a survey of (potential) open data ecosystem in india // icegov // october 2014
DESCRIPTION
Slides from presentation of paper titled 'Access and Use of Government Data by Research and Advocacy Organisations in India: A Survey of (Potential) Open Data Ecosystem,' at ICEGOV 2014.TRANSCRIPT
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Access and Use of Government Data by Research and Advocacy Organisations in India: A Survey of (Potential) Open Data Ecosystem
Sumandro Chattapadhyayajantriks.net
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A Survey of (Potential) Open Data Ecosystem in India
Supported by World Wide Web Foundation and IDRC, Canada
Study of the practices of accessing and using government data by selected (nongovernmental and noncommercial) research and advocacy organisations in India
Wider policy context of India adopting an open government data policy and launching an open data portal in 2012
Most of the organisations interacted with are yet to begin substantial usage of the open data portal, but they are working with nationalscale government data for a long time
Objective of the study is not to establish existence of 'open data intermediary organisations' in India, but to understand the factors that determine their existence, relevance, or otherwise
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Open Government Data Platform of Indiadata.gov.in
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Organisations Engaged with in the Study
Accountability Initiative, Delhi ASER Centre, Delhi Association for Democractic Reforms, Delhi Akvo, Delhi Hyderabad Urban Portal, Hyderabad India Biodiversity Portal (Strand Life Sciences), Bangalore India Energy Portal (The Energy and Resource Institute), Delhi India Environment Portal (Centre for Science and Environment), Delhi India Urban Portal (National Institute of Urban Affairs), Delhi India Water Portal (Arghyam), Bangalore Karnataka Learning Partnership, Bangalore PRS Legislative, Delhi Transparent Chennai, Chennai
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Sectors Engaged with in the Study
Budget and expenditure Education and social sector expenditure Political representatives and candidates Water and sanitation Urban development Biodiversity Energy and natural resources Environment Urban development Water and sanitation Education Political representatives and parliamentary affairs Urban development
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Open Data Ecosystem (Working Description)
The adjective open applies to both data and ecosystem
In other words, open data ecosystem needs to be conceptualised (and realised) as a network of creators and users of open data, where there is no unidirectional flow of open data
The government agencies, in an open data ecosystem, are neither theonly creators of openly shared data, nor the only agency involved in (re)sharing data
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Open Data Intermediary Organisations (Working Description)
Open data intermediary organisations:
Either access data generated by other entities or selfcreate data
Add value to data (through acts of sanitising, organising, compiling, formatting, documenting, etc.) or not
Publish the data as open data to be used by other entities
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What are the Key Challenges in Accessing Government Data?
A great wealth of existing government data is not made publicly accessible at all (either commercially or otherwise) in digital formats
Much unpublished data sets are not kept out of public circulation due to any specific characteristics of the data itself, but shaped by the reporting structure between local, state and central government agencies
Another key reason for nonpublication of certain data set is a simple lack of precedence of sharing of that data, or lack of confidence of the agency, that is aversion of risk of bureacratic criticism
Among organisations interacted with, there is a general feeling that the government has failed to revise and expand its statistical machinery, leading to lacking quality and timeliness in data publication
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What are the Key Challenges in Sharing Government Data?
For organisations working in certain sectors, such as budget and expenditure, resharing of data is not a major concern as original data published by the government is often in a good, directly usable form
For organisations working in sectors where official data is produced by multiple government agencies and are not published in an uniform and easily accessible manner, say water and sanitation, resharing of data by is more of a common practice
Key reasons gives for not sharing data: (1) there is no demand from final users for disaggregated data, (2) lack of confidence regarding the capability and motivation of reusers of data, and (3) lack of an organisational history of (re)sharing data
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Major Findings
Similar reasons are often given by both government and nongovernment organisations for not sharing disaggregated data (lack of confidence in capability and motivation of data reusers, lack of existing practice, etc.)
Critical need for government agencies, across the bureaucratic hierarchy, to start internal usage of the data collected by them
Longterm relationship with government agencies can translate into very effective models of data sharing, however, such agencytoagency channels involve the danger of creating new gatekeepers of data
Mutual difficulties created by the lack of direct interactions between government agencies that collect and manage data, and the nongovernmental organisations and individuals that want to use such data
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Study website: ajantriks.github.io/oddc
Sumandro Chattapadhyayajantriks.net