Open Government Portals Assessment: A Transparency for Accountability Perspective

Transcription

1 Open Government Portals Assessment: A Transparency for Accountability Perspective Rui Pedro Lourenço ruiloure@fe.uc.pt INESC - Coimbra, Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra PORTUGAL egov 2013, September 2013, Koblenz, Germany

2 Open Government / Dataset portals q Dataset portals: services supporting the location of public sector information (PSI) (Shadbold et al, 2012) q Data.gov provides a list of other open data sites Ø 39 concerning US states Ø 42 related to US cities and counties Ø 43 maintained by other countries Ø 160 from international regions egov

3 Open Government Objectives q Transparency Ø Accountability ( requires making public and accessible the interworkings and performance of government institutions (Linders & Wilson, 2011)) Ø Reuse for social or economic value q Portal statement examples: Ø Canada: data.gc.ca, a key part of Canada s Action Plan on Open Government to enhance transparency and accountability Ø UK (data.gov.uk): The Government is releasing public data to help people understand how government works and how policies are made. Ø France: Data.gouv.fr contribue à rendre des comptes [accountability] aux citoyens sur le fonctionnement de l Etat egov

4 General research questions 1) Do these new portals effectively facilitate the access to data (transparency) thus supporting accountability? 2) How can that be assessed? egov

5 Research goals q Goal: To propose an assessment framework to answer the 2nd question Ø The main concern of this work is the way in which transparency mechanisms should be structured (Heald, 2012), not the data itself q Information brokers vs ordinary citizens Ø Journalists Ø NGOs Ø Academic researchers, q Method/Process: Derive a set of requirements from the analysis of online transparency assessment research literature (prior to the emergence of dataset portals pre-portals ) egov

6 Online transparency assessment literature ( pre-portals ) 22 research papers were analyzed Assessment orientation General process Data disclosure characteristics 6

7 Assessment orientation q Entity type oriented Ø all entities of a particular type Ø a sample of entities of a particular type based on some characteristic criteria using a random selection process q Information type oriented ü Portals structure and organization should facilitate both assessment orientations egov

8 General process 1. Select the type and determine the universe of entities to be assessed; 2. Determine and characterize the information item(s) expected to be disclosed by each of the entities considered; 3. Define other analysis dimensions of data availability; 4. Define the global assessment model; 5. Visit each entity web site, and collect the data required by the assessment model to characterize or evaluate the entity; 6. Analyze the results. ü Portals structure should facilitate steps 1, 2, and 5 egov

9 Data disclosure characteristics A. Completeness B. Timeliness C. Access and visibility D. Comparability E. Understandability or clarity F. Accuracy G. ü Portals structure and organization should facilitate the analysis of some of these characteristics egov

10 Proposed set of requirements 10

11 Entities covered / Completeness q Present a master list of all entity types q Present a master list of entities belonging to each one of the types q Provide, for each entity, a minimum of institutional (characterization) information ü This would allow to define the entities covered and to determine which entities are not disclosing data (completeness) egov

12 Information types covered / Completeness q Provide a (reference) master list of accountability-oriented information items that should be disclosed q Define the minimum set of elements that should be disclosed by each entity type, for each information type ü This would allow to define the information items covered and to determine which are not being disclosed (completeness) egov

13 Data disclosure / Access and visibility q Associate each dataset disclosed with each information type defined (one information type : many datasets) q Associate each dataset disclosed with each entity (and vice-versa) q Allow for non-dataset compatible information items ü This would allow to easily find and access the required data egov

14 Data disclosure / Timeliness q Explicitly indicate which update periodicity is expected for individual datasets q Associate each dataset with a specific time/period tag q Allow dataset content to be updated in real-time (append data) ü This would allow to assess the timeliness of the data disclosed and access data in real-time egov

15 Data disclosure / Visibility and Comparability q Adopt and make visible an overall organization structure, according to the requirements previously presented, and provide related browsing and selection tools ü This would allow to easily find, select and compare (by entity, by entity type, by information type, by time period, ) the data egov

16 Conclusions / Final remarks q If governments want to facilitate public accountability, it is not enough to simply provide a platform where public entities disclose datasets at will q The experience from pre-portal assessment literature shows that the structure and organization of portals is essential in that respect q Such literature ( pre-portal ) and corresponding assessment efforts may provide a set of requirements which could be used to: Ø To guide ( post-portal ) online transparency assessment efforts (the proposed framework) Ø To guide the design and development of open government (data) portals egov

17 Further research q Need to complement the proposed set of requirements by considering (for instance): Ø Qualitative aspects of data delivery Ø Informational needs of real citizens in what concerns public accountability q The next step is to fully develop an assessment model and procedure, and apply it. Ø The challenge: assessing portals from different countries using different languages require an international effort! egov

18 Thank you. Lourenço, R. (2013). Open Government Portals Assessment: A Transparency for Accountability Perspective. In M. Wimmer, M. Janssen & H. Scholl (Eds.), Electronic Government (Vol. 8074, pp ): Springer Berlin Heidelberg.