So, we had in the last year or so a trend towards opening up public data. Data portals and initiatives flourished at international, national and regional level. My perception is that this is becoming one of this typical technology trends: benefits are not clear, but an open data portal is now a must have for any institution who wants to appear progressive. According to some tweets, even the EU is going to launch a data.eu portal next year. As my partner Cristiano Codagnone writes, it’s a typical case of institutional isomorphism.
Now what evidence to we have about impact?
Well, the US data.gov portal is the only one publishing metrics. And they’re quite good (25K downloads per week). Actually, all data.gov portal should publish these numbers if they’re serious about transparency.
And of course we got plenty of competitions to build apps based on open data. But it’s not clear if anyone is using those applications. According to my conversations with civic hackers, not many.
Yet we have clear evidence about an impact. There has not been a strong backlash effect. Even when delicate data like public spending were published, like the COINS database in the UK, no big scandal has emerged. And most certainly, we have not seen an increase in demagogic or conflictual discussions about those data.
So while we don’t have evidence yet to prove the benefits of opening up data, I think we can say that the risks have proved not to be excessive. Which is one of the main argument AGAINST opening up data for less innovative public administrations.
These are basically the same conclusions to which I came last month with the first part (see slides) of my research on Open Data. I am happy to see an independent confirmation.
I agree most of the arguments you rise. And I think there is another reason to make open data a “must have” for public sector. For opening the data is necessary, first of all, to look for and find them, and then to analyze, to ensure quality and offer them as reusable formats.
By doing this, you are improving your information system and laying the groundwork for re-use information not only for citizens, but also internally. And to have an efficient and healthy information system is indeed a “must have”, a basis on which to build.
Thanks Marco. Can you provide more evidence to back it up.
Thanks Alorza. Fully agree on the benefits, thanks. Do you have any “horror story” to share, about someone using open data to do anything bad?
Hi David. The report I wrote is now under review by the coordinator of the project. As soon as he gives the OK, it will go online.
calling all opendata managers: please share any bad experience/drawback from releasing data in the comments, thanks
I’d really like to tell a “horror story”, because we could learn a lot from errors and horrorr, but simply there are no horror stories. The Laws don’t allow to show personal information and there are no other big risks involved. It’s a low-risk policy. I have only a advice for beginners: don’t waste a lot of money. Keep it simple.
…but, obviously, you may make a lot of errors, just like in any other innovation projects. But these are not specific to open data.
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