Analytics for citizens: A linked open data model for statistical data exploration

Abstract

A growing number of public institutions all over the world have recently started to make government statistical data available in open formats, thus enhancing transparency and accountability, stimulating innovation, and promoting civic awareness and engagement. Integration issues related to fragmentation and heterogeneity of these datasets can be partially addressed by referring to the Linked Data approach, which also enables easier access and consumption by users. However, the lack of an explicit representation of how statistical indicators are calculated still hinders their interpretation, and hence the development of applications and services especially useful for citizens, who do not have full knowledge and control over the underlying data and analysis models. In the present work, we discuss an approach to ease the interaction of communities of citizens with statistical Linked Open Data. We define a model and a set of services allowing people to recognize the mathematical structure of statistical indicators, improving in this way user awareness of the meaning of indicators and their mutual relations. Through such services, it is possible to enable interactive browsing of indicator formulas and novel typologies of data exploration, including dynamic computation of indicators not explicitly stored and comparison of different Linked Data resources.

Benefits of Open Government Data Initiatives in Saudi Arabia and Barriers to Their Implementation

“…The implementation of such OGD initiatives helps governments to achieve goals related to administrative efficiency, transparency, and citizen collaboration (De Blasio & Selva, 2016;Han et al, 2021;Nam, 2019;Vakeel & Panigrahi, 2018). This, according to Diamantini et al (2021) and Yin et al (2019), can also contribute to economic growth. Overall, OGD initiatives are characterised by political, social, economic, cultural and institutional benefits (Altayar, 2018).…”

Barriers to Open Government Data (OGD) initiative in Tanzania: Stakeholders’ perspectives

“…Of late, governments have begun to realize the significance of publishing the data sets via dedicated online portals for co-creation of services and their utilization by a diverse set of stakeholders, including the citizens, journalists, web developers, academic community and the like (Huijboom & Van den Broek, 2011;Piotrowski, Zhang, Lin, & Yu, 2009;Zuiderwijk & Janssen, 2014). Furthermore, OGD initiatives spur economic growth of the country (Diamantini, Potena, & Storti, 2017). Furthermore, OGD initiatives spur economic growth of the country (Diamantini, Potena, & Storti, 2017).…”

“…In a bid to realize the goals of transparency, citizen collaboration, and administrative efficiency, governments have instituted structural and functional mechanisms for implementing OGD initiatives (De Blasio & Selva, 2016). Furthermore, OGD initiatives spur economic growth of the country (Diamantini, Potena, & Storti, 2017). As such, research shows that the developed countries have been more forthcoming in OGD initiatives (Serra, 2014;Wirtz & Birkmeyer, 2015;Zuiderwijk, Janssen, & Dwivedi, 2015) while the developing ones are pushing forth their OGD agenda at a slow-yet-steady pace (Afful-Dadzie & Afful-Dadzie, 2017;Maseh & Katuu, 2017;Ohemeng & Ofosu-Adarkwa, 2015;Saxena & Janssen, 2017).…”