[open-government] Help us build an evidence base on the social impact of open data!

Wed Feb 25 17:44:16 UTC 2015

Dear all,

About a month ago, Sunlight asked
<http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/01/23/help-us-build-an-evidence-base-on-the-social-impact-of-open-data/>
the open government community to provide illustrative examples of how open
data initiatives and digital transparency projects are having a meaningful
impact on our societies. And even though the first round of submissions has
passed, our call received unprecedented feedback; we decided to turn our
crowdsourced spreadsheet
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jP6WIkEPczb8MBn6DNOU2PhKp9Prwe4HokqhUQVsxE0/edit#gid=0>
into a living document, asking everyone to keep adding your projects to the
repository! If you haven't done so yet, you can submit your story through
this link
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jP6WIkEPczb8MBn6DNOU2PhKp9Prwe4HokqhUQVsxE0/edit#gid=0>,
by filling out this form
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1gcip5I_cbSuAlQwgFh_dM5XRZND4dnL1Q9qTsgdo858/viewform?usp=send_form>
or emailing it directly to international at sunlightfoundation.com!

We are currently working to turn your stories into a strong and powerful
evidence base that empowers both advocacy and further research. As part of
the same project, we are also in the midst of developing a methodological
framework for measuring the social and political impact of open government
projects. You can read more about the approach in our recent blog post
<http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/02/25/were-still-looking-for-open-data-social-impact-stories/>.

Best,
Julia

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 9:44 AM, Julia Keserű <
jkeseru at sunlightfoundation.com> wrote:

