, open data only succeeds with the proper context to satisfy the needs of citizens. Context is the most important thing to funnel use and success of open data as a tool for global change.

7. Make open data sexy and pop, like Jess3.com

Geeks became popular because they made useful and cool things that could be embraced by end users. Open data geeks need to stick with that program.

8. Help journalists embrace open data

Jorge Lanata, a famous Argentinian journalist who is now being targeted by the Cristina Fernández administration due to his unfolding of government corruption scandals, once said that 50 percent of the success of a story or newspaper is assured if journalists like it.

That’s true of open data as well. If journalists understand its value for the public interest and learn how to use it, so will the public. And if they do, the winds of change will blow. Governments and the private sector will be forced to provide better, more up-to-date and standardized data. Open data will be understood not as a concept but as a public information source as relevant as any other. We need to teach Latin American journalists to be part of this.

9. News nerds can help you put your open data to good use

In order to boost the use of open data by journalists we need news nerds, teams of lightweight and tech-heavy armored journalist-programmers who can teach colleagues how open data through brings us high-impact storytelling that can change public policies and hold authorities accountable.

News nerds can also help us with “institutionalizing data literacy across societies” as Hammer puts it. ICFJ Knight International Journalism Fellow and digital strategist Justin Arenstein calls these folks "mass mobilizers" of information. Alex Howard “points to these groups because they can help demystify data, to make it understandable by populations and not just statisticians.”

I call them News Ninja Nerds, accelerator taskforces that can foster innovationsin news, data and transparency in a speedy way, saving governments and organizations time and a lot of money. Projects like ProPublica’s Dollars For Docs are great examples of what can be achieved if you mix FOIA, open data and the will to provide news in the public interest.

10. Rename open data

Part of the reasons people don't embrace concepts such as open data is because it is part of a lingo that has nothing to do with them. No empathy involved. Let's start talking about people's right to know and use the data generated by governments. As Tim O'Reilly puts it: "Government as a Platform for Greatness," with examples we can relate to, instead of dead .PDF's and dirty databases.

11. Don't expect open data to substitute for thinking or reporting

Investigative Reporting can benefit from it. But “but there is no substitute for the kind of street-level digging, personal interviews, and detective work” great journalism projects entailed, says David Kaplan in a great post entitled, Why Open Data is Not Enough.

“The increasing access to data creates, more than ever, a need to make sense of disparate pieces of information,” said Paul Radu, executive director of the Sarajevo-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. “It is the mix of local and global information, the combination of local shoe-leather reporting and leaps across borders through databases, that will make the difference on the long run.”

As Matt Waite, Politifact creator and Drone Journalism Lab director, notes, robots cannot replace humans complexity. They can’t think like we do.

Welcome to the debate.

ICFJ Knight International Journalism Fellow Miguel Paz is a Chilean journalist and founder and CEO of Poderopedia, a data journalism website that highlights links among Chile’s business and political elites.

Global media innovation content related to the projects and partners of the ICFJ Knight International Journalism Fellows on IJNet is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and edited by Jennifer Dorroh.

_Image CC-licensed on Flickr here._

http://ijnet.org/en/blog/11-ways-rethink-open-data-and-make-it-relevant-public

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

The Role of Open Data in Choosing Neighborhood

To what extent is it important to get familiar with our environment?

If we think about how the world surrounding us has changed throughout the years, it is not so unreasonable that, while walking to work, we might encounter some new little shops, restaurants, or gas stations we had never noticed before. Likewise, how many times did we wander about for hours just to find green spaces for a run? And the only one we noticed was even more polluted than other urban areas!

Citizens are not always properly informed about the evolution of the places they live in. And that is why it would be crucial for people to be constantly up-to-date with accurate information of the neighborhood they have chosen or are going to choose.

(Image source: London Evening Standard)

- See more at: http://blog.okfn.org/2014/11/14/the-role-of-open-data-in-choosing-neighborhood/#sthash.Mu7lX6sn.dpuf

Research and Markets: Dynamic Open Data Report 2014

October 30, 2014 12:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/6jrnmw/dynamic_open_data) has announced the addition of the "Dynamic Open Data " report to their offering.

In the connected age, the flow of data through cities is becoming a key contributor to global competitiveness. European cities are taking advantage of public funds to experiment with open access to data and to assess the monetization potential for selected sources. Although estimating the full value of data in the public sector is difficult, government studies suggest tens of billions of euros could be realized.

