[open-economics] Anyone interested? Creating an "Open Knowledge Index"

Guo Xu digitalepourpre at gmail.com
Sun Jul 3 21:08:15 UTC 2011


Hi Jesús,

First, thanks a lot for joining the list - it's great to see some
senior researchers here. We can certainly need expert advice :)

I will have a look at the paper you wrote. It is quite compelling to
see that you are focusing on the determinants of voluntary disclosure.
Anders - who has joined the list very recently and is an enthusiastic
data journalist - has been looking at a database of EU lobbyists. We
have been brainstorming over the possibilities of using the dataset
for analysis but the main problem here was that registration to the
database was voluntary - maybe you have some suggestions.

The preliminary idea for the index was to create it on the country
level, even though a disaggregation by municipalities would obviously
be incredibly valuable (but hard to operationalized). Let's wait for
more feedback - we will also discuss this in our next Skype meeting
end of July (where you are warmly invited to join in). It would be
great to have some suggestions on which dimensions to measure.
Currently, the idea was to capture both the governmental side and the
citizen side in the index. But this is of course still not fixed -
what is clear, however, is that there is no such index yet and it
would be a great tool for future research.

I'll go back read your paper for now - and again, welcome to the list!

Guo




On 3 July 2011 19:46, JESUS GARCIA GARCIA <jesgar at uniovi.es> wrote:
> Hi everybody!
>
> Since this is my first post on the list, let me introduce myself shortly.  I
> work as senior lecturer at University of Oviedo (Spain). Main topics of
> research recently have been financial reporting on open source software and
> e-gov/o-gov on municipalities.
>
> I have been working in the idea exposed by Guo focused on disclosure of
> financial and budgetary information by Spanish municipalities and their
> determinants
> (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03003930.2010.506980). An Open
> Data Index would be a great idea, especially if offering a simple
> measurement of transparency and accountability. You can count me on if any
> help is needed!
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> *************************************************************
> Jesús García García
> Departamento de Contabilidad.
> Edificio Departamental de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales
> Avda. del Cristo, s/n
> 33071 Oviedo (España)
>
> jesgar at uniovi.es
> www.unioviedo.es/jesgar
>
> Tfno: +34 985 10 3904
> Fax: +34 985 10 2812
> ************************************************************
>
> El 03/07/11, Guo Xu <digitalepourpre at gmail.com> escribió:
>
> Dear list(s),
>
> The OKCon has passed and generated many ideas for exciting future projects.
>
> One of the promising ideas I discussed with several participants was
> to compile an index to track progress in opening data - both over time
> and across countries. This would serve several purposes:
>
> 1) Enable the public to make cross-country comparisons (i.e. which
> country performs well?) and track longitudinal developments (i.e.
> which country has improved on opening data?)
> 2) Serve as a useful tool for conducting open knowledge research (e.g.
> correlating the index with socio-economic variables - does open
> knowledge really foster innovation and growth?)
> 3) Ideally, increase impact of OKF in public - making the "Open
> Knowledge Index" a citable measure of open government
>
> There are many indices out there - for tracking democracy, corruption,
> innovation and human development - so why not a measure to track
> progress in opening government? Such an index (leaving aside
> methodological problems for now) could greatly increase visibility of
> OKF's work: A success case here is Transparency International - before
> Ti published its corruption index, journalists had a hard time reading
> and understanding all the reports - with the creation of the
> Corruption Perception Index, Ti has become one of the most known NGOs
> in fighting corruption.
>
> So why not have an Open Knowledge Index, released annually in a report
> and during the OKCon? This would greatly increase media attention!
>
> I have some professional experience in creating indices (my research
> institute has been compiling the German innovation index for a while
> and we are currently drafting the funding proposal for an index of IT
> infrastructure resilience). The Open Economics WG itself has developed
> some experience with creating composite indices with the Yourtopia app
> we submitted previously at the Apps4Development competition. I would
> therefore volunteer to coordinate such an index within the Open
> Economics group, mainly as an open academic project. The first step
> would be to construct a prototype; in the longer run, we might also
> consider applying for research grants in order to create the index
> annually.
>
> Just wanted to start a discussion and see who would be interested - we
> are planning to discuss this in greater detail during our regular
> Skype meetups.
>
> Guo
>
> _______________________________________________
> open-economics mailing list
> open-economics at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-economics
>
> --
> *************************************************************
> Jesús García García
> Departamento de Contabilidad.
> Edificio Departamental de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales
> Avda. del Cristo, s/n
> 33071 Oviedo (España)
>
> jesgar at uniovi.es
> www.uniovi.es/jesgar
>
> Tfno: +34 985 10 3904
> Fax: +34 985 10 2812
> ************************************************************
>
> _______________________________________________
> open-economics mailing list
> open-economics at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-economics
>
>




More information about the open-economics mailing list