Open Data Portals Drive Performance & Transparency
At Delivery Associates, Digital we are on a mission to help improve public sector performance through the use of data &technology.
‘Opening up’ data is a a critical driver to performance and transparency, and can be achieved through effective policy, development and implementation.
The Return on Investment is tangible e.g. Jay Nath, CIO of San Francisco looked to 311 data to guide open data releases. He evaluated the call volume before and after releasing real-time transit information and determined they achieved a savings of $1.3 million per year.
Indeed, opening up data can drive value for businesses and citizens.
We have seen and interacted with many governments, federal, regional and cities around the world that have good practices.
A few learnings on what are needed for solid foundations to be built for a successful Open Data Portal:
Policy
- Setting up a dedicated open data policy, legislation and strategy: see the UK example
- Develop a delivery plan to make the strategy actionable and responsibilities are clear, with clear definitions of success, and criteria to judge it by.
- Communicate the delivery plan and roadmap with users, and get their feedback through routines.
- Setting up a network of data communication officers and maintain close contact with them: see the Ireland example.
Development & Go to market
- Innovate features that engage with citizens or residents: see India example.
- Use existing technologies rather than re-inventing the wheel such as CKAN or Dataverse.
- Drive engagement between data publishers and re-users through discussion forums, dataset-specific feedback systems, and rating systems.
- Provide and market case studies of open data re-use cases.
- Get early buy-in from NGOs, Civil Society, Entrepreneurs and build ‘success stories’ with them, which are celebrated!
Open Data Quality
- Provide manuals and technical guidelines that address frequently asked questions.
- Actively train and onboard data publishers.
- Establish a hub for guides and training on the portal, that includes may include routine and live webinars.
Implementation
- Set North Star metrics such as ‘published data sets’ & ‘downloads,’ which are routinely reported to the executive and working teams.
- Drive traffic through featuring data that is relevant e.g., considering topics that are currently in the news and giving related datasets more prominence e.g. COVID-19 or Vaccination related.
- Continue to engage with users to understand and prioritise their needs.
Seeing citizen engagement on COVID-19 updates across systems globally, and the pressure on leadership to deliver, exemplifies how our consumption and use of data will fundamentally change how governments deliver.
According to Sir Michael Barber who continues to inspire our work at Delivery Associates Digital “the digital revolution is creating a data revolution — the era of Big Data has arrived” (p. 283, How to Run a Government: 2015, Penguin) make sure you are ahead of the curve.
We at Delivery Associates Digital — stand ready to assist any country or city in opening up and building their Open Data Portals, feel free contact us as digital@deliveryassociates.com for more information.
