Page 37 - Proceedings of the 2017 ITU Kaleidoscope

OPEN DATA DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTRIES: GLOBAL STATUS AND TRENDS

Esmeralda Florez Ramos

Technische Universität Berlin, Faculty of Economics and Management, Chair of Innovation
Economics
Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS, Innovation and Technology Transfer

ABSTRACT modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose” [27] has
been adopted by governments around the world.
Open data plays a key role for governments strategy to deal This paper is part of a research on the open data impact on
with challenges of the future. It has the potential to improve innovation. The motivation behind this paper is to contribute
public sector´s transparency, engagement of civil society, to answering the questions: Can open data have an impact on
and economic growth. innovation? Under which condition is this the case? Which
This paper contributes to answering the questions: Can open data can be used to assess the progress on a country level?
data have an impact on innovation? Under which condition Which countries are successful with open data? How
is this the case? Which data can be used to assess the successful are the government actions to support economic
progress on a country level? Which countries are successful development through open data?
with open data? How successful are the government actions This research is planned to have two phases, the first phase
to support economic development through open data? The presented in this paper is on the global open data status and
exploratory analysis investigates the relationship between development over last four years. The second phase of the
open data readiness and measures on impact, and on research will further deepen the analysis of the main
changes in open data development level and the influence of observations present in this paper to comprehend the
the country´s level of ICT development, transparency and relationships between the different indicators.
freedom. This paper also takes a specific look at economic The analysis presented in this paper is on the relationship
impact scores and their correlation with government between the indicators of open data readiness and the open
initiatives for training and innovation on open data. data impact. Changes in the level open data development are
It was found that success on open data at the country level is also analyzed by comparing the rank positions of the
based on good levels of ICT development, freedom and in the countries and considering other indicators such as country´s
interest of becoming more transparent. There are indications level of ICT development, transparency and political rights
that countries with low ICT development do not profit from and civil liberties of individuals.
open data, but the evidence is limited, due to the small Without going into in-depth econometrics this paper also
number of countries observed. There is a strong correlation analyses the correlation between the level of open data
between support for entrepreneurship & business readiness readiness for entrepreneurs & business of a country and the
and economic impact. However, the relationship between the measure for economic impact. This measure includes the
development of these indicators during the time of the study level of available training on the use of open data and the
and the measured impact is unclear. support for innovation with open data offered by
governments.
Keywords— Open data, status, trends, Open Data This exploratory analysis is done at a global level using
Barometer, impact. secondary data from the historical datasets of the Open Data
Barometer (ODB) of the World Wide Web Foundation 2013-
1. INTRODUCTION 2016, and other reliable sources such as the ICT
Development Index (IDI) 2016 by International
Open data plays a key role for governments strategy to deal Telecommunication Union (ITU), Freedom in the world
with challenges of the future. It has the potential to improve status 2016-17 by the Freedom House; Corruption
public sector´s transparency, engagement of civil society, Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International; as
and economic growth through new open data business. In the well as the Gross National Income (GNI) per country given
information age in which we are living having access to by the World Bank.
quality data implies an advantage to make better-informed For the last 4 years, the ODB has provided data that scores
decisions, to plan better strategies, to produce better and ranks the countries´ level of readiness for open data
innovative ideas and new insights, and to find more suitable initiatives, implementation of open data programs, and the
solutions for complex problems. For these reasons the impact that open data has on business, politics and civil
concept of open data, which is data that “can be freely used, society. The historical data of the ODB with it latest released

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