Balancing control, usability and visibility of linked open government data to create public value

Abstract

Linked data is a technical standard to structure complex information and relate independent sets of data. Recently, governments have started to use this technology for bridging separated data 'silos' by launching linked open government data (LOGD) portals. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to explore the role of LOGD as a smart technology and strategy to create public value. This is achieved by enhancing the usability and visibility of open data provided by public organizations. In this study, three different LOGD governance modes are deduced: public agencies could release linked data via a dedicated triple store, via a shared triple store or via an open knowledge base. Each of these modes has different effects on usability and visibility of open data. Selected case studies illustrate the actual use of these three governance modes. According to this study, LOGD governance modes present a trade-off between retaining control over governmental data and potentially gaining public value by the increased use of open data by citizens. This study provides recommendations for public sector organizations for the development of their data publishing strategy to balance control, usability and visibility considering also the growing popularity of open knowledge bases such as Wikidata.

Timeliness of Open Data in Open Government Data Portals Through Pandemic-related Data: a long data way from the publisher to the user

“…However, data providers fail in delivering data satisfying the principle of timeliness [15,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. This is even more crucial for medicine-related open data (also proved by the number of studies conducted on a timeliness, including the above [21][22][23][24]), since the more timely the data source has the potential to be used in early warning systems that could lead to the early deployment of different solutions bringing benefits to society, including antiviral therapy and vaccination campaigns (see [26]).…”

Toward Sustainable Governance: Strategic Analysis of the Smart City Seoul Portal in Korea

“…In other words, project collaboration, and international cooperation were combined into collaboration, complaint processing and service speed were combined into complaint processing, and a total of 11 key features were organized. In addition, 11 key features were classified into three groups, focusing on information disclosure [11][12][13]20,35,[39][40][41][42]46,[60][61][62][63], citizen participation [28,[46][47][48][49][60][61][62][63], and civil petition service [13,[46][47][48][49]52,[60][61][62][63]67], which are the key keywords most importantly emphasized in the literature review on governance and government portals. Three key feature groups were defined as evaluation criteria for analyzing the 'Smart Seoul' portal.…”

“…This action allows the network governance strategies regarding data accessibility to be enhanced by offering citizen-friendly portals enabling data searches and disclosure. In addition, as an open government portal, it should be able to improve the usefulness and visibility of public data to create citizen-centered, transparent, and sustainable public interests [5,9,46,64,65,88,89].…”

“…However, even if the portal discloses much high-quality information, it is meaningless to disclose the information if citizens do not understand the public information and do not know how to use it. This means that information disclosure should also be citizen-centered [46][47][48]. In order to enable citizens to use information dynamically, a plan should also be sought to disclose information usage through portals.…”

“…The evaluation criteria were divided into information disclosure, participation and cooperation, and civil service. In other words, the main concern is how to provide information and realize public value through participation and cooperation [46]. Citizens should not be tools for operating cutting-edge ICT technologies but find ways to speak out and become citizen-centered cities [47][48][49].…”