Introduction

What is open data?

Open data is data anyone can access, use and share (Open Data Institute). For data to be considered open, it must:

  1. Be accessible, which usually means published on the web
  2. Be available in a machine-readable format
  3. Have a licence that permits anyone to access, use and share the data - commercially and non-commercially.

Open government data is a term commonly used to describe open data owned and published by governments.

The active publication of open government data complies with federal legislation (Law 12.527 of 11/18/2011 – Lei de Acesso à Informação – LAI – Access to Information Law, regulated in the state of São Paulo by State Decree 58052 of 5/16/2012) and follows the recommendations for best practices in public management proposed by the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Several areas benefit from open government data; we highlight the following:

  • Political and social: transparency, accountability and reliability of government; better services and decision-making, etc.
  • Economic: enhanced innovation, economic growth and competition; access to crowdsourcing, etc.
  • Operational and technical areas of the government: better relationships and more efficient interactions with service users; data reuse; refined administrative processes; data sustainability; possibilities for combining data, etc.

However, the production and publication of open data also imply costs and cultural, institutional, organisational and technical changes. In addition, they face barriers to adoption by promoting agencies and the user community.

The objective of this guide is to contribute to the understanding and implementation of the necessary change processes, focusing on the actions required by the government itself, the real protagonist in the success of open data initiatives.

It is not possible to establish a single pattern or evolutionary script applicable for all agencies, since each will follow its own path and dynamics, conditioned to respond to its own operations and culture, resources and relationship with society. Based on experience gained with open government data, however, it is feasible to identify alternatives and paths that have been more efficient and can be used as a guide for managers.

These alternatives and paths can be described using the following axes:

  1. Evolution of the technologies employed.
  2. Governance and management of open government data activities within the government.
  3. Appropriation and use of open government data by society.

The alternatives, paths and technologies within these axes are interconnected (for instance, more advanced and sophisticated uses require availability of open government data with state-of-the-art technologies and management). However, analyses made separately allow better identification of hotspots for managerial activities carried out by agencies that are generating open government data.

Notes

  1. The paths for these alternatives are presented just for convenience, i.e. to better clarify increasing levels of management complexity. It does not imply that agencies must follow these sequences. That depends on the technical and organisational resources that agencies decide to use for opening data and the level of service they are willing to offer to users and intermediaries.

  2. Most of the recommendations in this guide, such as promoting the dissemination of a particular culture, funding for open data business, evaluating activities, and supplying platforms, can lead to more substantial results when there is synergy among government organizations, such as when agencies are organised in associations or by agencies specialised in the central levels of state administration.1

  3. This guide does not aim to propose the allocation of these activities in government structures.

Details of the technical aspects and technological management of the process are available in a number of open government data guides published by the São Paulo State Government and the Web Technologies Study Center (Ceweb.br, a department of the Brazilian Network Information Center – NIC.br), in the framework for the collaborative project between the São Paulo State Government and the United Kingdom (the SPUK project), such as the Open Data Guideline, the Semantic Web Guideline, and the Open Data Maturity Model from the Open

Data Institute 2. This guide is left with the task of dealing with the scope of governance and interaction with the user community, external and internal to the government.

This guide introduces concepts considered important for understanding needs related to management and incentives for appropriation and use of open government data, including recommendations aimed at guiding managers in identifying decisions to be taken, conditioning factors, and alternative paths for improvement.

As previously mentioned, there is no single, standardised solution, since the particularities of the tasks of the agencies, their resources, characteristics and use of data to be published, the diversity of the user community, and the complexity levels of relationships, require specific solutions in each case. 

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