Barriers to the Open Government Data Agenda: Taking a Multi‐Level Perspective

Abstract

A loose coalition of advocates for Open Government Data (OGD) argue that such data has the potential to have a transformative impact by catalyzing innovation across sectors of the economy and by fostering democratic participation and engagement. However, there is limited evidence to date of the OGD agenda having such a transformative impact. This article applies the Multi-level Perspective (MLP); an approach more typically applied to study transitions to a sustainable society, to explore the nature of the barriers currently faced by the OGD agenda. It argues that such barriers exist in two forms: implementation barriers and barriers to use. The empirical results presented include survey responses measuring the perceptions of U.K. OGD community members of 33 barriers to the OGD data agenda. These results are analyzed to identify implications for OGD policy and practice. The article concludes with a start at establishing a theoretical grounding for the study of barriers to the OGD agenda.

Open data and its usability: an empirical view from the Citizen’s perspective

“…Presently, open data is mostly available in the raw data format. According to Martin (2014), the open data interfaces are not very user friendly, which fails to attract more number of users. Past research suggests that users tend to refrain from using a complex product/service despite being aware of its increased usefulness (Davis 1989).…”

“…As a resultant, most open data is dumped without any defined demarcations, making it difficult to be identified and traced by the interested stakeholders (Conradie and Choenni 2014). It is also important to note that ease of using or interpreting the available data is exclusive to individual users, and the skills/understanding required to interpret open data will be different for different users (Raman 2012;Martin 2014). Overall, efficient open data platforms and interfaces are expected to enhance citizens' ability to perform better.…”

Factors influencing user acceptance of public sector big open data

“…As suggested in the proposed model, these three characteristics are expected to signiicantly inluence users' behavioural intentions to participate in policy-making and other governmental activities. However, the level of ease or diiculty associated with interpreting open data in the raw format will difer from person to person (Martin 2014;Raman 2012).…”

“…There is evidence in the literature that citizens and organisations refuse to rely on public sector open data based on their unfriendly user experience with open data websites; instances include failure on the part of the government to regularly update the information on such websites, and recurring problems in accessing open data (Kassen 2013). Given their raw nature, Martin (2014) concludes that open data interfaces are not user friendly, the resultant of which is limited number of users. It has been well established very early in literature that no matter how useful a new solution/ service is, if it is complicated to use and understand, it will fail to attract users (Davis 1989); the resultant of which is a colossal gap between the data and its usability for the involved actor groups and stakeholders (Hunnius, Krieger, and Schuppan 2014).…”

The Making of a 'Top' Open Data City: A Case Study of Edmonton’s Open Data Initiative

“…However, the path to open data benefits is not a one-way street and, like other socialbenefit innovations, requires collaboration [11] from a plurality of actors [22]. The fact that individual citizens (and cities) may not have the skills or knowledge to fully exploit open data [6,23], suggests intermediaries, such as application developers and researchers, are needed to take full advantage of open data [10,11].…”