Transparency portals versus open government data

Abstract

Since the launch of the Open Government Partnership, several countries have acceded to this multilateral agreement to develop and to implement ambitious reforms to make their governments more open. Brazil, as one of the eight founding countries, has implemented a series of actions to open its government. One of these key actions is its Access to Information Law. The Brazilian law established a legal framework of guidelines for opening data from all levels of government in the country, in addition to considering internet and transparency portals key elements for the consolidation of open government. In this scenario, local governments built websites dedicated to transparency without observing the law requirements and, consequently, Open Government Data (OGD) principles. This paper shows a comprehensive assessment of transparency websites through a survey with 20 municipalities. The Brazilian law requirements are used as evaluation criteria because they somehow cover OGD principles. Our results show a gap between local transparency portals and the effective implementation of the OGD principles. This gap leads to a misconception that transparency portals are dissociated from the open government initiative, which is not true.

Assessing and explaining local e-government maturity in the Iberoamerican community

“…We also clustered the results by population density groups in order to confront them with previous research findings in the field that "suggest a positive relationship between population [patterns] and egovernment capacity at local level" (Miranda et al, 2009, p. 432; see also Moon & DeLeon, 2001;Moon, 2002;Musso et al, 2000;Weare et al, 1999). Our previous literature review also pointed in the same direction: six single-country studies (Cegarra-Navarro et al, 2012;Cruz et al, 2012;D'Agostino et al, 2011;Fan, 2011;Karkin & Janssen, 2014;Sandoval-Almazan & Gil-Garcia, 2010;Sheffer Corrêa et al, 2014;Torpe & Nielsen, 2004) used any kind of direct or indirect evaluation of population to explain local e-government maturity and other seven studies at least adopted high population criteria to select observable municipalities. Even considering a very limited body of cross-national literature available, population still appeared as relevant to assess local e-government maturity (see Miranda et al, 2009).…”

“…931-932;Lappas et al, 2015, p. 135). They also evidenced that both socioeconomic (Cegarra-Navarro et al, 2012;Cruz et al, 2012;Dias & Costa, 2013;Gandía & Archidona, 2008;Moon, 2002;Norris & Reddick, 2013;Torpe & Nielsen, 2004;Weare et al, 1999) and political (Cegarra-Navarro et al, 2012;Ferreira da Cruz et al, 2015;Karkin & Janssen, 2014;Moon, 2002;Norris & Reddick, 2013;Sheffer Corrêa et al, 2014;Weare et al, 1999) factors influence local e-government development in specific countries.…”

Using data and technology to integrate mobility modes in low-income cities

“…A paradigm shift in transportation toward open data, facilitated by developments in data feed specifications, has fundamentally changed how transit agencies communicate information to users in many cities (Eros, Mehndiratta, Zegras, Webb, & Ochoa, 2014). Data openness and standards allow for improved connectivity between transport modesboth publicly and privately operatedby enabling users to access information at the system level and make mode and connection choices that best suit each trip (Corrêa, Corrêa, & da Silva, 2014). In combination with trip-planning apps that provide optimal route advice based on personal data inputs, this system-level service information may generate increased comfort and predictability for multimodal trips, making these trips more competitive with private vehicles (Kamargianni, Li, Matyas, & Schäfer, 2016).…”

An ADD-Oriented Software Architecture for Structuring Information to Open Government Data

“…One of the main problems is the lack of preparation and knowledge about the OGD principles. This is most found in local governments (Corrêa et al, 2014;2017).…”

“…In this sense, there is a proliferation of transparency websites that are indeed repositories of documents like printed reports, usually in PDF and HTML (Corrêa et al, 2014;2017). Thus, unrestricted access to data is compromised given the technical limitations imposed by these formats.…”