Proposing a framework of barriers to opening government data in China

Abstract

Purpose This paper reports on a critical literature review, which aimed to identify, understand and qualify barriers that hinder the release of open government data (OGD) in China. Moreover, the purpose of this paper is to develop and propose a theoretical framework, which can be adopted as a basis for empirical investigation in the future, and to articulate mitigating strategies. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted an inductive qualitative approach, retrieving 42 academic articles from three main Chinese academic databases: CNKI, Wanfang and CQVIP. A thematic analysis approach was employed for the literature analysis. Findings The literature analysis pointed to 15 barriers to the release of OGD in China. Furthermore, the barriers emerged in the following three main themes: institutional barriers, data integrity and quality barriers, and user participation barriers. Originality/value This paper reports on one of the early research efforts into the problems of releasing OGD in China. Although this study focusses on Chinese context and issues, the findings and lessons learnt can be shared across international borders.

Investigating Open Government Data Barriers

“…Meaning that we have five distinct processes containing barriers; when (1) identifying data's suitability for publishing, (2) deciding to release, (3) publishing the data, (4) someone uses the data, and (5) evaluating the impact and collect feedback. The processes are further complicated when it is known that activities in earlier phases can cause barrier further down [39] and connect with each other [18], which we argue also applies to our five distinct processes. The relationship between the distinct processes is complex.…”

“…including concepts. After, we identified possible linkages between barriers following the network idea of Huang, et al [18]. Linkages were identified when barriers shared common core phenomena or phenomena were dependent on each other.…”

“…If an incubation period is present, we identify two OGD research barriers; (1) we are still searching for the abstract approach to handle barriers, e.g. like outlined in [4] and [18]. 2We have not crystallised our knowledge about barriers, meaning that we are still working towards comprehension; one attempt has been made by [5] possibility that the research has moved over to solutions.…”

“…Which is also further complicated when different actors can participate in one or several phases [42], and activities in one phase can create barriers in a later for someone else [39]. The complexity can be visualised as a barrier network [18], which include a reversal of the cause-and-effect; a barrier can come from a later solution. We, therefore, see earlier OGD research giving room for specialised solutions for unique and challenging problems; where solutions can cause barriers in both directions of the OGD process.…”

Barriers to Open Government Data (OGD) initiative in Tanzania: Stakeholders’ perspectives

“…(Janssen, Charalabidis, & Zuiderwijk, 2012). Further, there are barriers to release and publish the data sets by the government bodies (Conradie & Choenni, 2014;Huang, Lai, & Zhou, 2017;Nugroho et al, 2015). Furthermore, two sets of barriers have been identified with reference to OGD initiatives: implementation barriers and barriers to use the data sets (Martin, 2014).…”