Category: Open Data

By Open Data Institute 255887396-Open-data-in-government-how-to-bring-about-change

Governments around the world are increasingly looking for ways to harness the potential of open data for improved policy-making, and social, economic and environmental benefit. A lot of work has been done to familiarise governments with open data and help them to publish open data. There has been less focus on the longer-term process of embedding open data as standard practice and how that might happen. Ensuring your open data initiative is sustainable is essential to realising the impact of open data. The Open Data Institute (ODI) is exploring how organisational change within government happens to support and sustain open data in the long-term. Through extensive interviews and examination of the literature surrounding organisational change management, the ODI has developed guidance for policy-makers who have been tasked with implementing their own open data initiatives. Thinking about the process of change management from the beginning of your initiative will be essential to realising the social, environmental and economic benefits of open data.

The result: 12 recommendations to help governments sustain open data change and realise its impact

1. Articulate your vision, with clear examples of benefits open data will bring. Start with a vision of the problem open data can help you solve, or the benefits you want to produce: think beyond simply releasing open data. Being able to connect your release of open data to a tangible benefit you would like to achieve can help people connect to the initiative and understand its value.

2. Secure support for your open data initiative from both senior/political leadership and government officials within departments before launch. Build in mechanisms to educate government officials about open data, and explain its benefits, from the very beginning of your open data initiative. Fostering support for the change before launching an initiative will help encourage early uptake.

3. Combine top-down leadership for your open data initiative with support for individual or frontline champions in government. While senior buy-in is important to maintain open data as a priority, frontline champions are important to growing the initiative from the bottom up, and driving implementation of your open data vision.

4. Build open communication and mechanisms for feedback into your open data initiative from the outset, both inside and outside government. These could be formal mechanisms, like advisory groups, online feedback forms and regular meetings, and informal mechanisms, like social media outreach. Invite feedback and be open with your department(s) about the transition to using and producing open data, and how their work could be affected. This will ensure employees are more engaged and satisfied with the change.

5. Set out some quick wins for your open data initiative – like releasing a certain number of datasets as open data, or supporting a pilot use-case – but make sure these are part of a long-term goal for open data, which each department can align progress with. Linking quick wins to long-term goals can help maintain momentum for change.

6. Be flexible and responsive to the strengths and needs of different departments and teams. Be clear on your long-term vision for open data, but be careful not to get locked into one transition plan for open data from the beginning. Look for examples of best practice in managing the transition to using and producing open data, and use these to help other departments. Being agile and responsive helps ensure the transition continues to align with any public sector reform and changing technologies.

7. Consolidate your change management efforts: use your emergent leaders as peer educators and innovators. Keep building on your incremental quick wins as part of your long-term open data strategy. Consolidating efforts helps to make each element of change management more effective, and helps identify gaps in strategy.

8. Ensure there are people with responsibility for change management – supporting departments and coordinating feedback – as part of your open data team. Quite often, we think of a ‘change team’ as being set up to deliver open data objectives: build a portal, release datasets and stimulate reuse. Change management is an equally important part of the process, and can increase initial buy-in for the initiative, as well as a sense of ownership within departments of their open data efforts.

9. Seek out and foster stories of the impact of open data, to help illustrate its value for government implementers. Adjust your impact narrative or ‘business case’ for different departments, so it makes sense in terms of their overall visions, capacities and existing processes.

10. Foster external support within industry, civil society and academia to drive continued demand for open data. External support can help to maintain political will to support open data, and be a source of ongoing learning and dialogue.

11. Introduce opportunities for civil servants to take part in ongoing learning about open data. This could be through open data training, secondments to ‘best practice’ teams working with open data or regular workshops. It will help you continue to improve and expand the reach of your open data initiative.

12. Build metrics to regularly evaluate your open data activities. This will help you to measure progress, benchmark success and identify areas for improvement.

The guidance is not absolute; some principles will be applied differently in different contexts. However, the principles for managing open data change that are set out in this paper should provide a useful framework or template for long-term thinking. This paper is the starting point for a deeper exploration of how change happens in government to support open data. Over the next 12-18 months, we will look to build on the themes and scope of this paper, through ongoing research and discussion with global leaders.

Case study: Moldova’s open data movement

This case study was supported by the Partnership for Open Data, funded by the World Bank

Author: Veronica Cretu, Open Government Institute, Moldova

• Executive summary
• Initialising the open data movement in Moldova
• The open data landscape in Moldova
• Implementing Open Government Partnership action plans
• Leadership of the open data initiative
• Additional factors for success
• Challenges and overcoming resistance
• Current efforts
• Next steps
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• Acknowledgements

Executive summary

Moldova embarked on a national open data initiative in 2011 as part of its Governance e-Transformation Agenda. The initiative has drawn support from the highest levels of government, with two Prime Ministerial directives and new legal provisions solidifying the country’s commitment to opening up government data by default.

Led by the e-Government Centre, the initiative has spurred the release of 782 datasets from 39 institutions across the government.

