open data [English]

Other Languages

Syndetic Relationships

InterPARES Definition

n. ~ Data available to anyone that may be used for any purpose and that is in a structure that facilitates its use at little or no charge.

General Notes

The Open Data Institute asserts that works must be licensed to be open and considers a work to be open in terms of how the license addresses key principles, including: access, redistribution, reuse, absence of technological restriction, attribution, integrity, no discrimination against persons or groups, no discrimination against fields of endeavor, distribution of license, license must not be specific to a package, and license must not restrict the distribution of other works. Any charge should be limited to a reasonable, one-time reproduction cost.

Other Definitions

  • Gartner IT Glossary (†298 s.v. open data): Information or content made freely available to use and redistribute, subject only to the requirement to attribute it to the source. The term also may be used more casually to describe any data that is shared outside the organization and beyond its original intended use, for example, with business partners, customers or industry associations. Formally, data designated as “open” is subject to several conditions and licensing that can be found at opendefinition.org.

Citations

  • [UK] Minister of State 2012 (†663 p. 8): Data that meets the following criteria: · accessible (ideally via the internet) at no more than the cost of reproduction, without limitations based on user identity or intent; · in a digital, machine readable format for interoperation with other data; and · free of restriction on use or redistribution in its licensing conditions. (†1520)
  • Anciaux-Duclert 2013 (†665 ): The open-data movement shares some of its objectives with the FOIA and the PSI, for it is based "on principles of accountability and transparency on the one hand and innovation and economic growth on the other hand." (Quoting K. Janssen, "The Influence of the PSI directive . . . ," Government Information Quarterly, 28:4. (†1521)
  • Davies 2013 (†330 ): Open data has many roots and many branches. Different groups have come together to advocate for Open Government Data based on the potential for it to lead to: -More efficient and effective government – both through government using its own data better, and through innovators outside of government identifying improved ways to provide public services, meeting the diverse needs of citizens through digital technologies; -Innovation and economic growth – acting as a 21st Century infrastructure, and a raw material, for activity in the information economy. Start-ups and established businesses can use open data to generate new products and services, and secure efficiencies, generating a net-gain for country economies; -Transparency and accountability – allowing citizens and civil society to see, understand and monitor better what their governments and the private sector are doing, challenging corruption or unaccountable activity, and finding opportunities to influence policy and practice; -Inclusion and empowerment – enabling marginalised groups to get involved in the political process, and removing imbalances of power created through information asymmetry. (†310)
  • Finley 2014 (†512 ): Let’s say your city releases a list of all trees planted on its public property. It would be a godsend – at least in theory. You could filter the data into a list of all the fruit and nut trees in the city, transfer it into an online database, and create a smartphone app that helps anyone find free food. ¶ Such is promise of “open data” – the massive troves of public information our governments now post to the net. The hope is that, if governments share enough of this data with the world at large, hackers and entrepreneurs will find a way of putting it to good use. (†802)
  • Geiger and von Lucke 2013 (†296 p. 268): Open Data are all stored data which could be made accessible in a public interest without any restrictions for usage and distribution. ¶ Content of Open Data could be education material, geo data, statistics, traffic data, scientific publications, medical studies or radio and television programs. Open Data combines not only stored data of the public sector, but also includes data from businesses, universities, broadcasting stations or non-profit-organizations (von Lucke, 2011). (†271)
  • ITrust Research Project 9 Proposal, 2013 (†389 1): The statistics offered through open data initiatives are products of processes that began with the original capture of source records (completed survey forms, case records, etc.), the extraction of relevant data from the records to create new assemblages or aggregations of the data (which leads to new records) which themselves may be packaged for external use or ‘mashed up’ with other data to form entirely new assemblages and aggregations tailored for external use and made available online. (†422)
  • Janssen, Charalabidis, and Zuiderwijk, 2012 (†351 ): In this research, we define open data as non-privacy-restricted and non-confidential data which is produced with public money and is made available without any restrictions on its usage or distribution. Private, confidential, and classified data is excluded, as this type of data is inappropriate to publicize. Data can be provided by public and private organizations, as the essence is that the data is funded by public money. (†333)
