Barriers to Open Government Data

Earlier in the year, as part of my on-going research on open data, I ran a survey exploring the barriers to open government data. More specifically, I was seeking to understand how the open data community perceived potential barriers to realizing value from open government data. The initial idea for research formed when reflecting upon my experiences working in ICT and innovation in the UK public sector - around the time (2009-11) that the open data agenda was starting to gain traction and profile in the UK. I felt the topic of barriers (although may be not as ‘glamorous’ as other areas of open data) was and remains an import area to explore. First, to better articulate the challenges faced by the open data community - as the initial wave of enthusiasm for open data is met by the practicalities of realizing its promise. Secondly, better articulation of the barriers will hopefully enable holistic, socio-technical approaches to overcoming these barriers to emerge. In this blog I present some of initial results of the survey, in a form that is hopefully useful to the open data community, and provide some personal thoughts on the implications of these results. First though, a little detail on the survey itself in order to place the rest of the blog in context.

During January and February 2013 survey participants were invited to review barriers to the supply and use of open government data, alongside crosscutting barriers spanning both the supply and demand sides. The barriers presented had been identified through analysis of policy documents and the academic literature, combined with observation of open government data events in the UK. The presentation below show the diversity of barriers considered including both social (e.g. the lack of a coherent vision for funding open data initiatives) and technical factors (e.g. ICT interoperability issues). 233 people participated in the survey from across the international open data community bringing perspectives from the public, private, academic and non-profit sectors. The majority of participants were involved in open government data in the Europe or North America, and fewer participants came from Africa, Asia and South America. Given that the open government data community is rapidly evolving and it is challenging to define its boundaries, at this stage I make no claims as to whether the participants are a representative sample of the wider community or not.

Some preliminary survey results

The survey participants tended to agree that the statements presented in the survey were (in his or her experience or opinion) barriers to realising value from open government data. This tendency, as shown in the graphs in the presentation below, at least to me is not too surprising for a couple of reasons. First, the open data agenda calls for large-scale social and technical change across multiple organisations with potentially competing interests (so it should be relatively easy to identify barriers). Secondly, the barriers presented in the survey are underpinned (to a greater or lesser degree) by evidence (so one might hope that participants would tend to agree with the current evidence). I now pick out three findings of interest from more detailed analysis of the survey results.

The open government data community seems focussed on supply side barriers, and is more sceptical about demand side barriers

The emphasis survey participants placed on barriers to the supply of open government data, seems to some extent to mirror the data-push perspective that underpins the open data agenda (i.e. make the data available and users will come). The prominence of supply side concerns is also clear within the survey results. With the strongest consensuses forming (i.e. where 75% or more of participants agreed the barrier existed) around five barriers on the supply side.

• Government organisations tend to have risk adverse cultures and so presume that access to data should be restricted.
• Individuals and groups within government organisations treat open data as an extra activity, rather than part of day-to-day activities.
• Government organisations lack a coherent vision for funding open data and promoting open data use.
• Government organisations face challenges establishing effective processes to engage with the diverse community of potential open data users.
• Open data requires change across multiple large organisations, and faces indifference and resistance from members of these organisations.

Conversely, the barriers that were viewed most sceptically (i.e. where 40% or more of participants disagreed and believed the barrier did not exist) all related to the demand for open government data.

• In Government organisations delivering open data the IT (Information Technology) costs are high.
• There is little demand from potential users across the private, public and civil society sectors for open data.
• The open data made available by government organisations is low value.

There are contentious issues around some politicised aspects of the open government data agenda

Opinion was more often divided where barriers related to the more politicised aspects of the open government data agenda. These contentious barriers (where 25% or more of participants agreed and 25% or more disagreed) relate to issues including public sector actors ‘profiting’ from the sale of data, restricted access to the digital infrastructure and conflicting public and private sector objectives.

• Government organisations will lose financial income by opening up data, as they currently generate revenue from some data
• Potential civil society open data users lack access to the digital infrastructure, financial resources and educational resources needed to make use of the data
• Private sector users focus on exploiting financial value from open data at the expense of exploiting social and environmental value

There are some differences in the perceptions of barriers to open government data across sectors

By comparing the survey responses from participants from the across public, private and non-profit sectors some interesting differences in perspective can be identified. Such differences highlight the potential for cross-sectoral learning and collaboration to better understand and address barriers to open government data. Two of the barriers where (statistically) significantly different perspectives were evident were:

• Government organisations face challenges balancing privacy concerns with the public interest when opening up data. Those working in the public sector where more likely to perceive challenges balancing privacy with the public interest than their private sector counterparts.
• There is little demand from potential users across the private, public and civil society sectors for open data. Those working in the public sector where more likely to perceive lack of demand as an issue than those working in the not for profit sector.

What to do about the barriers?

Although this research discussed above is still at an early stage, I conclude by offering two personal reflections on the potential implications of the results. First, the variety, complexity and number of barriers perceived by the open government community suggests the need for the action across the supply and demand sides. Such action should be informed by an understanding of the whole government data system including its social and technical facets. For example, the alignment of the open government data agenda with organisational goals, cultures and processes, need to be considered alongside technological and data concerns. Secondly, open data is an innovation in its own right and is in the early stages of development. This provides important context to the current emphasis on supply-side barriers, which indeed must be overcome to enable further exploration of the potential demand for open data. That said, for open data to make the transition from its current niche to creating a sustained mainstream impact, consideration of the demand side barriers is likely to become more prominent. It is this transition to mainstream impact that I plan to explore in research following on from the barriers survey.

If you are interested in further details please contact Chris Martin at c.a.martin@leeds.ac.uk or @chrismartin81.  I would particularly welcome thoughts and ideas on potential collaborations on a white paper on barriers to open government data and future work on pathways for open data.