[open-government] Definitions of Open Government and Open Government Data

Mon Apr 8 09:20:47 UTC 2013

On 7 April 2013 18:52, Konrad Reiche <konrad.reiche at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I am writing my thesis in Computer Science in the context of Open
> Government Data. Lately, I am dealing a lot with the definitions of
> Open Data, Open Government and Open Government Data.
>
> I would say, Open Data is more or less quite well-defined, but I have
> my problems with narrowing it down for Open Government and Open
> Government Data. Recently I have started to read "Open Government,
> Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice" published
> by O'Reilly Media. For Open Government it says:
>
> "What is open government? In the most basic sense, it’s the notion that
> the people have the right to access the documents and proceedings of
> government."
>
> But what about Open Government Data? I think it would be too harsh to
> define it as Open Data provided by the government, because there is so
> much government data out there which is not open, but accessible
> nonetheless.

Like James I think that is exactly what we should define it as:
Government data that is Open as per the Open Definition
(http://opendefinition.org/). This is how it has been defined on
OpenGovernmentData.org for some time:

<http://opengovernmentdata.org/> - <http://opengovernmentdata.org/what/>

There are important reasons for ensuring that open government data
does not just mean "free" access. These are laid out in the "Why"
section on OpenGovernmentData.org but to repeat here:

- Transparency isn’t just about access, it is also about sharing and
reuse — often, to understand material it needs to be analyzed and
visualized and this requires that the material be open so that it can
be freely used andreused.

- Releasing social and commercial value (through reuse etc). By
opening up data, government can help drive the creation of innovative
business and services that deliver social and commercial value.

Key point: access alone is not what you want. You want full freedom
(for anyone, commercial, non-commercial, local national or foreigner)
to use, reuse and redistribute. In short you want open as defined by
http://OpenDefinition.org.

As James says if you want to say publicly accessible government data
you can just say that :-)

> So I would rather read it as ((Open Goverment) Data), data provided by
> the government, where people have the right to access them.

I'd read it exactly as defined on OpenGovernmentData.org :-)

> Does someone know whether these terms are discussed somewhere in more
> detail, something that I could reference?

Suggest referencing OpenGovernmentData.org and OpenDefinition.org.

Rufus