[OKFN-IN] Article on India's Open Government Platform

Thu Aug 9 13:10:51 UTC 2012

Dear all,
Informatics Magazine, printed by by the National Informatics Centre, had 
the Open Government Platform (OGPL) as its lead story (written by Neeta 
Verma, Alka Mishra, and D.P. Mishra).

http://goo.gl/0rXjI (PDF)

# OPEN GOVERNMENT PLATFORM #

## An Open Source Solution to Democratizing Access to Information and 
Energizing Civic Engagement ##

By
NEETA VERMA
Sr. Technical Director

ALKA MISHRA
Sr. Technical Director

D. P. MISRA
Principal Systems Analyst

If government could release these datasets in open format for people to use 
& reuse, a whole lot of new innovative apps could be built around these 
datasets to provide better, customized services to citizens.

Online publishing of Government data in open format shall play an important 
role in enhancing transparency and accountability of the government. It 
shall enable new forms of citizen engagement & innovation in citizen 
service delivery. More customized & personalized services could be offered 
to citizens. When implemented at large scale it shall bring a paradigm 
shift in development of e-governance applications. At NIC we have recently 
developed an Open Government Platform (OGPL) to enable government 
ministries & departments to launch their open data initiative.

### CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEW ###

OGPL as a product caters to two sets of users - the government and the 
citizen/civil societies. It facilitates government departments to 
contribute their datasets, Apps, tools, documents, services etc., which 
gets validated and published, after passing through a predefined workflow 
to the citizen interfacing data portal. The single-point citizen interface 
is designed in such a way that catalogs can be searched with ease and 
datasets can be accessed/downloaded in various open formats. It also 
provides a platform for citizens and civil societies to engage with 
government on various aspects of socio economic development.

OGPL also facilitates building of subject specific communities through 
Citizen engagement modules. Communities shall discuss online the kind of 
datasets, government should release and also what kind of apps should be 
developed around these datasets. This shall provide first hand information 
to government as well as developer communities on public demand and 
prioritize their schedules accordingly.

### OGPL COMPONENTS ###

OGPL essentially consists of three major modules

	* Dataset Management System
	* Data Portal
	* Monitoring and Management
	* Dashboard

### DATASET MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ###

Dataset Management system or DMS shall be used by all contributing 
ministries, departments as well as organisations using which, authorized 
officers of the departments can contribute datasets, documents, services, 
tools and apps which shall then be processed through a predefined workflow 
of moderation & approval to ensure that datasets being released in public 
domain are in compliance with existing acts & policies of the government 
concerning privacy, security etc.

Through DMS each Ministry/Department can contribute their datasets in the 
form containing a set of Standard Metadata elements. After passing through 
various stages of moderation and approvals, these datasets gets published 
on the data portal viz. data.gov.in

### DATA PORTAL ###

Data Portal is the citizen facing frontend of the OGPL which shall provide 
single point access to all the datasets, apps as well as services. Portal 
has a strong component of search, discovery as well as citizen engagement. 
The development of the data portal is in compliance with the Guidelines for 
Indian Government Websites (GIGW).

This Citizen interfacing Data Portal would also have a Communities 
component built into the system. This component facilitates 
Forums/Discussions around various datasets, apps available on the portal as 
well as platform to express and discuss the kind of datasets & apps they 
would like to have. This shall give first hand input to development 
community for building new components, apps. It shall also give input to 
departments as what kind of datasets are more useful and accordingly can 
raise the priority of their release.

### MONITORING AND MANAGEMENT DASHBOARD ###

Monitoring and management dashboard of OGPL helps government monitor & 
manage its Open Data Programme through three dimensions
	* Metrics, analytics & feedback from citizens: Metrics help understand 
amount of datasets uploaded, updated by different Departments. Frequency of 
upload is also available on a single dashboard.
	* Analytics module gives use perspective in terms of their usage of 
datasets, Number of downloads, aggregated ratings provided to datasets 
determine their value and to some extent quality of data released by 
government.
	* Feedback from citizens provide government with first hand input from 
citizens on quality, relevance of datasets, new datasets needed, kind of 
apps need to be developed etc.

	Open government platform can be used in multiple ways. One can directly 
publish their datasets after one time registration & authentication. 
Departments could build their subject specific catalogues through a cloud 
based services of OGPL. One can also ask for independent installation of 
OGPL with customized look & feel. OGPL can be used by any central or state 
government department, organisations as well as district and panchayat 
administrations. It can also be used by private organisations as well as 
non government organization and civil societies to bring in more 
transparency in their functioning.

