Adopting and managing open data. Stakeholder perspectives, challenges and policy recommendations
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-11-2017-0250 |
| Pages | 518-537 |
| Date | 17 September 2018 |
| Published date | 17 September 2018 |
| Author | Maxat Kassen |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
Adopting and managing open data
Stakeholder perspectives, challenges
and policy recommendations
Maxat Kassen
Department of Political Science, Eurasian Humanities Institute, Astana, Kazakhstan
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to study a multi-institutional and multi-layer nature of open data-
driven communication processes that provide a collaborative platform to meet the interests of various
stakeholders in advancing public sector innovations, namely, government agents, citizens, independent
developers, non-governmental organizations, mass media and businesses alike and understand an important
role of mutually beneficial public–private partnerships in the area.
Design/methodology/approach –This is a case study research, which itself is based on a combinative
approach, especially in applying, in a successive order, two methods of investigation, namely, stakeholder and
policy analysis. In general, the combination of these two research techniques is useful in understanding the
most important collaborative trends in the area and locating key institutional drivers and challenges that
open data policymakers face today in implementing related digital collaborative and participatory platforms.
Findings –The open data concept could provide a promising collaborative platform to network various
e-government stakeholders and accelerate related technology-driven public reforms. The successful
implementation of the idea demands a fairly equal contribution from representatives of both public and
private sectors of economy. The case has also clearly demonstrated the importance of cooperation with the
local non-governmental sector, independent developers and journalists, whose active participation is a key
factor for the overall progress of the open data phenomenon, to a greater degree, as a collaborative movement
rather than an instrument of public sector innovations.
Research limitations/implications –One of the fundamental limitations of the investigation is that it is a
single case study. It explores the development of open data phenomena in the context of such an advanced
post-industrial society as Finland. In this regard, in order to support key arguments of the research, it is
necessary to compare its findings with the results of similar case studies in other administrative, political and
socioeconomic settings, which would open new promising dimensions for future research in this direction.
Practical implications –Policy recommendations are proposed by the author in the discussion section,
which could help, for example, to boost information campaigns in popularizing open data technologies and its
reuse among independent developers. A lot of unique visualizations and illustrations are presented in the
paper to help readers grasp better key ideas of the research. In this respect, the paper is intended for a global
professional community of open data experts, e-government specialists, political scientists, journalists,
lawyers, students of public policy and public administration and all those who are interested in studying the
phenomenon from the perspective of its key stakeholders.
Social implications –The author of the paper tried to develop a universal framework of case study
research that could be used in investigating phenomena of open data not only in Finland but also in the
context of other post-industrial societies, especially in analyzing roles of various stakeholders in adopting
open data-driven collaborative and civic engagement platforms and startups.
Originality/value –This research presents a first case study that investigates a collaborative potential of
open data phenomena from a stakeholder perspective in a more holistic manner, especially in analyzing
professional networking platforms and related communication activities that meet the interests of
stakeholders as diverse as government agents and journalists, independent developers and academia,
charities and businesses in an attempt to better understand the fundamental factors of the open data
movement as a collaborative socioeconomic trend.
Keywords Collaboration, Stakeholders, Finland, Policy recommendations, Open data, Open government
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
This paper presents a case study that investigates various roles of open data stakeholders in
the context of the country, that is, universally well-known today as a global pioneer of the
open knowledge movement, which explicitly propagates the public value of free access to
information as a fundamental pillar of modern democracy. The development of this
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 70 No. 5, 2018
pp. 518-537
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-11-2017-0250
Received 9 November 2017
Revised 19 February 2018
16 June 2018
Accepted 16 August 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2050-3806.htm
518
AJIM
70,5
extremely liberal informationpolicy has been mirrored recentlyin the widespread diffusionof
other related promising concepts such as open science, open cities, open source software and
even net neutrality. In this respect, this research investigates a promising collaborative
potential of open data-driven communication from a stakeholder perspective. Presented in
a more holistic actor-focused manner, especially in analyzing new professional networking
platforms and related collaborative activities that bring together the interests of players as
diverse as government agencies and journalistic communities, independent developers and
academic circles,charities and businesses, the paper seeks to better understand fundamental
factors of open data as an effective tool of cooperation in promoting e-government reforms.
2. Understanding open data phenomena
Operationally, the phenomenon of open data is understood in this research as a diverse
compound of various types of data sets, which are produced by government agencies in
machine readable formats such as statistics, weather information, archives, geographic maps
with visualizations, document files, etc. For example, open government initiatives such as data.
gov.uk and data.gov.sg, which are actively promoted today in the UK (ODPUK, 2018) and
Singapore (ODPS, 2018), respectively, could be regarded as classical examples of public
platforms that systematically publish various government data sets as a raw material. These
data sets are published in these special public depositories as a certain semi-processed material
to be further formatted and reused in various third-party public, semi-public, corporate or even
independent civic e-commerce, e-government, e-participation and e-democracy projects (e.g. in
mobile applications, conventional computer programs or hybrid mobile and online platforms).
Conceptually, such processing of government data sets should presumably happen
without any copyrightrestrictions on its reuse, first of all, in various digital open data-driven
projects, which could be independently developed by technically savvy citizens
(Janssen, 2011; Huijboom and Van den Broek, 2011; Shadbolt et al., 2012; Janssen et al.,
2012; Ubaldi,2013; Brunswicker et al., 2018). Thus,the main public value of the concept is that
open data could potentially promote not only transparencyof government through proactive
publicationof various public records in specialcomputer formats but also make itpresumably
more participative and collaborative. This happens due to civic engagement and, more
importantly, an increased level of communication, i.e., close networking of government with
non-governmental and private sectorsof economy, especially in launching independent open
data-drivenprojects. Publication of various government data sets by public sectoris just part
of the equation, since the data then require further reuse and processing in privateand non-
governmental sectors of economy in order to createvarious collaborative digital products for
citizens. Furthermore, citizens are not just passive consumers of these new services, they are
also active contributors since their feedback is a key aspect in the sustainable circulation,
generation and promotion of new data and even innovative ideas on how to improve the
operation of related startups and projects. These mutually beneficial networking processes
between variousstakeholders result in the birth of new promising collaborative trends in the
area. In this respect, the formulae of implementation –publication/reuse/feedback constitute
the core of open data adoption philosophy (see Figure 1).
In this regard, the author of the paper aims to: understand how such a multi-layer
collaborative nature of the open data concept is realized and harnessed by stakeholders as
diverse as government agents, citizens, independent developers, non-governmental
organizations, mass media and businesses alike, resorting to the illustrative case of the
Finnish open data movement; demonstrate an important role of mutually beneficial
public–private partnership in the area; locate key trends and challenges that various
stakeholders face today in diffusing the concept, especially in areas that are related to the
popularization and, more importantly, to the reuse of data sets by third parties in various
collaborative projects and independent civic open data-driven platforms.
519
Adopting and
managing
open data
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