[euopendata] Open data: an international comparison of strategies

[Ton Zijlstra]

hi all,

it's an interesting report, and provides useful pointers to relevant policy
documents in all countries reviewed. The full Dutch report is at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/48569658/Open-Overheid, and has those pointers
listed in the annexes.

I've counter-read the report last December at the request of the Dutch Home
Office who commissioned the work, and there are some criticism to be made.
The choice of the 6 countries for instance that were compared seems to be
arbitrary (chosen on the request of the Dutch home office).

Both the Basque and Australian respondents interviewed make remarks, that I
think warrant further attention over time: In Basque they think more
qualitative measurement is needed to establish impact, also given the
relative young nature of all open gov initiatives. Australia remarks that
social impact is hard to make visible in economic indicators. Absent from
the report is that thusfar there also has been no strong backlash notable.
This in itself says something about the reality of the risks envisioned by
those not eager to move forward.

Also it is interesting to note what else is not mentioned. It for instance
does not mention that Spain does not have a FOIA, even though it is one of
the countries looked at for their open gov strategies. (Unless they added
that now, didn't check the english text for it)

I note that by the 6 countries TNO talked to almost nothing was said about
how open gov helps gov itself. As if that's not on the radar at all, which
in itself would be a useful finding. They mention participation, economic
impact etc, but no rationale for the functioning of gov itself when it comes
to open gov. 'Government as a platform' seems to be a remote notion at best.

Some of the elements of the SWOT analysis for Dutch open gov policy are to
my mind somewhat curious.
As a threat for instance it is mentioned that needed investments for open
gov could be hard to find in times of budget cuts. But nowhere it is stated
or estimated what type of investments are needed, and if those sums are
significant. Or if open gov could actually help in times of scarcity (see
paragraph above). That (about the investments needed) also seems to not have
been a question posed to the countries interviewed. Even though if you look
at the Basque case the upfront investment was minimal (20k Euro for legal
advice was all they spent on the Basque open data portal for instance, as
they told me when I interviewed them last summer. All the other elements
were arranged by changing role and function descriptions, and by altering
procurement specifications: in other words by taking a slightly different
perspective on activities that were already taking place anyway), and they
did interview the Basque government.

I've talked to one of the other gov's interviewed afterwards and they felt a
bit disappointed that the report is only descriptive of the countries
interviewed. They would like to have seen a more prescriptive sublimation of
the interviews' findings. I tend to agree, although TNO may have felt that
was not really possible, or not what the client asked them to do.

All in all, it's a report that contains enough interesting material for it
to be a good read, but I also think it's telling in what it does not
describe. I have a nagging feeling more could have been made from it.

best,
Ton
-------------------------------------------
Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

ton at tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog
-------------------------------------------


On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org>wrote:

> Someone pointed this out to me, which might be of interest to some of you!
>
>
> http://www.epractice.eu/files/European%20Journal%20epractice%20Volume%2012_1.pdf
>
> All the best,
>
> Jonathan
>
>
> --
> Jonathan Gray
>
> Community Coordinator
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://blog.okfn.org
>
> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>
> _______________________________________________
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> euopendata at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/euopendata
>
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