[open-government] Joint HSE/"Information Culture" report on the implementation of Open Data in Russia in 2013

[Andrew Stott]

The Higher School of Economics at the National Research University, Moscow,
and "Information Culture" have published an analysis of the results the open
data initiative in the Russian Federation in 2013.  According to the report,
by 25 September 2013 577 datasets were available from 59 federal agencies,
against a target of 500.

A rough translation of the key findings of the report is as follows:

1. Despite the fact that all actions to implement open data in the Russian
Federation are in accordance with the road map, 14 federal authorities have
not yet started work on it.  

2. The key indicators on the roadmap have been achieved.  However none of
the really popular data sets have been published.  This hinders the
emergence of new applications. 

3. There has been a tendency to split a single thematic dataset into small
tables; this increases the number of datasets “published”.  For instance 98
of the 102 “datasets” from the Russian Federal Statistics Agency ROSSTAT
appear to be extracts from one underlying database with different filters. 
Evaluation of progress should be more based on the value and relevance of
the datasets.

4. The publication of data has kept quite closely to the methodology set by
the Ministry of Economics (overall an adherence of 75% to all the data
publication requirements across all federal executive bodies).  However
there are regular sources of error:
*  Data published but not available for *download* (in 9 Federal bodies more
than 50% of datasets cannot be downloaded)
*  Only 23% of federal bodies have placed a feedback section in their open
data site

5. Regions and municipalities are actively involved in the work on open
data, but at this level of error is greater.  This is due to a lack of
explanation of open data.  The most common mistake is a misunderstanding of
the term open data: OLAP based analyses and draft laws are being published
instead of machine-readable data.

6. Since the President’s decree on Open Data in July 2012 there have been no
less than 24 other decrees containing provisions on public access to
information but these did not contain any indication of the need for access
to the information in the form of open data. 

7. Russian federal open data portal is under heavy discussion right now.
First document with portal specification and requirement was criticised by
experts due lack of focus on 5-stars data and many other topics.
The full report (in Russian) can be found here http://goo.gl/AlmxEo

Thanks to Ivan Begtin (Information Culture) and Evgeny Styrin (HSE) for
review of this post.