=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2797/paper40
|storemode=property
|title=Where Does the Value of Open Data Lie? A Framework to Assess Open Data Impacts
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2797/paper40.pdf
|volume=Vol-2797
|authors=Michele Benedetti,Claudio Russo,Luca Tangi,Irene Vanini
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/egov/BenedettiRTV20
}}
==Where Does the Value of Open Data Lie? A Framework to Assess Open Data Impacts==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2797/paper40.pdf
Where Does the Value of Open Data Lie? A
Framework to Assess Open Data Impacts
Michele Benedetti*, Claudio Russo**, Luca Tangi***, Irene
Vanini****
*Politecnico di Milano, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering (DIG), Via
Raffaele Lambruschini 4, Milan (Italy), michele.benedetti@polimi.it
**Politecnico di Milano, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering (DIG), Via
Raffaele Lambruschini 4, Milan (Italy), claudio.russo@polimi.it
***Politecnico di Milano, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering (DIG), Via
Raffaele Lambruschini 4, Milan (Italy), luca.tangi@polimi.it
****Politecnico di Milano, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering (DIG), Via
Raffaele Lambruschini 4, Milan (Italy), irene.vanini@polimi.it
Abstract: Literature concerning the impacts of OGD is still limited to anecdotal evidence. The
object of this work is a framework for the measurement, hence assessment, of the overall
impacts, in terms of value creation and efficiency bol- stering, of OGD owned and published by
Public Agencies. The framework to construct shall combine the display of impact evaluation tools
with a requirement for sustainability of the publication process. The poster shows the process for
the definition of the framework and a preliminary categorisation of impacts that shall lead to the
identification of measurement indicators.
Keywords: Open Data, impact measurement, Public Administration
1. Purpose of the Framework
The object of this work is a framework for the assessment of the overall impacts of Open Data (OD)
owned and published by Public Administrations (PA). The GIO- COnDa framework1 combines the
display of impact evaluation tools with a requirement for economic sustainability of the publication
process. The value of the framework rests in a contribution to both research and practice. In fact, it
builds upon theories and con- structs for OD impact measurement while starting their actualisation,
to pave the path for a larger debate on the definition of indicators and their application. In this sense,
the result of the work will be twofold. On the one hand, the goal of GIOCOnDa is to pro- duce a
useful tool for PAs for self-assessing the impacts of data they open up and pub- lish, as well as their
1 GIOCOnDa is the acronym of the Interreg Italy-Switzerland project it is developed within. GIOCOnDa is funded by the
European Regional Development Fund and by April 2021 it will provide cross-border territo- ries with a reusable
crosswise applicable platform for open data and linked open data publication.
Copyright ©2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
378 Posters
publication process and dedicated portals. This means that the framework shall combine scientific
robustness with simplicity of adoption and flexibil- ity with regard to specificities. However,
this can lead to a second product targeted at scientific debate, allowing a higher level of abstraction to
achieve a more holistic and generalisable outlook. In order to do achieve these products and based
on the synergies that GIOCOnDa creates, the poster unfolds a possible design for the framework, in
order to open further debate about: 1. how different types of impacts should be grouped and
categorised; 2. what literature stream is best adequate to substantiate impacts; 3. how sustainability
is best conceptualized.
2. Literature Review
Literature concerning the specific impact of OD and even more generally of OD still mostly relies on
anecdotal evidence (Zuiderwijk & Janssen, 2014). Research focuses on theoretical aspects, de-
scriptions of empirical uses, and/or design of technical solutions. Little attention is payed to the way
OD can enhance policy design, also due to the costs and time required for policy evaluation (Harrison
et. al., 2012). Thus, PAs (policy makers and officials) are left without the needed evidence to assess,
improve and modify policies. The framework aims at ful- filling this need by providing a process
and method to create a knowledge base for PAs to assess what existing sets of data they shall be given
priority in publication, and even- tually what data they shall engage to collect. In order to do this, a
second research step shall consist of displaying a categorisation of impacts based on existing
literature (Attard et. al., 2016), upon which a comprehensive yet flexible dashboard of measurement
indicators shall be produced.
