4. Engagement management of users and intermediaries

Even though, in the beginning, access to open government data should be unrestricted and not require user identification, there will be points of contact between publishers and users, whether through support centres, promotional activities, research, and information from third-parties, or from providing information and interaction opportunities that allow improvements in service delivery and feedback on processes carried out by publishers, even without individualisation of users.

From a broader conceptual point of view, the orientation of companies that manage these activities has been studied under the concepts of customer relationship management (CRM) or its counterpart for public administration, citizen relationship management, which can provide useful information about this interaction.

Customer relationship management refers to the practices, strategies, and technologies used by organisations to manage and analyse interactions with the clients (users) through different channels throughout the life cycle of the relationship. Therefore, both versions of CRM aim to establish working relationships, understanding, and meet user needs more effectively. This approach necessarily implies the integration of chain processes (internal and external to publishing agencies) to meet the demands of these relationships.

Among these strategies is the design of initiatives based on user experience, including:

  • Consideration of the entire “life cycle” of open government data and its value for user “business,” not just the moment of data delivery.
  • Recognition of existing segments for users with specific needs.
  • Formalisation and evaluation of relationship processes.
  • Proactive activities such as public consulting.

In order for these initiatives to become sustainable, it is important to consider costs of operation and organisational viability in defining levels of activity.

4.1 Networks of intermediaries

Opportunities for adding value and business models for intermediaries were introduced in the previous section of this guide. What follows is the consideration of relationships between producers/publishers and agents from intermediary networks.

4.1.1 Communication channels

Although the goal of open government data is to allow user autonomy, it will always be necessary to provide communication channels for support, evaluation and usage promotion that can be operated by publishers or agents from intermediary networks.

In-person and electronic assistance by the Information Services to Citizens that are prescribed in Article 7, State Decree 58.052 of 5/16/2012, serve to provide assistance to the community in general, but more individualised support may be necessary to maintain relationships between users and the government itself, partners from chains of intermediaries, and institutional users with specific and complex needs.

These relationships are particularly important when the criticality of application of open government data and its strategic value for society are higher.

When agencies accept the use of open government data of this nature, they implicitly assume responsibility (directly or through third parties) for it.

The interaction of users of open government data among themselves, with the government, and with chains of intermediaries takes place increasingly on social media. Monitoring and systematic use of these communication channels and information about the market then become key elements in the effectiveness of open government data initiatives.

The interaction of users of open government data among themselves, with the government, and with chains of intermediaries takes place increasingly on social media. Monitoring and systematic use of these communication channels and information about the market then become key elements in the effectiveness of open government data initiatives.

4.1.2 Relationships in networks of intermediaries

The involvement of users in open government data processes can evolve as a result of strategic decisions made by suppliers or pressure from users, according to the following stages:

  • Use of open government data.
  • Participation in data improvement.
  • Co-creation of data.
  • Co-creation of data.
  • Mutual dependency between suppliers and users.

The presence of suppliers in this process has crucial implications for choices related to management processes, which are perhaps among the most important decisions faced by suppliers/publishers of open government data.

Regarding the way of dealing with requests from users and external partners, suppliers can adopt increasing proactive strategies.

Legislation (Law 12.527 of November 18, 2011 – LAI, regulated in the state of São Paulo by State Decree 58.052 of May 16, 2012) already requires organizations to organise access services and assistance for users.

From the managerial point of view, this could be:

  1. Reactive and managed: systematic analysis of the track records of requests that lead to the definition of consistent procedures that allow for meeting requests in a fast and efficient manner (gains in scale).
  2. Proactive and optimised: results of studying patterns of past requests are utilized to diagnose the causes of incidents, define service level patterns, predict volumes of demand and prevent problems, analyse “what-if” scenarios, and optimise processes.

The evolution of these stages can be achieved by analysing the internal data records on assistance, focusing on efficiency gains and the internal operating conditions of open government data suppliers/publishers.

Further efficiency and gains in the impact of the open data network, however, can be reached only by establishing formal external relationships with partners, which leads to the following more innovative stages:

  1. Service. Getting involved with users to understand their needs and kinds of open government data they use:
    1. Building scenarios.
    2. Establishing external relationships of reciprocal influence, changing internal processes and developing new ways of assisting users and partners in order to increase service efficiency; this allows better anticipation of demands.
    3. In the private sector, this level can be associated with the search for competitiveness by differentiation.
  2. Value. Greater cooperation and process integration between suppliers/publishers and partners allows:
    1. iIdentification of new service possibilities for adding value for both.
    2. Aligning businesses, leading to a new architecture of service provision (effectiveness/benefit gains for chains and society);
    3. Understanding that, in the private sector, this level is related to the search for business paradigm shifts.