One critical factor contributing to the success of the initiative was the political support from the Prime Minister and State Chancellery. Other crucial elements have been the solid legal framework and the development of the open data portal: date.gov.md.

Although Moldova has taken significant strides towards the goal of making government data open by default, a number of challenges remain. These include:

• A lack of interoperability and digitised data.
• Outdated practices in charging for PSI reuse.
• A lack of inventories to keep track of available data for reuse.
• A lack of necessary data-related skills in the public sector.
• Uncertainty surrounding privacy and confidentiality.

Current efforts revolve around the need to enforce existing legislation and maintain political support for open data.

In the next phase of open data implementation, the following steps are recommended:

• An entry test or examination for to equip civil servants working with open data with the necessary skills for working with data, and presenting it in appropriate formats for consumption.
• Support initiatives based on the use of open data for creation of useful applications for citizens/different target groups/beneficiaries.
• Continue raising awareness about the importance of open data for government transparency, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness.
• ‘Open data by default’ should be embedded into any IT system or e-service being designed, developed and used in government.
• Match the supply of open government data with demand from civil society, media and business to unlock economic value and track government performance.
• Promote local ownership of open data efforts, so that open data becomes part of Local Public Authorities’ agenda.
• Develop open data competencies across society by introducing data analysis, coding and other relevant skills into the formal school curriculum.

For more please visit http://theodi.org/case-studies/case-study-a-profile-of-open-data-initiatives-in-moldova

Last week, on January 30^th, Open Government Institute together with E-Government Center organized a working meeting with open data coordinators from Ministries and public agencies.

The meeting had a number of objectives among which:

• Setting the scene for 2015;
• Sharing some practical examples on the use of open data;
• Reflecting on ways to improve the consultation processes around open data in order to boost more demand for open data;
• Assigning open data coordinators with a task: identify one ambitious open data commitment that could be part of the Action Plan on Open Government for years 2015-2016.

Whether the meeting managed to achieve its objectives remains to be seen from the way this agenda moves forward in the year 2015.

The open data agenda is not a new one for Moldova … Moldovan Government, like many other Governments from around the globe, has acknowledged, more than three years ago, that opening up the data collected by the Government can increase government transparency and generate more public trust, stimulate innovative approaches and help in improving governments’ performance results.

The open data portal www.date.gov.md started to gain more popularity in 2014 and thus, registered 787 open data sets available to the public, 4 new public institutions joined the platform and more than 222 thousands downloads took place last year.
One aspect which was at the core of January 30^th meeting related to the way public institutions consult their stakeholders who might be interested in particular open data sets. The discussion revealed that there is no proper consultation process in place when it comes to open data, even though open data is like any other policy issue which needs to undergo the same process as any other initiative (as per Law on Transparency in the decision making process from 13.11. 2008).

There is still this tendency among many public servants to state that civil society is not interested in, that the general population has no clue about what the data is and what is the data important/or what is it for, etc.

Or, may be, the issue is with the public institutions themselves who do not apply adequate practices and tools to reach out to potential users of the data, do outreach and identify what are their interests and needs. Isn’t it something that fits into the government’s job?! Isn’t the government the one to work for its people and working for its people means hearing what they have to say, on different dimensions?!

There are some very simple and clear steps in any consultation process and they relate to the following:

• Mapping all the potentially interested stakeholders;
• Defining, together with key stakeholders, the main objectives of the consultation process;
• Selecting/identifying most appropriate/ relevant consultation methods and tools (cost-effectiveness is to be considered as well);
• Setting a time line for consultations;
• Preparing both online and offline resources needed for a proper consultation process;
• Sharing with the wider public about the consultations being announced and thus allowing as many other interested parties to get engaged;
• Sharing with the public what suggestions/recommendations have been received;
• Doing an analyses of the proposals received and providing feedback to those who provided contributions. This will definitely increase the chances for their participation any other time;
• Review/evaluate how the consultation process worked, capitalize on the experience and draw lessons which could be valuable in the next consultation rounds.

There are some principles to be considered as well and they relate to:

• Clear language – don’t depart in the interaction with different stakeholders’ groups from the assumption that everyone is an expert in the field. This is totally wrong. The language used during the consultation process has to be adjusted in a way that responds to the needs, readiness, education, perceptions of those whom are being addressed;
• Diversify the platforms for interaction – even the classical round table meetings can be much more participant centered and more dynamic as compared to a presenter-centered model;
• Provide feedback on any comment received – it is important that people feel empowered, and it does not matter if it is a “Thank You for your comment” message, it is important that there is a communication going on. Without it there is no trust, openness and no participation.

I am very much aware of how much resistance is still there in the public sector towards things which are new, towards changes that are being required …  but any positive change leads to another positive change, and isn’t it something we want for the society we live in today?!

By Veronica Cretu (President, Open Government Institute) 

“Onorată asistență, doamnelor și domnilor, stimați colegi! Bine v-am gasit!

Vreau să felicit colegii din cadrul Centrului de Guvernare Electronică cu lansarea versiunii noi a portalului de date deschise, și pentru tot efortul depus în ultimii 2-3 ani pentru ca astăzi, aici, la Chisinau, sa avem discuții și inițiative concrete lansate pe marginea acestui subiect.   

