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Existing overviews of barriers for openly sharing and using government data are often conceptual or based on a limited number of cases. Furthermore, it is unclear what categories of barriers are most obstructive for attaining open data objectives. This paper aims to categorize and prioritize barriers for openly sharing and using government data based on many existing Open Government Data Initiatives (OGDIs).

This study analyzes 171 survey responses concerning existing OGDIs worldwide.

The authors found that the most critical OGDI barrier categories concern (in order of most to least critical): functionality and support; inclusiveness; economy, policy and process; data interpretation; data quality and resources; legislation and access; and sustainability. Policymakers should prioritize solving functionality and support barriers and inclusiveness barriers because the authors found that these are the most obstructive in attaining OGDI objectives.

The prioritization of open data barriers calls for three main actions by practitioners to reduce the barrier impact: open data portal developers should develop advanced tools to support data search, analysis, visualization, interpretation and interaction; open data experts and teachers should train potential users, and especially those currently excluded from OGDIs because of a lack of digital skills; and government agencies that provide open data should put user-centered design and the user experience central to better support open data users.

This study contributes to the open data literature by proposing a new, empirically based barrier categorization and prioritization based a large number of existing OGDIs.

Citizen engagement is key to the success of many Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives. However, not much is known regarding how this type of engagement emerges. This study aims to investigate the necessary conditions for the emergence of citizen-led engagement with OGD and to identify which factors stimulate this type of engagement.

First, the authors created a systematic overview of the literature to develop a conceptual model of conditions and factors of OGD citizen engagement at the societal, organizational and individual level. Second, the authors used the conceptual model to systematically study citizens’ engagement in the case of a particular OGD initiative, namely, the digitization of presidential election results data in Indonesia in 2014. The authors used multiple information sources, including interviews and documents, to explore the conditions and factors of OGD citizen-led engagement in this case.

From the literature the authors identified five conditions for the emergence of OGD citizen-led engagement as follows: the availability of a legal and political framework that grants a mandate to open up government data, sufficient budgetary resources allocated for OGD provision, the availability of OGD feedback mechanisms, citizens’ perceived ease of engagement and motivated citizens. In the literature, the authors found six factors contributing to OGD engagement as follows: democratic culture, the availability of supporting institutional arrangements, the technical factors of OGD provision, the availability of citizens’ resources, the influence of social relationships and citizens’ perceived data quality. Some of these conditions and factors were found to be less important in the studied case, namely, citizens’ perceived ease of engagement and citizens’ perceived data quality. Moreover, the authors found several new conditions that were not mentioned in the studied literature, namely, citizens’ sense of urgency, competition among citizen-led OGD engagement initiatives, the diversity of citizens’ skills and capabilities and the intensive use of social media. The difference between the conditions and factors that played an important role in the case and those derived from the literature review might be because of the type of OGD engagement that the authors studied, namely, citizen-led engagement, without any government involvement.

The findings are derived using a single case study approach. Future research can investigate multiple cases and compare the conditions and factors for citizen-led engagement with OGD in different contexts.

The conditions and factors for citizen-led engagement with OGD have been evaluated in practice and discussed with public managers and practitioners through interviews. Governmental organizations should prioritize and stimulate those conditions and factors that enhance OGD citizen engagement to create more value with OGD.

While some research on government-led engagement with OGD exists, there is hardly any research on citizen-led engagement with OGD. This study is the first to develop a conceptual model of necessary conditions and factors for citizen engagement with OGD. Furthermore, the authors applied the developed multilevel conceptual model to a case study and gathered empirical evidence of OGD engagement and its contributions to solving societal problems, rather than staying at the conceptual level. This research can be used to investigate citizen engagement with OGD in other cases and offers possibilities for systematic cross-case lesson-drawing.

The purpose of this paper is to derive design principles for improving the open data publishing process of public organizations. Although governments create large amounts of data, the publication of open data is often cumbersome and there are no standard procedures and processes for opening data, blocking the easy publication of government data.

