open government and open data professor jonathan raper and dr hanif rahemtulla
TRANSCRIPT
Open government and open data
Professor Jonathan Raperand
Dr Hanif Rahemtulla
The origin of the ‘open’ mantra
• ‘Open’ is suddenly cool… why?• Matches the contemporary zeitgeist:– Government on the defensive, seeking new
legitimacy by opening up– Internet business models based on ‘free’ are ‘open’– Open systems are interoperable, avoids lock-in– Open access publishing is anti-publishing monopoly
• There are many ramifications of the concept• This presentation explores #opendata which
has become key to Open Government
Roots of open data• Freedom– Law: free expression, civil liberties, human rights– Politics: transparency, engagement
• Markets– Free and open markets– Government intervention due to market failure
• Commons– Digital inclusion, commonhold, equity
• Power– Emancipation, empowerment, social progress
The road to #opendata
• ‘The reason that we are now seeing major shifts in policy is that government has been hit by a perfect storm, with waves of change coming from different directions, which together are compelling change’
• Digital Geographer January 2010
1st wave: the digital economy
• ‘Digital goods have different economic properties, notably, they have low marginal costs of distribution after the first copy’
• Companies (try to) protect digital goods and spread the cost over all purchasers
• When governments collect data to fulfill a public duty eg postcodes to deliver mail, any further releases can be at marginal distribution cost…
• Guardian ‘Free our data’ campaign
2nd wave: hyperconnected mobile society
• ‘the huge success of smartphones and app stores means people now have the platform in their hand for the delivery of real-time information services’
• ‘There’s an app for that’: expectations have been raised that government delivers its services digitally
• Many new mashups for mobile that put the government to shame e.g. cyclestreets
3rd wave: open source philosophies
• ‘the open source movement (has) beliefs (that) derive ultimately from principles of freedom, self help and an opposition to monopoly’
• OpenStreetMap is the classic open source response to government using crowd sourcing to create open alternative to traded map data
• Has ultimately led to Ordnance Survey free map data releases
Open government
• Open Government is the political doctrine which holds that the business of government and state administration should be opened at all levels to effective public scrutiny and oversight
• Experience at Greater London Authority is that politicians see open government as a way to rebuild trust with the electorate after the expenses scandal: this is the key driver
Open government model
Open government reality
Web 2.0 Gov 1.1
Open government challenges
MetaData
AccessRegulatio
n
Government as a platform
• The release of #opendata online and public API’s will create a platform supporting the development of third-party applications outside of government
• Government collects, validates and releases• Companies reformat, add value and create
services• Government smaller, private sector stimulus• Government neutrality eroded, less continuity
Washington DC- TrackDC
#opendata
• ‘A philosophical and methodological approach to the democratization of data enabling citizens to access and create value through the reuse of public sector information’
The #opendata movement
• Global movement: UK, USA governments leading, other agencies & states engaged
• Policy changes preceded by campaigning:• FOI requests• OPSI dataset unlocking service• Press and regulator campaigns• Civil disobediance eg ernestmarples.com
• Loose knit alliance of campaigners, academics, entrepreneurs and sympathisers in government
OpenStreetMap
• OSM threw down the gauntlet to governments on data in 2006 by crowd sourcing map data
• Now has over 250,000 members and data on 100 countries globally
• Quality is good, sometimes better than official
#opendata innovation
London DataStore
Challenges for opening data
• Denial in the face of decisive policy change• Opposition given existing data relationships• Technological misunderstandings at senior level• Inability to respond to demands for rapid change• Contractual barriers if data collection outsourced• Fears that data can be ‘misunderstood’• Stereotyping of open developers as ‘hackers’
Implications for digital economy
• Newly discovered data resources -> Gold Rush• Demonetisation of data publishing as ‘free’
business models take hold• New focus on licensing models for data e.g.
how to link share-alike data to commercial application logic
• New service oriented business models will dominate as data needs ongoing maintenance
Research agenda
• Instrument changes taking place in data policy• Need new models for government as a platform• Release format defined in semantics or syntactics• Regulate commercial access to public #opendata• Ensure #opendata never compromises privacy• Explore citizen empowerment eg policing policy• New opportunities to record society through
data streams e.g. new census methodology?
Contact us
• [email protected]@googlemail.com• Journal of Location Based Serviceshttp://www.informaworld.com/jlbs• TwitterMadProf