Open Government Data: Utilisation, Implementation and Adoption

Abstract

Sharing government data without reuse barriers, which is known as Open Government Data (OGD), promised a new reality for a more open government, proactive in terms of freedom of information and facilitating data-driven solutions targeted at delivering effective services. For example, open contracting data allows citizens to track the procurement activities of government organizations and detect potential fraudulent activities. Or, sharing transportation data may facilitate the creation of new start-ups and data-driven services. Open data implementation is relatively simple in terms of realizing technological conditions, but constitutes a socially difficult process, and we know little about how the interaction between social and technical conditions impact the utilisation of open data. Five institutional dimensions should be considered in the design of open data activities: policy and strategy; legislative foundations; organizational arrangements; relevant skills; public support and awareness. Consistent open data policy and strategy of government creates long term vision. Such approach guarantees the sustainability of OGD initiatives. Legisilation, on the other hand, maintains systematic contribution of government institutions to the open data ecosystem. Successful open data implementation necesitates public, educational and organizational support and relevant skills to utilize open data. Above that, the dominant role of democracy and ICT infrastructure as determinants of open data adoption in the national level need to be kept in focus. The statistical analysis in this research, confirms that OGD adoption is higher in countries that are more democratic and have a higher level of ICT development. Democracy is the only variable which has a significant role in each of the three components of open data adoption: open data readiness, implementation and impact. Surprisingly, economic capacity and press freedom have slightly negative results in the regression analysis. Overall, the results highlighted the dominant role of democracy and ICT infrastructure as determinants of open data adoption.