PREPRINT: Viscous Open Data: The Roles of Intermediaries in an Open Data Ecosystem (original) (raw)
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CASE STUDY: Open data in the governance of South African higher education
The availability and accessibility of open data has the potential to increase transparency and accountability and, in turn, the potential to improve the governance of universities as public institutions. In addition, it is suggested that open data is likely to increase the quality, efficacy and efficiency of research and analysis of the national higher education system by providing a shared empirical base for critical interrogation and reinterpretation. The Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET) has developed an online, open data platform providing institutional-level data on South African higher education. However, other than anecdotal feedback, little is known about how the data is being used. Using CHET as a case study, this project studied the use of the CHET open data initiative by university planners as well as by higher education studies researchers. It did so by considering the supply of and demand for open data as well as the roles of intermediaries in the South African higher education governance ecosystem. The study found that (i) CHET’s open data is being used by university planners and higher education studies researchers, albeit infrequently; (ii) the government’s higher education database is a closed and isolated data source in the data ecosystem; (iii) there are concerns at both government and university levels about how data will be used and (mis)interpreted; (iv) open data intermediaries increase the accessibility and utility of data; (v) open data intermediaries provide both supply-side as well as demand- side value; (vi) intermediaries may assume the role of a ‘keystone species’ in a data ecosystem; (vii) intermediaries have the potential to democratise the impacts and use of open data – intermediaries play an important role in curtailing the ‘de-ameliorating’ effects of data-driven disciplinary surveillance.. The report concludes as follows: (i) despite poor data provision by government, the public university governance open data ecosystem has evolved because of the presence of intermediaries in the ecosystem; (ii) by providing a richer information context and/or by making the data interoperable, government could improve the uptake of data by new users and intermediaries, as well as by the existing intermediaries; and (iii) increasing the fluidity of government open data could remove uncertainties around both the degree of access provided by intermediaries and the financial sustainability of the open platforms provided by intermediaries.
Open data in the governance of South African higher education
2014
The availability and accessibility of open data has the potential to increase transparency and accountability and, in turn, the potential to improve the governance of universities as public institutions. In addition, it is suggested that open data is likely to increase the quality, efficacy and efficiency of research and analysis of the national higher education system by providing a shared empirical base for critical interrogation and reinterpretation. The Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET) has developed an online, open data platform providing institutional-level data on South African higher education. However, other than anecdotal feedback, little is known about how the data is being used. Using CHET as a case study, this project studied the use of the CHET open data initiative by university planners as well as by higher education studies researchers. It did so by considering the supply of and demand for open data as well as the roles of intermediaries in the South African higher education governance ecosystem. The study found that (i) CHET’s open data is being used by university planners and higher education studies researchers, albeit infrequently; (ii) the government’s higher education database is a closed and isolated data source in the data ecosystem; (iii) there are concerns at both government and university levels about how data will be used and (mis)interpreted; (iv) open data intermediaries increase the accessibility and utility of data; (v) open data intermediaries provide both supply-side as well as demand-side value; (vi) intermediaries may assume the role of a ‘keystone species’ in a data ecosystem; (vii) intermediaries have the potential to democratise the impacts and use of open data – intermediaries play an important role in curtailing the ‘de-ameliorating’ effects of data-driven disciplinary surveillance. The report concludes as follows: (i) despite poor data provision by government, the public university governance open data ecosystem has evolved because of the presence of intermediaries in the ecosystem; (ii) by providing a richer information context and/or by making the data interoperable, government could improve the uptake of data by new users and intermediaries, as well as by the existing intermediaries; and (iii) increasing the fluidity of government open data could remove uncertainties around both the degree of access provided by intermediaries and the financial sustainability of the open platforms provided by intermediaries.
Viscous Open Data: The Roles of Intermediaries in an Open Data Ecosystem
2016
Open data have the potential to improve the governance of universities as public institutions. In addition, open data are likely to increase the quality, efficacy and efficiency of the research and analysis of higher education systems by providing a shared empirical base for critical interrogation and reinterpretation. Drawing on research conducted by the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries project, and using an ecosystems approach, this research paper considers the supply, demand and use of open data as well as the roles of intermediaries in the governance of South African public higher education. It shows that government's higher education database is a closed and isolated data source in the data ecosystem; and that the open data that are made available by government is inaccessible and rarely used. In contrast, government data made available by data intermediaries in the ecosystem are being used by key stakeholders. Intermediaries are found to play several important roles in the ecosystem: (i) they increase the accessibility and utility of data; (ii) they may assume the role of a " keystone species " in a data ecosystem; and (iii) they have the potential to democratize the impacts and use of open data. The article concludes that despite poor data provision by government, the public university governance open data ecosystem has evolved because intermediaries in the ecosystem have reduced the viscosity of government data. Further increasing the fluidity of government open data will improve access and ensure the sustainability of open data supply in the ecosystem.