Action design research (ADR) was used to derive design principles. The literature was used as a foundation, and discussion sessions with civil servants were used to evaluate the usefulness of the principles.

Barriers preventing easy and low-cost publication of open data were identified and connected to design principles, which can be used to guide the design of an open data publishing process. Five new principles are: start thinking about the opening of data at the beginning of the process; develop guidelines, especially about privacy and policy sensitivity of data; provide decision support by integrating insight in the activities of other actors involved in the publishing process; make data publication an integral, well-defined and standardized part of daily procedures and routines; and monitor how the published data are reused.

The principles are derived using ADR in a single case. A next step can be to investigate multiple comparative case studies and detail the principles further. We recommend using these principles to develop a reference architecture.

The design principles can be used by public organizations to improve their open data publishing processes. The design principles are derived from practice and discussed with practitioners. The discussions showed that the principles could improve the publication process.

Decreasing the barriers for publishing open government data could result in the publication of more open data. These open data can then be used to stimulate various public values, such as transparency, accountability, innovation, economic growth and informed decision- and policymaking.

Publishing data by public organizations is a complex and ill-understood activity. The lack of suitable business processes and the unclear division of responsibilities block publication of open data. This paper contributes to the literature by presenting design principles which can be used to improve the open data publishing process of public sector organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive cross-national comparative framework to compare open data policies from different countries and to derive lessons for developing open data policies. Open data policies guide the opening and stimulate the usage of public data. However, some countries have no or less developed open data policies, in this way missing the opportunity to reap the benefits of open data.

Literature review and case studies were conducted to extend an existing comparison framework, and the framework was used to compare open data policies of the UK, the USA, The Netherlands, Kenya and Indonesia.

The comparison of open data policies highlighted several lessons that can be learned, including actions regarding a robust legal framework, generic operational policies, data providers and data users, data quality, designated agencies or taskforces and initiatives and incentives for stimulating demand for data. National policies should also be focused on removing barriers on the operational level and policies for stimulating the release and use of data.

There is hardly any research systematically comparing open data policies. The comparative framework provided in this paper is a first analytical basis for cross-national comparison of open data policies and offers possibilities for systematic cross-national lesson-drawing.

The authors found two waves of policy-making. The first wave of policy is focused on stimulating the release of data, whereas the second wave of policy is aimed at stimulating use. The comparison can be used to learn from other policies and help to improve open data policies. A third wave of open data policy is expected to materialize focusing on realizing added value from utilizing open data.

Improving a country’s open data policy can help the country to reap the benefits of open data, such as government transparency, efficiency and economic growth.

Open data are a recent phenomenon and countries are looking for ways to obtain the benefits. This research can be used for developing and evaluating open data policies.

This paper aims to investigate which organizational measures can facilitate the use of open data. Implementation of open government data initiatives is commonly supply-driven, as it is difficult to predict the possible uses and users of data. Nonetheless, the value of open data materializes only upon its use – either to achieve societal benefits or economic value.

First, a list of organizational measures to facilitate open data use from the literature is collated. Then, four case studies to examine the challenges faced in practice when implementing them are carried out. The case sample includes two types of organizations (statistical agency and municipality) in two country settings (Sweden and The Netherlands).

Public organizations find it challenging to set up support for open data users having various requirements and skills. Most public organizations have no or limited interaction with data users and are often selective with regards to with whom and how to communicate.

Given the fragmented and emerging state of research on open data use and engagement, to date no systematic framework existed which would be dedicated to user engagement strategies. The authors systematized the literature and identified the themes pertaining to this issue. Their contribution is a list of measures for public organizations to improve open data use.

An important deliverable of this research is the list of possible organizational measures, which can be used by public managers to plan their open data engagement strategies. The authors suggest that data publishers adopt a problem-oriented approach for selecting which data to publish and put more efforts into stimulating stakeholder participation.

The novelty of this study lies in the fact that it addresses a previously overlooked area of open data research, namely, the use of open data and ways to stimulate it.