	OGPL isn't simply about setting up a new web platform, moving to cloud 
computing or adopting open standards but it's about establishing a platform 
to enhance transparency, accountability & foster development of Innovative 
applications to better serve the citizens & other stakeholders. Open 
government data is gaining a lot of popularity & acceptance with 
governments across the world. Its led by government themselves, development 
communities, international organisations. OGPL is a perfect platform for 
them to launch their open data initiative.

***************

Boxes:

### 1. Note by BK Gairola ###

In India, National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) has been 
recently notified by the Government. According to this policy, all 
government departments shall release their datasets in open format for 
citizens and other stakeholders to freely use & reuse. To make these 
datasets easily accessible by citizens, policy has also mandated NIC to 
provide technology solution for establishing an Open Data Portal 
(http://data.gov.in) for Departments, Subordinate Offices and 
Organizations. OGPL implementation in India is being executed by NIC, DeitY 
in close coordination with DST.

OGPL is an open source product with generic architecture, which would 
easily facilitate other organizations and institutions to adopt for their 
open data initiatives. Communities could also contribute further by 
developing innovative apps around datasets and also enhancing the product 
in terms of features & functionalities.

The purpose of the platform is to enhance access and use of government data 
to foster innovation, promote transparency, accountability and public 
participation. I am sure it shall go a long way in democratizing the 
government information.

### 2. INDO-US COLLABORATION ###

Open Government Platform (OGPL) was developed jointly by India & US 
government as a result of announcement made by President Obama and Prime 
Minister Manmohan Singh during the Indo-US Open Government Dialogue in 
2010. OGPL leverages on the best practices & features of the India’s 
“India.gov.in” and the “Data.gov” of United States.National Informatics 
Centre (NIC) from Government of India and General Services Administration 
(GSA) of United States executed the development of OGPL. Open Government 
Platform, developed to promote access to government data and information 
and energize citizen engagement was launched by Hon’ble Minister of 
Communications & IT and HRD, Govt. of India during a press conference held 
on 30th March 2012 in New Delhi in presence of Dr. Sam Pitroda, Advisor to 
Prime Minister of India. Secretary(DEITY), DG(NIC) & Joint Secretary, MEA 
also participated in the press conference, Senior officers from US 
Government & US Embassy were also present along with GSA team in India. 
CIO, US Government along with Deputy CTO also addressed the event over 
video conference.

### 3. OGPL – AN OPEN SOURCE SOLUTION ###

Open Government Platform is completely developed using Open Source Stack. 
In fact complete management of the collaborative development of OGPL by two 
teams stationed in two continents of the world was also handled using open 
source tools.It complies with the best practices of open source 
development, which helps in leveraging the strengths of future versions of 
the open source base products used in development of OGPL.

OGPL being an open source initiative not only facilitates cost saving in 
terms of software and licenses but also facilitates community participation 
in terms of further development of product with additional components and 
innovative apps around the published datasets. This shall define a paradigm 
shift in the manner electronic government applications shall be developed 
in future. The entire source code is made available to public for review, 
feedback and participation for further development and enhancement.

### 4. CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT ###

OGPL has a strong component of Citizen engagement. Citizens can view, 
download datasets as well express their opinion on the quality of datasets, 
they can rate the datasets on a scale of 1 to 5. One can embed a dataset in 
their blog or web site as well as contact the owner of the datasets for any 
query or clarification. One can also publish or connect the datasets on 
their social media pages such as facebook, twitter etc. for wider reach.

Ratings given by citizen are transparently shared on the portal in terms of 
number of views, current star rating which help new visitor understand 
quality of data sets, its popularity. Portal also enables visitors to 
submit their ideas, feedbacks and as well suggest datasets they would like 
government to release in open domain. These ideas are further rated by 
citizens to help government allocate priority in release of data sets.

FOR MORE DETAILS CONTACT:
Ph. +91-11-24305370, 24305395
Visit us at http://ogpl.gov.in
Share your thought at
www.facebook.com/opengovplatform
Email us at nic-ogpl at nic.in

-- 
Pranesh Prakash  · Programme Manager · Centre for Internet and Society
@pranesh_prakash · PGP ID 0x1D5C5F07 · http://cis-india.org

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