  • Janssen, Charalabidis, and Zuiderwijk, 2012 (†351 ): Open data mends the traditional separation between public organizations and users. The opening of data leads to two important assumptions about government. First, it leads to an assumption of the readiness of public agencies for an opening process which considers influences, discourses, and exchanges as constructive and welcomes opposing views and inputs. Second, it leads to an assumption that government is to give up control, at least to some extent, demanding considerable transformations of the public sector. Instead of reinforcing current processes, open data should result in open government, in which the government acts as an open system and interacts with its environment. Not only should data be published, but they should actively be sought for knowledge on how to improve the government. The publicizing of data could have far-reaching effects on the public sector. Mechanisms for monitoring and responding to the questions asked by the public are therefore necessary, and the government should be viewed as an open system interacting with its environment. (†334)
  • Janssen, Charalabidis, and Zuiderwijk, 2012 (†351 ): Open data on its own has little intrinsic value; the value is created by its use. (†335)
  • McDonald and Lévillé 2014 (†519 ): The concept of open data is twofold; it couples the act of proactive disclosure of government-generated information in the form of open datasets, normally within the context of Open Government policy, and the intended audience’s ability to access that data. The concept is rooted in the objective to increase government transparency, generate public input and interest, and stimulate social and economic development. (†813)
  • McDonald and Lévillé 2014 (†519 ): Big data initiatives differ from open data initiatives in a number of important ways, beginning with their objectives. The objectives of big data initiatives generally focus on the value of data to the interests of an individual organization or a collection of organizations (e.g. a partnership) in terms of its operational and/or strategic priorities. Open data initiatives on the other hand focus on the value of data to external interests in response to public policies on openness and transparency, coupled with the interests of various industry sectors in using and reusing publically funded data for economic and social development. Big data initiatives often involve the development of new processes and systems designed to extract, combine, manipulate and otherwise exploit data from existing systems, while open data initiatives tend to be based on existing datasets, small databases, and statistics that are packaged for dissemination or access through a portal. Furthermore, big data initiatives are seen in both private and public sector organizations, while open data initiatives tend to be supported by the public sector. (†819)
  • McDonald and Lévillé 2014 (†519 ): The reliability, accuracy and trustworthiness of the datasets used in support of open data initiatives depends on the ability to trace them back to the original information sources from which they have derived. The ability to demonstrate the trustworthiness of the original record sources – that is, being able to show that the record sources are complete, authentic, and managed within a secure and controlled environment – in turn helps promote confidence that the data sets generated from these sources can be trusted. Conversely, the absence of controls that would otherwise support and ensure the trustworthiness of the original source records will erode trust in the derived data sets and, as a consequence, undermine the quality and effectiveness of the initiatives that are using the datasets. (†820)
  • OMB M-13-13 2013 (†685 p. 5): [Abridged, with discussion of principles omitted due to length] Publicly available data structured in a way that enables the data to be fully discoverable and usable by end users. In general, open data will be consistent with the following principles: public, accessible, described, reusable, complete, timely, and managed post-release. (†1567)
  • Open Data Institute 2013 (†331 ): Open data is information that is available for anyone to use, for any purpose, at no cost.¶ Open data has to have a licence that says it is open data. Without a licence, the data can’t be reused. (†308)
  • Open Data Institute 2013 (†331 ): Good open data: · can be linked to, so that it can be easily shared and talked about, · is available in a standard, structured format, so that it can be easily processed, · has guaranteed availability and consistency over time, so that others can rely on it · is traceable, through any processing, right back to where it originates, so others can work out whether to trust it (†309)
  • Wikipedia (†387 s.v. "open data"): Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control.[1] The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "Open" movements such as open source, open hardware, open content, and open access. The philosophy behind open data has been long established (for example in the Mertonian tradition of science), but the term "open data" itself is recent, gaining popularity with the rise of the Internet and World Wide Web and, especially, with the launch of open-data government initiatives such as Data.gov and Data.gov.uk. (†223)