These proactive initiatives are aligned with the guidelines of the Access to Information Law which, under Article 3, requires the dissemination of information of public interest, regardless of requests, and funding for the development of a transparency culture in public administration.

4.1.3 Communities of practice for open government data

Communities of practice are formal and informal arrangements for participation, preferably voluntary, that depend on the presence of members engaged in discussions and joint activities under the domain of shared interests22; in this case, it is related to the use of open data from specific organizations.

Communities of practice have proven themselves to be an efficient form of organisation for organisational learning and collaboration, such as the development and maintenance of free software. Members can engage in different levels of participation in activities:

  1. Active participation (usually 10% to 15% of the members).
  2. Occasional participation (15% to 20%).
  3. Peripheral participation; the remaining members limit themselves to simply reading messages, rarely posting queries.

These communities can emerge spontaneously, but can also be sponsored by government organizations for the purpose of generating and disseminating knowledge and, primarily, for supporting users who are their peers.

Government initiatives at the national level, such as interaction resources from the Digital Government strategy in the United States23 and Data.Gov.UK in the United Kingdom24, encourage the creation of communities of practice around their open data.

These initiatives comply with legislation in Brazil focused on the development of an innovative and collaborative culture between government and society. Decree 53963 of January 21, 2009, which created a policy of knowledge and innovation management in direct and indirect state public administration, had these objectives, among others:

Article III Incentives for the creation of a culture directed toward the importance of innovation and creation and sharing knowledge and information in public management, among government leaders; Article IV Development of a collaborative and innovating culture, with creation and sharing knowledge and information among government areas and between government and society

Examples of open data contributions to the generation of knowledge and innovation in society are shown in Agune et al. (2010), Gurin, and others25.

4.2 Reliability of open government data

For effective use of open government data, reliance of users on suppliers (producers, directly or through chains of intermediaries) is fundamental. Producers/publishers of open government data, as key links in the chain, play an important role in maintaining this attitude by multiple partners.

In order to have trust, users assume that suppliers:

  1. Act in the interest of users (benevolence).
  2. Are capable of carrying out the tasks (competence).
  3. Act according to a set of accepted principles (integrity).
  4. Are really going to perform the activities as promised (predictability).

The maintenance of these attributes in providing open government data and support services, through administrative transitions, shifts in processes, and management of priorities, is an ongoing challenge to maintaining confidence in producers/publishers of open government data.

Current legislation (Article 6 of the LAI and Article 4 of the State Decree) has already established the basic conditions for this reliability, as they require that government organizations carry out management grounded in data transparency, availability, authenticity, and integrity, as well as protection of confidential and personal data.

In the case of users who access open government data through chains of intermediaries, this trust can be increased or compromised by reliance on the agents involved in data transmission and handling, particularly end publishers, since users will only be able to indirectly evaluate the quality of the data and services from the original producers. One of the main duties carried out by curators of publishers of open government data will be, then, to contribute to the maintenance of a trustworthy environment for users in networks of intermediaries. Evaluations done by external agents can contribute to this purpose.

In order for data users, internal or external to the government itself, to incorporate published data as a valuable resource for their activities, data publishers must engage in actions that strengthen user trust in data and ensure that publication of these data takes place in a continuous and predictable way. This can be done by publication of a set of rules and standards to be followed at all times by entities in publishing the originals. It could also be done via a quality assurance mechanism alerting users to the quality of data they’re accessing. The Open Data Institute’s Open Data Certificates 26 are one example of a way to benchmark the quality of open data publication. Publication must include such things as:

  1. A set of procedures adopted for disseminating data
  2. Identification of priority data and data disclosure planning.
  3. A structure for governance of published data and periodic updates.
  4. Criteria for defining the data to be published.
  5. Definition of channels and procedures for communicating with those in charge of the published data.
  6. Dissemination of repair or improvement of identified problems. The Open Data Guideline27 and the Semantic Web Guideline28 describe and give details of formats and standards for selecting and publishing data and metadata from datasets administered by the government. These guides serve as sources of relevant consultation for data publishers in developing the items highlighted above.
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