Designing a second generation of open data platforms

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Designing a Second Generation of Open Data
Platforms: Integrating Open Data and Social
Media
Charalampos Alexopoulos1, Anneke Zuiderwijk2, Yannis
Charalabidis1, Euripidis Loukis1, and Marijn Janssen2
1 University of the Aegean, Greece
2 Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands

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Introduction
• Important trends in government :
• Web 2.0 social media - interaction and collaboration with citizens
• User-generated social content
• Social networking
• Collaboration1
• Opening government data
• increase in activities and investments towards opening up
government data
• OGD platforms follow mainly the Web 1.0 paradigm, aiming mainly
to make OGD available
1 Davis, T., Mintz, M.: Design features for the social web: The Architecture of Deme. In: Proceedings of 8th International Workshop on Web-Oriented Software
Technologies - IWWOST (2009)

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Problem statement
• Yet, limited attempt of integrating these trends
• Open data platforms
• offer mainly capabilities for searching and downloading data
• limited capabilities for stimulating/facilitating value generation
• Objective: develop an OGD platform which offers both
‘classical’ and novel Web 2.0 oriented functionalities aiming
to stimulate and facilitate value generation from OGD

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Background:
Opening Government Data
• Opening government data can be valuable for e.g.
• scientific research in many different domains (e.g. social,
political, economic and other sciences)  contribute to ‘e-
Science’ paradigm
• insight in activities and spending of government agencies (e.g.
for citizens and journalists)
• positive impact on innovation and economic growth,
development of new applications, products and services

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Background:
Social Media in Government
• Much potential:
• Increasing citizens’ participation and engagement in public policy
making
• Public services co-production
• Exploiting public knowledge and talent in order to develop
innovative solutions to the complex societal problems,
crowdsourcing solutions
• Promoting transparency-accountability
• Reduce corruption by collectively monitoring government activities
• Increase information and knowledge exchange among government
agencies

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Design methodology
• Design Science Research Methodology (Peffers et al., 2008)
1. Problem identification
and motivation
little support for creating value of OGD
by users whereas Web 2.0 social media
tools can be used for this
2. Define objectives of a
solution
6 semi-structured interviews, December
2011 - January 2012
111 questionnaire responses, April 2012 -
September 2012
65 workshop participants (4 workshops),
May 2012 - September 2012
3. Prototype design and
development
Web 2.0 OGD platform
4. Prototype demonstration,
5. evaluation, and
6. communication
138 Dutch and Greek students,
Evaluations in October 2012 (n=21 and
n=33), May 2013 (n=15), September 2013
(n=19), October 2013 (n=20) and
November 2013 (n=30)

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Designed prototype
Functionality Example
1 Data processing Data format conversion
2 Data enhanced modeling Contextual metadata and vocabularies
3 Feedback and collaboration Express dataset needs and comments
4 Data quality rating Quality assessment for each dataset
5 Grouping and interaction Work together on datasets in groups
6 Data linking LOD principles, allow for querying data
7 Data versions publication/upload Dataset version management
8 Data visualization Advanced visualization capabilities

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Evaluation - survey
• Functionalities rated in the form of statement (“To which
extent do you agree with the following statements?”)
1=Strongly Disagree, 2= Disagree, 3=Neutral, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree
• The results indicate a positive attitude of users towards the
novel functionalities provided by this OGD platform
• Enables the web 2.0 social functionalities
• Prototype used in the evaluation - a complete platform can
probably perform better
Functionalities Average Ratings
1. Data Processing 3,3
3. Feedback and Collaboration 3,6
4. Data Quality Rating 3,5
5. Grouping and Interaction 3,5

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Evaluation – participant discussion
• In general participants said it was easy to use the prototype:
• [the prototype] “stimulates exchange of information and
improvement of datasets”
• “easy to add comments”
• “the rating system for datasets is useful”
• “the quality rating system is nice”
• “I like the idea that you can make a request for a dataset. If you
cannot find it yourself, the community will help you”
• “nice that you can see whether a request has been satisfied”
• Results suggest that the platform enables the web 2.0 social
functionalities, yet some difficulties with the use of the prototype
• E.g. difficulties with data visualizations, website response times

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• Suggested improvements:
• “the platform is only useful when you have many users”
• “very little feedback provided up until now” (feedback about data
use)
• Concerns about correctness and reliability of extended/added data
• Reward active users with kudos/credit system
• Allow for searching through list of other open data users and allow
for sending them private messages
• Enhance group creation capabilities
Evaluation – participant discussion

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Conclusions
• Developed an OGD platform which offers both ‘classical’ and novel
Web 2.0 oriented functionalities, aiming to stimulate and facilitate
value generation from OGD
• Design science approach was useful for the creation of the platform
• First evaluation shows that users appreciate the novel Web 2.0
oriented features, and find them useful
• Suggests that the proposed integration of two major technological
trends in government (social media and data opening) can be
successful and beneficial

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Implications for research and
practice
• Research results can be used to:
• develop a new stream of research towards the enhancement of
the classical OGD platforms  support data ‘pro-sumption’,
interaction and collaboration
• OGD practice should move from simple data provision to the
support and facilitation of their exploitation and value generation
from them
• Research in progress
• Further evaluation by different groups of ‘more professional’
users
• Develop more advanced versions of this OGD platform

Designing a second generation of open data platforms

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