Supply-side variants in the supply of open data in university governance
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
This paper presents the flow of open data using the case of public university governance in South Africa. It reveals two different forms of open data supply from the same closed, government dataset. The paper argues that supply and demand should not be separated in open data research, that the shape of the open data supplied is informed by demand, and that different forms of open data supply may have varying degrees of impact and at different governance system levels.
Institutionalizing Open Data in Government
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2016
Too little attention has been paid by the open data movement to the institutional dynamics of governments and other public agencies; nor has the research community drawn sufficient attention to the institutional dynamics at play in the implementation of open data initiatives in public agencies. It is the institutionally-attuned measurement of emerging open data practice in government that this paper explores in order to develop a deeper understanding of the barriers to change from a default position of closed to a new openness in government as an institution. Using the cases of South Africa and Kenya, the study develops and tests a set of indicators that measure the extent to which open data practice has been embedded. The findings show that open data practice is not embedded within and across the governments examined. The paper concludes that open government data initiatives will continue to hit a wall of inertia unless openness can be reconciled with those institutionalized values and norms that prevail at all levels of government.
Potential of open data in sustainable and open governance: A search for imperceptible barriers
2021
Open data has gained its importance in many aspects of developments including research, education, governance and socio-economical developments. This paper presents a study of the open data movement worldwide and its impact particularly on governance and it's related areas. The idea of governance is further illustrated to open government and the potential role the open data could play in an open governance model. The key enablers of open government are essentially transparency and accountability. The role of open data is detailed in making open government goals sustainable. That brings up further investigations on the barriers of open data movement and the efforts made by the participant governments worldwide to break those barriers. In this work, it is established that the least focussed barrier is the privacy concerns of open data and very less work have been done by the governments across the globe. However, privacy being a very strong barrier in limiting the movement of data in open data bounds, the analysis presents an argument to consider the need to encourage work that could ease the opening of data.
Many governments, international agencies and civil society organisations (CSOs) support and promote open data. Most open government data initiatives have focused on supply – creating portals and publishing information. But much less attention has been given to demand – understanding data needs and nurturing engagement. This research examines the demand for open data in South Africa, and asks under what conditions meeting this demand might influence accountability. Recognising that not all open data projects are developed for accountability reasons, it also examines barriers to using government data for accountability processes. To explore these issues, the researchers identified and tested ‘use stories’ and ‘use cases’. How did a range of civil society groups with an established interest in holding local government accountable use – or imagine that they could use – data in their work? The researchers identified ten broad types of open data use, which they divided into two streams: ‘strategy and planning’ – in which CSOs used government data internally to guide their own actions; and ‘monitoring, mobilising and advocacy’ – in which CSOs used data in outward-facing activities. The use stories show that there is demand for government data, and varied opportunities for using it. They suggest that local and national civil society organisations can be important intermediaries, utilising open data in accountability processes. As one participant expressed it: “I could use this information as ammunition, when challenging the municipalities”. But there are also challenges and obstacles that organisations face in sourcing, understanding and using government data. These include: availability of, access to and trust in data; appropriate modes of communicating data; the role of data in accountability processes; and interpreting data. The experiences of the participants suggest that a significant gap exists between open data supply and open data demand. Decisions about which data to make open need to be based on demand. In particular, local data needs to be available, and at the local level and needs to include much more data about government services and decision-making processes. The way data is presented also needs to take account of the ways users want to use it. The researchers conclude that national-level open data portals are likely to be only one part of the solution. The demand for open data is part of a wider demand for effective and informed dialogue – open government may require more open government people, as well as more open data.
Canadian Public Administration, 61(1), 2018
This research explores consistent patterns in the development of open data phenomena in various institutional contexts. The investigation is based on cross-jurisdictional analysis of open data platforms promoted today in more than 30 countries at local, sub-national, national and supranational levels. Key findings of the study suggest that, institutionally, the instrumentation of the concept is a highly context-dependable undertaking. Almost all observed cases tend to be affected by fundamental administrative frameworks within which they are promoted, which could generally be classified in accordance with three consistently repetitive institutional patterns. The research offers a new research agenda to elaborate further on open data as institutional phenomena.