3. Methodology
To design the framework we adopt mixed methods, a choice determined by the op- portunity to
benefit from the overall project results. In particular: (i) a pre-study about data demand by PAs based
on interviews and surveys was performed by project part- ners; (ii) a scientific and grey literature
review is being carried out, to adopt a consoli- dated categorization of impacts, and a review of use
cases will be carried out to identify a set of indicators; (iii) in Autumn 2020, the framework will be
applied by PAs participating in the piloting of the GIOCOnDa platform for publication. Depending
on the capability of the project consortium, the framework will be also submitted to a network of
stakeholders (academics, practitioners and officials). Thanks to the pilots, we will be able to provide
a first evaluation, hence a starting point for what is supposed to be a recursive process of
measurement and ongoing assessment of impacts.
4. The Design
The figure represents the overall design of the framework. Impacts are organised in macrocat-
egories (eg. economic, environmental, social, ..) identified through the study of literature and
submitted to stakeholders for validation. The categorisation must be pragmatic, i.e. it should mirror
the needs and political preferences of the PA. Impacts ate then in turn sub-categorised un- der
Posters 377
internal and external ones, respectively concerning the PA (eg. financial savings, buildings carbon
- tered territories (eg. economic growth, air quality, social
Figure 1: Overall Framework Design
For every sub- category of impacts, measurement indicators are to be identified, in order to create
a dashboard that can be enriched over time. The y coordinate is obtained weighting all impacts
according the preferences and priority that PAs independently set by political decision. The x
coordinate is estimated based on data production and publication costs thus ensuring the process
sustainability. The estimation of x also considers the precon- ditions for the restraint of costs such as
the level of automation of publication, the ease of collection (also depending on data intrinsic
qualities), the general administration ca- pacity in terms of information management. Thanks to the
piloting phase of the GIO- COnDa project, we will be able to position selected datasets and, in so
doing, providing administration with a of impacts evaluation. The application of the
frame- work is then a recursive process that PAs shall perform when results in terms of impacts are
expected and isolating the effects of data sharing from other policies and/or contex- tual factors. For
this reason we recommend departments and offices to be in charge of setting the frequency of data
analysis for the group of dataset of interest for their sector.
References
Attard, J., Orlandi, F., and Auer, S: Value Creation on Open Government Data. In: Proceed- ings of HICSS-
49, IEEE, pp. 2605 2614 (2016).
Harrison, T. M., Guerrero, S., Burke, G. B., Cook, M., Cresswell, A., Helbig, N., Hrdinova, J., and Pardo, T.:
Open Government and E-Government: Democratic Challenges from a Pub- lic Value Perspective.
Information Polity: The International Journal of Government & De- mocracy in the Information Age
17(2), 83 97 (2012).
Zuiderwijk, A., and Janssen, M.: Open Data Policies, Their Implementation and Impact: A Framework for
Comparison. Government Information Quarterly 31(1), 17-29 (2014).
About the Authors
Michele Benedetti
Michele Benedetti is a research fellow and lecturer at the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano.
Since 2001 he has carried out research on digital innovation, studying the role and impact of digital on Public
Administration organization and management and deepening new models enabled by ICT technologies for
378 Posters
the provision of public services. He also gained almost twenty years of experience in managing complex
projects of digital transformation in the PA in collaboration with Municipalities, Provinces, Regions and
Ministries. Since 2009 he has been director of the eGovernment Observatory of the School of Management
of the Politecnico di Milano and since 2017 also of the Digital Agenda Observatory.
Claudio Russo
Claudio Russo, PhD in Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, is a
research fellow and lecturer at the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano. He has been working
for 15 years in researches related to organizational and management models of inter-institutional
cooperation, multi-level governance, community management and digital transformation. He is also
committed in several innovation projects with Public Administrations.
Luca Tangi
Luca Tangi is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering of
Politecnico di Milano. His doctoral work focusses on understanding how ICTs are impacting public service
delivery and transforming the way public administrations are structured and organized. Since 2015 he has
been collaborating with think tanks embedded in the Department (Digital Agenda and eGovernment
Observatories) as well as on other research and consultancy projects on e-government and public
management. He is associate of the departmental business school MiP, Graduate School of Business for
which he designs and plans modules, delivers lectures, and carries on tutorship activities.
Irene Vanini
Irene Vanini took her BA and MA in Philosophy at the University of Milan, where the NASP/Graduate School
in Social and Political Science awarded her a PhD in Political Theory in 2017. After working as a teaching
associate at the University of Sheffield and the University of York (UK) she joined the working group on
Public Administration at Politecnico di Milano, where she researches innovation by digitalisation, policy
making and governance of the public sector.