It is believed that the world's leading cities will combine ICT infrastructure with digital self-knowledge.' Here, real-time cities are discussed as those that pursue policy goals through the exploitation of public and private data, sensor networks for monitoring, and control and platforms for collaboration in services.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Key Messages

2. Background

3. Definitions

4. The Tidal Flow of Open Data

5. Harnessing the Power of Open Data

6. Valuing Open Data

7. ICT Opportunities in Dynamic Open Data

8. Technology Drivers behind Adoption of Real-time City Data Applications

9. Barriers to Flow of Open Data

10. Last Word

11. Legal Disclaimer

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/6jrnmw/dynamic_open_data

From: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20141030006201/en/Research-Markets-Dynamic-Open-Data-Report-2014#.VGRBLTSUenM

Free urban data -- what's it good for?

		IMAGE: Big Data, published quarterly in print and online, facilitates and supports the efforts of researchers, analysts, statisticians, business leaders, and policymakers to improve operations, profitability, and communications within... Click here for more information.

New Rochelle, October 29, 2014 –Cities around the world are increasingly making urban data freely available to the public. But is the content or structure of these vast data sets easy to access and of value? A new study of more than 9,000 data sets from 20 cities presents encouraging results on the quality and volume of the available data and describes the challenges and benefits of analyzing and integrating these expanding data sets, as described in an article in Big Data, the highly innovative, peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The Open Access article is available free on the Big Data website.

In the article "Structured Open Urban Data: Understanding the Landscape," Luciano Barbosa and Marcos Vieira, IBM Research, Brazil, and Kien Pham, Claudio Silva, and Juliana Freire, New York University School of Engineering and NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress, NY, present several promising findings. These include a steadily increasing volume of open urban data, the ability to integrate different data sets, and the finding that much of the available data is published in standard types of formats. The authors also discuss the main challenges that make it difficult to take full advantage of these data sources.

"Big urban data is a powerful new phenomenon that has the potential to transform everyday lives of hundreds of millions of people quickly via personal devices that integrate, filter, and create useful personalized information. This paper documents the sources and value of these data," saysBig Data Editor-in-Chief Vasant Dhar, Co-Director, Center for Business Analytics, Stern School of Business, New York University.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-10/mali-fud102914.php

Satellites: Make Earth observations open access

Freely available satellite imagery will improve science and environmental-monitoring products, say Michael A. Wulder and Nicholas C. Coops.

NASA

The Landsat 8 satellite launched in February 2013 (artist's impression).

A new era of open-access satellite data has arrived. In 2008, the US Geological Survey (USGS) released for free to the public its Landsat archive, which dates back to the 1970s and is the world's largest collection of Earth imagery². Greater computing power is also enabling scientists to manipulate big data representing larger areas and with greater sophistication, to produce multibillion-pixel composite maps of land cover and change across regions, continents and the globe. Monitoring land-cover change in near-real time is now a reality.

http://www.nature.com/news/satellites-make-earth-observations-open-access-1.15804

• 
  

• A presentation given by Iain Hrynaszkiewicz from BioMed Central - an overview of BioMed Central's open data projects in publishing. Presented at the Alliance for Permanent Access conference, 7th November 2012

• Includes some good information about the role of publishers in open data / data sharing.

• 
  

http://www.slideshare.net/iainh_z/biomed-centrals-open-data-initiatives

Irish Open Data Initiative Launched

MINISTER HOWLIN LAUNCHES OPEN DATA INITIATIVE

Mr. Brendan Howlin, TD, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform today, 22 July 2014, launched Ireland’s national Open Data Portal developed by Insight Centre for Data Analytics, NUI Galway together with the research reports produced by Insight.

The Minister said: “I am delighted to be launching Ireland’s national Open Data portal together with research compiled by Insight. This work builds on initiatives already in place in Ireland taking into account best international practice and will enable the development of a national Open Data strategy.”

http://www.sfi.ie/news-resources/press-releases/minister-howlin-launches-open-data-initiative.html

.

.

.

The national Open Data Portal (data.gov.ie) currently contains 418 datasets from 45 public bodies. It is an alpha site, but an important first step. The next steps to further develop it will be considered in tandem with experts in the public sector and the wider public. Going forward, the Minister would encourage public bodies to publish datasets on this portal.

.

.

.