At the conference for E-democracy and open government (CeDEM 2012) Stefan Huber proposes the creation of an index that states the fitness of municipal Open Government Data for the creation of public value.
Both e-participation and data journalism are considered to create public value. Therefore the “municipal Open Government Data – Index” (working title: mOGD-I) is developped in two specifications: Nr. 1 focuses on the fitness of mOGD for e-participation, and Nr. 2 on the fitness of mOGD for data journalismIn a first step, the specific components of both indices will be discussed with members of the respective scientific communities. In a second step, the components will be weighted so that their significance is represented in the indices. The third step comprises the calculation of the indices.
The mOGD-I will then be applied to rank municipalities. Thereby disparities between the fitness of various local OGD strategies for the creation of public value will be revealed. This will give innovative municipalities the chance to follow the best-practice examples identified by the help of the mOGD-I. The mOGD-I will municipalities to shape their OGD strategies for the creation of public value.
The development of the mOGD-I is designed as an open science project. Researchers in the fields of Open Government Data, Open Government, e-Participation, data journalism, and public value are invited to participate in the development of the mOGD-I on e-participation and on data journalism.
To start the discussion about the components to be considered in the mOGD-I, Stefan Huber proposes the following list of items. As a researcher, you are invited to comment on the inclusion or exclusion of the items as well as of further items you consider important:
- Linked Data principles as defined by Berners-Lee and others (technical aspects)
- Quantity of OGD datasets provided by the municipality
- Variety, and Shattering power of OGD (e.g. budget data)
- Cost (if applicable at all) of access to the OGD
- Licensing of the use of OGD (e.g. Creative Commons, ODbL, others)
- Actuality of OGD, as well as the availability of recent and historic OGD
- Accompanying tools (e.g. data visualization tools, discussion environments, etc)
- Empowering tools (e.g. for user propositions, collaboration, decision-making)
- Accompanying measures provided by the municipality (e. g. public campaign, cross-media referencing, competitions for the best use of OGD, etc)
- Empowering strategies (e.g. online/offline participatory budgeting procedures)
- Geo referencing and other components
Abstract of the article presented at CeDEM 2012
Innovative municipalities have started to provide Open Government Data. But the specifications of the OGD offered are varying across municipalities in many aspects. Some municipal Open Government Data (mOGD) is more suited than others for the creation of public value. Public value can be drawn from mOGD by at least two ways: if mOGD is processed into e-participation innovations or if mOGD is used for data journalism. Indexing the fitness of existing mOGD provided by various municipalities for (1) e-participation innovations and (2) data journalism will reveal disparities in the empowering potential of the varying approaches to OGD chosen on local level. In the long run, the municipal Open Government Data Index (mOGD-I) will help shaping a standard of mOGD that provides best for the creation of public value.
References
- Benington, J. (2011). From Private Choice to Public Value?. In Beinington J. & Moore, M (Eds), Public Value : Theory and Practice (pp. 31-49). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Castells, M. (2011). A Network Theory of Power. In International Journal of Communication 5, (pp. 773–787). Retrieved April 10, 2012 from http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/1104/555
- Kaltenböck, M., & Thurner, T. (2011). Open Government Data Weißbuch. Donau-Universität Krems.
- Lathrop, D., & Ruma, L. (2010). Open Government. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media.
- Maier-Rabler, U., & Huber, S. (2011). “Open”: the changing relation between citizens, public administration, and political authority. In JeDEM 3(2): 2011 (pp. 182-191) retrieved April 10, 2012 from http://www.jedem.org/article/view/66/75
- O’Reilly, T. (2009). Gov 2.0: The Promise Of Innovation. Retrieved April 10, 2012 from http://www.forbes. com/2009/08/10/government-internet-software-technology-breakthroughs-oreilly.html
- Rogers, E. (1995). Diffusion of innovations. New York: Free Press
- Williams, I., & Shearer, H. (2011). Appraising Public Value: Past, Present and Futures. In public administration. Volume 89, Issue 4 (pp. 1367-1384)
Further Information
All articles about informations and the discussions can be found under project -> mOGD-i
About the Author
Stefan Huber is a doctoral researcher at the ICT&S Center of Salzburg University. His research comprises e-democracy, e-participation, open government and open government data, participatory society, new media literacy and online civic education, public value and participatory online budgeting.
Contact:
Keywords
Open Government Data, OGD, Public Value, e-participation, Data Journalism, Index
Copyright
This Article is freely available under the Creative Commons attribution License (CC by).
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