Abierto al Público interviewed Carlos Iglesias, the senior research manager for Open Data at the World Wide Web Foundation. The WWWF produces the Open Data Barometer, a leading source of analysis on the status of open data around the world. We asked him about this year´s new edition to get some insights related to Latin America and leadership in open data.

What’s new in this year’s edition of the Open Data Barometer?

“This year, there are a number of changes in the Open Data Barometer – Leaders Edition. The most significant is that the scope of the study has been reduced for this special edition, now measuring only 30 governments. With open data now a decade old and five years of the Open Data Barometer, we took this opportunity to take stock of where the movement is and what we need to do to ensure it continues to move forward. That’s why the Open Data Barometer – Leaders Edition looks specifically at those governments that have made concrete commitments to champion open data through the adoption of the International Open Data Charter Principles or the equivalent G20 Anti-Corruption Open Data Principles.

Another major modification is that we are also using absolute values in the 0-100 scale for scores now — rather than the previous scaled values — to provide more realistic evaluations of performance. However, direct historical comparisons will remain possible as we have provided recalculated absolute values for all previous editions on our website.”

What stands out from the Barometer’s analysis of global leaders’ open data performance?

“This Barometer finds that, despite being the global leaders in open data today, these “leader governments” still have a long way to go to move from promise to progress on open data implementation and impact. That said, the results of the Open Data Barometer show that these commitments do matter. Scores in this Leaders Edition were, on average, two to three times higher than the scores of a wider group of 115 governments measured in the Fourth Edition. This indicates that these governments are indeed leaders in terms of overall performance — two-thirds of these 30 governments have made double-digit progress over five years of analysis, and more than one-third have increased their scores by over 50%. Furthermore, we are starting to see stronger evidence of impact among these 30 governments. However, we also see a number of worrying trends:

• Fewer than 1 in 5 datasets are open: Given that these 30 governments are expected to be open data leaders, it is deeply concerning that the vast majority of their datasets remain closed to the public. This shows how little progress has been made in 10 years of open data.
• Early world leaders are faltering: The UK — the global open data leader for many years — has seen its total score decline slightly in the five years we’ve been measuring performance for the Barometer. The only other government to see an absolute reduction in score in this leaders group is the USA — another early pioneer which has seen its score fall by 11 points and can no longer be considered an open data champion.
• Governments still treat open data as a side project: The Barometer results show that governments are still treating open data as isolated initiatives. Governments must prioritize and invest in open data governance to support the substantial changes needed to embed an open approach across agencies and departments.

What are the noticeable trends regarding open data in Latin America and the Caribbean?

“This year, there is no region-specific analysis in this edition of the Barometer, given the report’s specific focus on the 30 global leaders. However, up to one third of the governments in this leaders group are from Latin America, so we think that the general conclusions of the study are also directly applicable to the region. 

In that respect, the biggest action governments can take to speed up open data progress is to start investing the significant resources needed to build the policies, practices and infrastructure that will drive the transformation that is needed to advance. We can outline a number of specific recommendations that governments can make in three key areas:

• Better policies, but modest results: Open data has entered the mainstream, and open data policies have spread quickly over the last five years. However, there has been little to no progress on the number of truly open datasets around the world.
• Data openness requires resources — not just political will: We have seen that political will can make or break the success of open data initiatives. But, more often than not, resourcing has been the weakest link, with governments often lacking the sustained investment needed to build capacity.
• Promises on infrastructure and community building remain undelivered: Governments have been promising to invest in national data infrastructure and community building around open data for years. But these conversations continue with very little actual investment.
• Weak legislation impedes the growth of open data: The absence of strong Right to Information (RTI) laws has prevented many citizens from using open data to hold government to account. At the same time, weak or absent data protection laws across many countries have undermined citizen confidence in open government data initiatives.
• There is inadequate evidence of impact: There is little historical evidence of real benefits from open government data initiatives, particularly for social impact. Few programs have been properly evaluated and most of the discussion relies on anecdotes rather than empirical studies.
• Put “open by default” into action: Develop clear plans, guidelines and procedures to disclose data proactively. This includes listening to people’s demands, facilitating data sharing, and investing in the financial and human resources needed for better open data governance.
• Build and consolidate open data infrastructure: Improve data quality and interoperability through effective data management practices and data management systems that are built to manage open data. Invest also in building capacity and data skills at the same time.
• Publish data with purpose: Work closely with civic groups and multi-stakeholder advisory groups to identify pressing challenges that open data can help solve. Publish the relevant datasets and analyze the impact achieved.

 

We also see some long-standing and worrying global trends that also continue affecting the Latin American region after five years of Barometer analysis:

• Better policies, but modest results: Open data has entered the mainstream, and open data policies have spread quickly over the last five years. However, there has been little to no progress on the number of truly open datasets around the world.
• Data openness requires resources — not just political will: We have seen that political will can make or break the success of open data initiatives. But, more often than not, resourcing has been the weakest link, with governments often lacking the sustained investment needed to build capacity.
• Promises on infrastructure and community building remain undelivered: Governments have been promising to invest in national data infrastructure and community building around open data for years. But these conversations continue with very little actual investment.
• Weak legislation impedes the growth of open data: The absence of strong Right to Information (RTI) laws has prevented many citizens from using open data to hold government to account. At the same time, weak or absent data protection laws across many countries have undermined citizen confidence in open government data initiatives.
• There is inadequate evidence of impact: There is little historical evidence of real benefits from open government data initiatives, particularly for social impact. Few programs have been properly evaluated and most of the discussion relies on anecdotes rather than empirical studies.

How can people make the most of the information from the Open Data Barometer?

The Open Data Barometer provides a definitive benchmark of country progress on open data. It goes beyond counting datasets, to analyze real policies, use and impact. The Barometer is used by a growing number of advocates and policymakers worldwide. Several governments are already using it to benchmark their open data performance and set targets. Similarly, civil society groups have been using the results of the barometer to track the progress of their governments and demand more effective measures in opening up data. In addition, hundreds of researchers and academic institutions also benefit from the results of the Barometer for their own research in the field.

This is how the Barometer has directly influenced policies and practices for the better throughout the world during the last five years. Our annual report is only intended to be a summary of some of the most striking findings from our perspective. However, the full Barometer historical data is always available online under an open license. This is a huge database and a very valuable resource that is intended to support further open data analysis and research, as well as to inform better decisions into the progression of open data policies and practices across the world. We encourage all open data stakeholders in the region to explore, re-use and remix the data in order to build their own analysis and conclusions that could contribute to build strong embedded open data governance practices that will allow us to realize the true promise and impact of open data.

 

Interview with Carlos Iglesias from the Open Data Barometer