“Open government data initiatives vary in nature, and the implemented approaches reflect this heterogeneity. However, the most common approaches include data portals, data catalogues and services”, according to a paper published by Judie Attard, Fabrizio Orlandi, Simon Scerri, and Sören Auer from the University of Bonn.
Titled ‘A systematic review of open government data initiatives’, the paper aims to give an overview of existing interpretation of Open Government Data projects around the world, examining the ways they are implemented, how projects are defined in each country and what concepts are the most relevant for them. The authors also provide “an integrated and unified model that covers the relevant concepts, terminology, initiatives, challenges and guidelines, therefore portraying how each element forms part of the bigger picture”.
Part of their assessment was also made by analyzing the literature in all the open data portals they identified as being relevant in their survey.
Transparency and direct access to information
Among the other conclusions reached in the paper, we can also read that “while a number of different guidelines are defined in literature, there are no agreed upon standards for the publishing or consumption of open government data”. They also found that transparency is “one of the main aims of opening government data, however it is not the only impact”. Open Government Data “results in more informed citizens”, they said.
For their survey, the authors created a standard framework that defined the lifecycle of Open Government Data, spanning from pre-processing, exploitation and, lastly, maintenance. The lifecycle consists of nine sections: data creation, data selection, data harmonization, data publishing, data interlinking, data discovery, data exploration, data exploration, data exploitation and data curation.