This article is written by Suneel Jethani, engagement manager and researcher, Victoria State Government, and Dale Leorke, postdoctoral researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies at Tampere University

After over a decade of embracing “open data”, a long list of core questions remain unanswered. The challenge of demonstrating how, and to what extent open data contributes to transparency, better citizen engagement, supporting researchers and driving economic development persists.

We often hear that “openness”, as a guiding philosophy in the management of public sector information, is a product of recent advances in technology. But, before open data was invented as a concept, “open access” publishing which aimed to foster greater public access to tax-payer funded research, and “open source” software, which laid the groundwork for collaborative, decentralised and non-proprietary sharing of computer code had already made a significant impact on the public sector.

But when it comes to government data, the idea of “openness” remained fairly abstract and non-committal until the 21st of January 2009. That was the day Barack Obama was inaugurated as US President, and the same day his administration delivered its memorandum of “Transparency and Open Government”. This memorandum directed the heads of government agencies to enact policies that reflected the principles of “transparency, public participation and collaboration”. The memorandum was followed by the launch of the U.S Government’s open data portal, data.gov, in May 2009 which featured 47 datasets from across Federal Government Agencies. The U.K followed in January 2010; then Australia and New Zealand and Singapore in 2011; and the EU, Japan and South Korea in 2012.

What open data looks like in the public service

In Victoria, the DataVic Access Policy — our first open data policy — was released in 2012.

It was administered by the Department of Treasury and Finance and then later by the Department of Premier and Cabinet to support the release of Victorian Government data. The expectation was that it would stimulate economic activity, improve decision-making within government and increase the efficiency of the public service. Its principles were:

  • Data would be open by default unless restricted for reasons of privacy, public safety, security and law enforcement, public health, and compliance with the law.

  • Data would be flexibly licenced.

  • Government data would be made available for no or minimal cost to the user.

  • Data would be easily accessible and provided in a format that promoted re-use and enabled processing by machines.

  • Standards and guidelines relating to release would be followed and data releasing agencies would be accountable for what they publish.

Over the eight years since the policy was established, IT infrastructure, data ecosystems and the data skills of public servants have become increasingly sophisticated. At the same time, many of the early-adopting governments have faced a number of challenges, including maintaining a commitment to open data publishing quotas, and demonstrating that the proactive release of data leads to better policy outcomes or stimulates economic development.

Publishing and sharing government data can help break down departmental silos, but only if open data becomes ingrained as a core practice and public servants are taught how to use it

In research that the Victorian Government conducted in partnership with the University of Melbourne, we investigated four aspects of open data practices in the public service:

  • The attitudes of government agency workers to open data as a resource and the factors that public servants think contribute to the successful implementation of open data policies and initiatives.

  • What public servants perceived as the indicators of “data maturity” in the existing practices of data management and publication.

  • What public servants and other stakeholders in open data perceived as barriers to sharing and releasing government data.

  • How different views on open data, particularly about ethics and risk, are defended and challenged in the context of the day-to-day work of public servants.

Pinpointing value is not easy

Our research draws from in-depth interviews with government workers directly involved in the management of an open data portal or initiative, custodians of government data, and users of open government data. We  found that:

Despite a far-reaching enthusiasm for open data many of those who were interviewed expressed frustration at how difficult it can be to demonstrate that publishing data is worth the investment because the exact benefits from open data re-use are difficult to identify and define. Publishing and sharing government data can help break down departmental silos, but only if open data becomes ingrained as a core practice and public servants are taught how to use it.

Although open data programs are established under the principle of data being open by default, the increasing sophistication and complexity of data ecosystems invite us to rethink this principle and its exclusion criteria.

We aim to use these findings in Victoria to increase our understanding of how motivations, imperatives and constraints play out within a specific policy environment. It serves to narrow down the specific conditions within which open data policies unfold, while highlighting how some of the challenges identified within the literature come into play at the ground level for open data workers. In this vein, we hope to describe not only the key themes from discussions with open data workers and users, but also the specific geographic, governmental and political contexts in which they have emerged and use them to inform the re-design of our open data policy.

Victoria strives to be a leader in the publication of open data and we are currently updating our open data policy and seeking input on its future directions to support responsible data stewardship. Although there’s no one size fits all model for open government data, more research into the drivers of data sharing and release within the public service is needed. The Victorian Government is currently seeking input on the draft of a new open data policy. Submissions close on January 31st 2020. If you have any thoughts or ideas that should guide our updated policy, we sincerely hope you will share your thoughts with us. — Suneel Jethani and Dale Leorke

(Picture credit: Death to the stock photo)