Performance assessment and major trends in open government data research based on Web of Science data
| Pages | 286-303 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/DTA-10-2017-0078 |
| Date | 01 July 2019 |
| Published date | 01 July 2019 |
| Author | Hong Lv,Haiqun Ma |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
Performance assessment and
major trends in open government
data research based on
Web of Science data
Hong Lv
Center of Health Administration and Development Studies,
Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China and
School of Public Health and Management,
Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China, and
Haiqun Ma
Research Center of Information Resources Management,
Heilongjiang University, Harbin, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the global progress and explore research areas and
development trends of open government data (OGD) field from the Web of Science (WOS) database by
applying the bibliometric visualization approach.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper conducted a bibliometric mapping study on OGD scientific
research publications based on WOS from six aspects.
Findings –There are six research perspectives on OGD research. European countries and developed
countries pay more attention to OGD movement. The 20 most cited and highly influential research documents
were identified. What’s more, the analysis of journals level highlights the interdisciplinary and cross-
disciplinary characteristics of OGD research. Current six research topics for OGD research that have been
formed and two major emerging research priorities in OGD research fields were identified.
Research limitations/implications –The limitation is that data retrieval result which decided to include
only 180 publications in the WOS-indexed publications produced a bias against research publications
published in non-WOS publication sources. A fuller research trend would be obtained with the more
extensively used electronic databases.
Practical implications –By dint of bibliometric analysis, this paper may be able to quantify research
patterns on OGD, to analyze what has been done in this field and to identify the main research hotspots.
Therefore, it can aid academic researchers and practicing professionals in contributing to the field more
effectively and advancing scientific progress in the field of OGD research.
Social implications –The results canalso promote the study on OGD movementin academia, government
and industry and alsoenrich the theory of OGD and provide somenew perspectives for research on OGD.
Originality/value –This is the first study to quantify and evaluate global research patterns and
development trends in OGD research based on WOS database, which provides a quantitative perspective on
OGD studies that may assist in advancing the development of the field.
Keywords Data analysis, Co-citation analysis, Research trends, Open government data, Mapping, Publications
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The growing open government data (OGD) movement has become a major trend of open
government movement all over the world. The trend of OGD is incessantly growing around
the world. OGD has attracted stakeholders from a variety of origins, which bring with
Data Technologies and
Applications
Vol. 53 No. 3, 2019
pp. 286-303
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2514-9288
DOI 10.1108/DTA-10-2017-0078
Received 27 October 2017
Revised 11 August 2018
22 March 2019
Accepted 20 April 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2514-9288.htm
This study was supported by the MOE (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China)
Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (Project No. 16YJCZH069), the Major Program of the National
Social Science Foundation of China (Project No. 15ATQ008) and the initial project fund of Hubei
University of Medicine (Project No. 2015QDJRW01).
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DTA
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them a variety of meanings for OGD, and the different stakeholders and their different
perspectives on OGD can be analyzed in a given context (Gonzalez-Zapata and Heeks, 2015).
According to the two main elements of OGD, the term refers specifically to th e public
publishing of data produced or commissioned by government or government controlled
entities (Ubaldi, 2013). The OGDconcept is a working philosophy thatenables citizens to have
free access to public data without any restrictions (Srimuang et al., 2017). It aims to make
government moreopen and accountable, and it is the changing roleof the government sector
from an information gatekeeper into an information provider. OGD movement has rapidly
expanded worldwide with high expectations for substantial benefits to society (Dawes et al.,
2016). It concerns transparency which, together with participation and accountability,
constitutes the important pillars of open government movement. Open data initiatives
have opened new alternatives in creating benefits for the public through secondary use
governmental data (Najafabadi and Luna-Reyes, 2017). One major aim of OGD initiatives is
the release of a social and commercial value (Attard et al., 2016). National governments
are increasingly realizing the importance of taking OGD initiatives and, perhaps most
importantly,public support for use and reuse public sector information without restrictionor
charge by societyis higher than ever. OGD is a way to help publicorganizations becamemore
open and improve interaction with stakeholders, and the government seeks to enable the
public, entrepreneurs, and their own government programs to better leverage the richness of
federal datathrough inputs into applications and services by ensuring thatdata are open and
machine readable by default (Pereira et al., 2017). Indeed, OGD policies have rapidly diffused
across sectors, countries and political regimes, and have become widely recognized as
international norms of good governance (Nahon et al., 2015). Governments are increasingly
opening their data sets, allowing the use (Kaasenbrood et al., 2015). Open government has
become an important topic in democratically developed societies, and its key aims are to
increase transparency, citizen trust and public participation (Wirtz et al., 2016). From the
governing idea of opening up the government’s data, the implementation of OGD is, on one
hand, for facilitating civic engagement in government decisions and, on the other hand, for
encouraging technically skilled users to use thisgovernment data. With an emerging interest
in OGD around the world, it also had developed a great research interest for scholars in
different related-disciplinary areas, andthey have published a large number of documents on
OGD. The total literature on OGD in the We b of Science (WOS) database was checked in this
paper, and a continuous increase of research interest in OGD research was observed.
Therefore,it is necessary to detect researchpatterns and research emphases of the study field.
Bibliometric analysis can play an effective role in the evaluation procedure of scientific
research (Van Leeuwen et al., 2001). Indicators based on advanced bibliometric methods are
useful in research performanceassessment, and bibliometric mappingtechniques are essential
in the application of monitoring scientific developments (Van Raan, 1996). Bibliometric
methods that have already been widely applied in the revelation of research emphases and
trends (Xie et al., 2008;Li et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2010; Fu et al., 2010, 2013; Ho et al., 2010; Jarić
and Gessner, 2012; Cao et al., 2012; Qiu and Lv, 2014;Wang and Ho, 2016; Cavacini,2016; Shen
et al., 2017) and scientific production assessment studies ( Mao et al., 2010; Lewison and Roe,
2012; Sun et al., 2012; Vera-Polania et al., 2015; Patiño-Barbosa et al., 2016). The purpose of this
research is toquantify and evaluate global research patterns and development trends inOGD
research based on WOS database,which provides a quantitative perspectiveon OGD studies
that may assist in advancing the developmentof the field. The core purpose of the paper is to
bring new insights into the field of OGD by a bibliometric study. Specifically, this paper
aims to identify international productivity and collaboration information and summarize
global OGD research areas and hotspots based on analysis of co-occurrence of noun phrases in
the titles and abstracts of publications, which may serve as a potential guide for future
OGD-related research. This paper may be able to quantify research patterns on OGD, to
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Open
government
data research
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