> *** Sorry for the cross-post. ***
>
> Hey everyone,
>
> We need your help!
>
> The Sunlight Foundation is looking for examples on the social impact of
> open data and digital transparency projects from around the world. This is
> a great opportunity to tell us what open data project you`re working on and
> how you think your initiative is making a change to our societies, beyond
> economic impact. Our new repository is part of a research project to
> explore and analyze the social impact of open data outside the U.S. (More
> info in the blog post below.)
>
> Please submit your case story through this link
> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jP6WIkEPczb8MBn6DNOU2PhKp9Prwe4HokqhUQVsxE0/edit#gid=0>,
> or send it to international at sunlightfoundation.com before the end of *Feb.
> 4*! All you need to do is give a very short description of your project
> and how you think it's driving change.
>
> Best and thanks,
> Julia
>
>
>
> http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/01/23/help-us-build-an-evidence-base-on-the-social-impact-of-open-data/
>
> Help us build an evidence base on the social impact of open data!
> <http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/01/23/help-us-build-an-evidence-base-on-the-social-impact-of-open-data/>
> by Júlia Keserű <http://sunlightfoundation.com/team/jkeseru/>
>
>    - policy <http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/policy/>
>
> JAN. 23, 2015, 8 A.M.
> [image: open data in Scrabble letters]Photo by Flickr user Justin Grimes
> <https://www.flickr.com/photos/notbrucelee/8016200072>
>
> Talking about the economic benefit of open data is one good way to
> describe open data’s impact, and provides a "great rationale
> <http://www.techrepublic.com/article/more-than-economics-the-social-impact-of-open-data/>" for
> the release of relevant data sets. However, open data’s impact does not lie
> solely in the economic sphere. Government openness may produce tremendous
> other benefits for our societies: increasing state or institutional
> responsiveness, reducing levels of corruption and clientelism, building new
> democratic spaces for citizens, empowering local and disadvantaged voices,
> or enhancing service delivery and effective service utilization.
>
> But how effective open data and government transparency actually are at
> producing these social benefits is not yet at all evident. At a time when "fake
> government openness
> <http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/10/16/is-ogp-vouching-for-hungary/>" and
> "open-washing
> <http://blog.okfn.org/2014/03/10/open-washing-the-difference-between-opening-your-data-and-simply-making-them-available/>" are
> increasingly seen as a risk to the transparency movement’s credibility,
> there is burning need for more evidence on how opening up government
> information helps us all use resources more “effectively, equitably and
> sustainably to meet people’s needs
> <https://www.globalintegrity.org/posts/learning-to-open-governance/>.”
> Developing indexes and comparative studies on a wide range of topics (e.g.
> budgets <http://internationalbudget.org/what-we-do/open-budget-survey/>,
> thefreedom of the web <http://webfoundation.org/projects/the-web-index/>,
> aid <http://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/index/>, perceived corruption
> <http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview>, etc.) is a crucial
> first step, but in order to get more buy-in from our policy-makers and a
> critical mass of citizens, we need to look beyond those indexes and find
> other ways to analyze the effect of open data on societies.
>
> Much of the existing literature seeking to measure the impact and
> effectiveness of transparency and open data accountability initiatives seem
> to face
> <https://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/IETASynthesisReportMcGeeGaventaFinal28Oct2010.pdf> a
> common challenge: It is incredibly difficult to come up with definitive,
> evidence-based generalizations about how "x" type of initiatives produce
> "y" kinds of effects. The field has yet to coalesce around a theory of
> change, for one, and there are significant methodological challenges around
> comparability and unevenness of evidence.
>
> At Sunlight, we would like to help change that. As a continuation of our
> work <https://www.scribd.com/doc/219477511/The-Impacts-of-Open-Data> to
> provide examples of how opening up information makes a difference in
> communities across the U.S., we want to tackle some of these challenges
> through a new research project to explore and analyze the social impact of
> open data outside the U.S. Our goal is to build a strong evidence base that
> might empower further generalizations and to develop a few potential
> theories of change that capture the nuances, complexity and messiness of
> this broad agenda. With generous support from the Open Data for
> Development
> <http://www.opengovpartnership.org/blog/jose-alonso/2014/11/26/ogp-open-data-working-group-announces-first-round-recipients-open-data>Research
> Fund of the OGP Open Data Working Group, our research aims to identify the
> factors that increase the likelihood that open data initiatives will
> achieve their stated goals in a particular context. We also seek to
> understand why and how these factors lead to success or failure.
>
> As a first step, we are asking you — the community of transparency and
> open government advocates, civic hackers, investigative journalists and
> policy makers — to provide us with illustrative examples of how open data
> and transparency projects are having impact on our societies.
>
> Are you working on an open data project that improves the level of
> political participation and citizen engagement? Do you know any tech-based
> transparency project that you think might lead to change in social
> behavior? Is your transparency initiative aimed at decreasing the
> perception of corruption, fraud or waste. Has it led to more investigations
> or better investigative journalism? Are you aware of an open data
> initiative that improves public service delivery or social policies? From
> environmental through educational and public safety to health outcomes,
> we're looking for examples — both on the local and national level — that
> look beyond the direct economic benefits of open data and illustrate how
> government openness produces social benefits.
>
> We realize that the definitions we use here are a bit broad, but our goal
> is to encourage everyone working in this field to help us build a strong
> evidence base that we can further filter and analyze. So please help us and
> submit your case story through this link
> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jP6WIkEPczb8MBn6DNOU2PhKp9Prwe4HokqhUQVsxE0/edit#gid=0>,
> or send it to international at sunlightfoundation.com before the end of Feb.
> 4! All you need to do is give a very short description of your project and
> how you think it's making a change in our societies. Any supporting
> documents (theories of change, articles, impact stories) in both your local
> language or in English are welcome too.
>
> Access to government information and decision-making processes is a
> fundamental democratic principle. Open data and digital transparency are
> one important way of achieving that access. Help us make our case even
> stronger!
>
> --
> Júlia Keserű
> International Policy Manager
>
> 1818 N Street NW, Suite 300
> Washington, DC 20036
> (1) 202-742-1520 *246
>
> [image: Sunlight Foundation] <http://sunlightfoundation.com/> [image:
> Sunlight Foundation on Facebook]
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> on Twitter] <http://twitter.com/sunfoundation>[image: OpenGov on Reddit]
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> <http://www.youtube.com/sunlightfoundation>
> <http://sunlightfoundation.com/feeds/latest/>
>

-- 
Júlia Keserű
International Policy Manager

1818 N Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036
(1) 202-742-1520 *246

[image: Sunlight Foundation] <http://sunlightfoundation.com/> [image:
Sunlight Foundation on Facebook]
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