În scurta mea intervenție voi face cîteva remarci cu referire la subiectul dat în calitatea mea de membră a Comitetului Director al Parteneriatului pentru o Guvernare Deschisă, Parteneriat la care Republica Moldova a aderat în Aprilie 2012 și din care astăzi fac parte 63 de Guverne. Mai multe Guverne influente precum cele al SUA, Marea Britanie, au adoptat inițiative naționale privind datele deschise, ca o componentă vitală pentru o guvernare deschisa. 

Aderînd la Parteneriatul pentru o Guvernare Deschisa, Guvernul Republicii Moldova a semnat Declaratia pentru o Guvernare Deschisa și astfel și-a asumat o  serie de angajamente printre care și angajamentul de a face informația despre activitatea guvernului (la toate nivelele) disponibilă cetățenilor.

Prin intermediul acestei Declaratii Guvernul afirmă că “Ne angajăm să intensificam eforturile noastre de a colecta în mod sistematic și de a publica datele privind cheltuielile publice, date ce tin de performanțele pe servicii publice esențiale și activități/inițiative cheie. Ne angajăm să oferim pro-activ informații de mare valoare, inclusiv date brute, în timp util, în formate în care publicul le poate localiza cu ușurință, le poate înțelege și utiliza, precum și în formate care să faciliteze reutilizarea acestora. Ne angajăm să solicităm feedback din partea cetățenilor pentru a identifica informațiile de cea mai mare valoare pentru ei, și să răspundem la acest feedback în cea mai mare măsură posibilă”.

Guvernare Deschisa, Datele deschise, vor deveni parte a agendei de dezvoltare Post-2015 și eforturi considerabile sînt depuse pe acest segment la nivel internațional de mai mulți actori cheie sub egida ONU.  Datele deschise pot aduce schimbari pozitive și produce impact la diferite nivele:

1. Transparența actului de Guvernare – datele deschise vor permite accesul la informație despre inițiative și programe ale guvernului, despre acțiunile funcționarilor publici, și va permite cetățenilor să influențeze, astfel, activitatea Guvernului (prin solicitare de date, oferire de feedback, etc).
2. Implicarea cetățenilor în procesele decizionale și sporirea încrederii în Guvern – datele deschise vor produce schimbări mai ales la capitolul frecvența și intensitatea cu care cetățenii se vor implica în procesele decizionale (fie că e vorba de nivel național sau local).
3. Eficiența și eficacitatea Guvernului  – datele deschise vor permite Guvernelor să reuseasca să implementeze mai multe actiuni cu aceleași resurse, precum și să sporeasca calitatea serviciilor publice.
4. Colaborare – avînd datele deschise/accesibile tuturor actorilor cheie la masa de discuții sau negocieri, aceasta va contribui la responsabilități împărtășite pentru deciziile luate de toate părțile implicate.  
5. Creștere economică  – Guvernul ar putea contribui la stimularea creșterii economice prin furnizarea de date brute pentru reutilizare care ar putea spori inovațiile, genera apariția aplicaților noi precum  și genera noi oportunități de afaceri. Aceasta ar putea contribui, de asemenea, la progrese noi în domeniul cercetare și sectorul academic.

Ceea ce ar fi relevant pentru Republica Moldova în perioada următoare (pe lîngă ceea ce este deja stabilit in Planul de Acțini pentru o Guvernare Deschisă pentru 2014) ar fi:

–                      Constituirea unei comunități puternice în domeniul datelor deschise și încurajarea colaborării dintre organizațiile societății civile atît la nivel urban cît și rural;

–                      Includerea conceptului și sarcinii ce ține de deschiderea datelor în agenda autorităților publice locale;

–                      Creșterea cererii pentru date guvernamentale deschise prin intermediul platformelor de schimb de cunoștinte, dezvoltare de capacități, etc.;

–                       Oferire de suport pentru inițiative legate de utilizarea datelor deschise pentru creare de aplicații utile  pentru cetățeni;

–                      Introducerea unui program de dezvoltare de abilitati ce tin de analiza datelor (inclusiv date deschise) cel putin in programa curriculara la nivel de gimnaziu, liceu si colegiu.

Și în final, atît Guvernul cît și societatea civilă au foarte multe de învatat impreună la capitolul date deschise. Iar Agenda pentru o Guvernare Deschisa a Republicii Moldova trebuie să continue să focuseze pe datele deschise în scopul promovării transparenței, responsabilizării sociale, inovației și dezvoltării economice și cel mai important, în scopul promovarii participării active a cetățenilor în procesele decizionale.” 

http://www.privesc.eu/Arhiva/25894/Prezentarea-actiunilor-de-deschidere-a-datelor-guvernamentale–inclusiv-lansarea-versiunii-actualizate-a-portalului-datelor-guvernamentale-deschise-da

De Veronica Crețu (Presedinte, Institutul pentru o Guvernare Deschisa, membra comitetului director al Parteneriatului pentru o Guvernare Deschisa).